Player musical ability and range
Hello !
I'd like to arrange for begginer orchestra, is there a way to restrain the range to the most easily played notes ? I can't find it what would ideally be a player's capacity option choice, like you can find in final's plugins.
Thanks for your help,
Guillaume
Comments
When writing for a beginner, rhythms and key signatures are larger factors in difficulty than range, provided the beginners have been taught all the notes. You need to know what notes the orchestra has learned.
The amateur range for most instruments in MuseScore show the notes that require no advanced playing techniques to attain, so the notes themselves are not normally an issue. With wind instruments, you may want to avoid the 3 or 4 notes at the extremes of the range, but most beginners can play them.
Rhythms that are limited to 1/8 notes with no syncopation are playable by beginners, as long as they have been exposed to them. As far a key signatures are concerned, limiting yourself to the key of C (concert) to E-flat (concert) will keep the beginners in keys they are familiar with.
In reply to When writing for a beginner, by mike320
I feel confident that you mean "the keys of C, F, Bb and Eb" rather than C, C#, D and Eb. :)
In reply to I feel confident that you by xavierjazz
That would be correct. 0 to 3 flats are considered the easiest keys. 1 sharp my be ok, but once you introduce sharps the standard for beginners considers it more difficult.
Often a beginner orchestra is strings only. If so, then there are definitely notes that are out of each section's range. They can play down to the bottom end of the ranges MuseScore has defined, but beginner violins will struggle above B5, violas above E4, cellos above E3, and basses above written B3.
In reply to Often a beginner orchestra is by Isaac Weiss
Thank you.
In reply to Thank you. by xavierjazz
In my case it's a wind orchestra, of young players, and the range has to be carefully thought about for them to be able to play. It's also very different from the present "amateur range" in musescore, wich i would rather call something like "confirmed player" range. Then of course the rythms will be kept simple and the keys will have rather one, two or three flats in this context. I do think that a range choice depending on the player's ability would be a useful tool in musescore.
In reply to In my case it's a wind by Guillaume Hue
You can change the range on the instrument as you like. If you know that the musicians range is different, then change the amateur range so any notes outside of it will become colored and you know that you need to do something about it. The difference between ranges is mostly what they've been taught up to that point as I suggested in my original reply.
With wind orchestras, the biggest issue is what they've been taught. I played the saxophone. When I was first taught to play a low C (and lower) it was difficult to make the notes sound steady. The higher notes in the normal range didn't cause so many problems. I never did get above the amateur range for the saxophone. When I started playing tuba, it was simply a matter of learning how it felt to make a note. I never saw anything in high school written that would challenge my ability on the tuba at either end of my range.
In reply to You can change the range on by mike320
How do you change the amateur range ? If i follow edit/preferences/note input i can either have colored notes or not, but i can't see a way to actually change the boundaries of the colors...
In reply to How do you change the amateur by Guillaume Hue
Right-click, staff properties
In reply to Right-click, staff properties by Jojo-Schmitz
Ok, thanks everybody !