Adding notes to a tied chord
Many syncopations in music result in notes being tied over to the next measure. When inputting notes from the virtual piano keyboard, holding shift and clicking another note adds the not to the current chord. However, with tied notes, it only adds the note to the second chord. It would be nice if it would add it to both.
Actually, this is a problem with all methods of note input. For instance, in a recurring passage in a song I am working on right now, each measure ends with an eighth note tied to a dotted quarter note, which is the same as a half note. Selecting the half note and clicking works for the first note of the chord, but for the second and third, it just replaces what was there already instead of adding to the chord like it would if there was no tie. I cannot see how this would be what you want.
If the above problem were fixed, fixing it for the virtual keyboard would be trivial - just make the default behavior for tied chords be to select the first tied note instead of the second one. Then if you want to add notes to it, just shift-click as usual. If instead, you want to add notes to only the second tied chord, you can just hit the right arrow key once. The note editing cursor should be after both tied notes as usual, so just clicking without holding shift should add notes there.
Comments
If I understand you correctly this may be related to a known issue: https://musescore.org/en/node/283963 (with a workaround by Marc Sabatella)
Really I'd say you are doing things backwards. Don't enter the tied note then build the chord. Instead, build the chord then add the tie. Yes, it happens to work to press half note to enter the note and tie at once if there is a barline there, but better to get used to entering ties normally, since that half note method only works across barlines and none of the other places ties are needed.
That said, I don't disagree with the idea that Shift+note could automatically add to all tied chords.
In reply to Really I'd say you are doing… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you.
Let me clarify something: Shift+note should not add notes to all tied chords if (a) the currently selected note is not in the first chord that is tied or (b) the current duration selected is not the sum of all the tied notes. So in my example, it should only add to all tied notes if the eighth note is selected and the currently selected duration is a half note.
Also, I agree that the method you described is preferred in most circumstances, but with certain syncopations, it really is better to think of it as a unit equivalent to a half note than as an eighth note tied to a dotted quarter, because it really is a half note that comes half a beat before the measure. As such, it is better to be able to do it the way I described. So, in my opinion, both methods should be able to work.