Hi-hats and Snare on Seperate Voices
I'm a rank amateur who barely knows anything about music and tends to wing it. I've just started learning Drum Notation, and I've found that having the drum set instruments on 2 voice channels, though economical, proves to be a bug-bear.
Currently, my workflow has been:
1. Set up Hi-hat to keep time (as a lot of drummers I play with tend to do).
2. Add Kick for down/up beat depending on style.
3. Add Snare.
3.1 Snare on beat replaces Hi-hat beat groan in frustration.
3.2 Undo; Move hi-hat on that beat to voice 3.
3.4 Add snare.
4. Delete bar out of frustration (it's not very neat to look at).
5. Start with Kick (counter-intuitive for me).
6. Add snare.
6.1 move snare to voice 3.
7. Add hi-hat.
This may be a petty niggle that would no doubt disappear as I get more comfortable with the system, but, I would be more efficient if one of these three ideas were implemented:
1. Voice shunting: If a note is already occupying the beat, move the oncoming note to the next empty channel.
2. Set snares and toms to voice 3 by default. Cymbals, Claves, cowbells and tambourines can move to either voice 3/4. This leaves voice 2 for hi-hats and voice 1 for kick.
3. Ditch the voice system for drum sets and allow drum set chords. From my untrained, plebeian mind, that's what they look like. Allow voice channels in the same manner as you would the other pitched instruments; an optional extra.
The options 1 and 3 are probably too cumbersome for implementation at the moment. Option 2 feels more intuitive since one hand (voice) tends to be assigned an instrument per beat, allowing for more fluid and simultaneous play.
Comments
To the left in the drum palette is the Edit Drum set button. You can edit the palette to change voices and delete sounds you don't need. It's not intuitive to me but it is at least possible. It's in the Manual.
The Drum Palette makes me crazy. There is some discussion on proper drum set notation. MuseScore uses the hands and feet method. Things played with hands(sticks) are stem up. Feet (kick, HH pedal), stem down.
In reply to To the left in the drum… by bobjp
Thanks dude, I'll make the edits sharpish, and probably save the settings in-case I have to install Musescore on a separate device.
I tend to go by the Granny Method.
If you can sit your Gran down on any software, how long will it take before she throws a fit because something stops making sense?
I'm loving the improvements coming out at the moment, just find this one thing rather irritating enough at the moment to actually complain about it.
It's not clear if you're trying to create non-standard notation, or having trouble understanding why the standard exists, or having trouble entering music according to that standard.
For creating non-standard notation, editing the drusmet definition is the way to go.
For understanding the standard,d web searches will provide some good info, but the short answer is, by using two voices with stems up for notes played with the hand and stems down for notes played by the feet, you can notate virtually any rhythm in the world in a simple and clear manner that drummers will instantly recognize according to the patterns they are accustomed to reading.
So, unless you have a really special reason to be resorting to voice 3, I strongly encourage you not to do so, it's harder to enter and makes the music harder to read. But if you do have such a reason, feel free to explain further what special unusual result you are trying to achieve, and we can help you customize your drumset to do that as easily as the standard two-voice notation.