Request for ability to customize playback of marcato to make it louder instead of shorter than sforzato
Reported version
3.4
Type
Functional
Frequency
Few
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
OS: Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.4.2.9788, revision: 148e43f
- Open the attached file.
- Generate a MIDI file.
- Open the MIDI file with a MIDI editor (e.g. MidiEditor).
- Confirm the MIDI velocities of all the notes.
Expected result: According to published sources, a note with a marcato symbol should be louder than one with an accent.
Actual result: In MS 3.4, it is the other way around. An accented note is louder than one with a marcato symbol:
See also: #301792: Provide option to control Marcato playback.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| accent_marcato_playback.mscz | 3.11 KB |
Comments
Can't agree more
It is set incorrectly.
FWIW, I don’t care one way or another about actually making marcato louder, but I do recommend making sforzato less loud.
In the
mscore/exportmidi.cppfile, the methodExportMusicXml::chordAttributesadds the articulations to the notes in the MusicXML files (which are then converted to midi). However, there was no indication as to how this relates to the velocity of these notes. Furthermore, sforzato is handled in a different way (as it is dynamics and not articulations), so it was unclear how this would relate velocity-wise.See https://musescore.org/en/node/323219#comment-1089192 for possible workarounds
I'm sure that one day some good soul will write an editor for setting this preferences (i.e. velocity and length change defaults for marcato, staccato, staccatisimo, sforzato... and all the other often used articulations).
I'm optimistic because, currently, some very good soul is writting an editor for chord symbols. So wonders do happen, you just have to be patient. In the meantime, you have to learn to use workarounds. While these workarounds might look complex to understand to MuseScore beginners, they are usually easy to understand for people that have a solid experience with MuseScore.
Also see various forum discussions. The convention of playing marcato louder than sforzato is used only in certain genres (eg, classical), but in others (eg, jazz), marcato is no louder just shorter. And the latter is the more common one, in that marcato is relatively uncommon in classical music, but extremely common in jazz. So this was a conscious choice and remains a good choice for a default.
However, as a suggestion for future improvement, indeed, it makes sense to offer both options. Or of course, ultimately, to make both velocity and duration customizable for all articulations.