Writing 'Scotch snaps'
Notating a dotted rhythm (e.g. for a traditional English hornpipe) is made easy by being able to write the tune in pairs of consecutive quavers and adding a dot to the first of them: MuseScore automatically converts the second note of the pair to a semiquaver. Is there a similarly quick way of doing the reverse - that is, of writing a 'Scotch snap' where the semiquaver precedes the dotted quaver, as in a traditional Strathspey? (See attached example).
| Attachment | Size |
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| Miss Douglas's strathspey.mscz | 32.84 KB |
Comments
No
Sadly not, I've been looking for a way for a long time. Best I've been able to find is to enter them as consecutive eights, then press N to turn note input mode off. Return to the beginning and press in sequence:
3 - change the current note to a sixteenth
Right - move to the next note/rest: in this case, the sixteenth rest created by changing the eighth note to a sixteenth note
Right - move to the next note/rest: in this case, the eighth note, the second of the original pair
3 - change the current note to a sixteenth
N - turn note input mode on
Shift+Left - in note input mode, this swaps the current note with the note to the left, so the second sixteenth note trades places with the first sixteenth rest
N - turn note input mode off
4 - change the sixteenth to an eighth
. - (i.e., a period, full stop, or "dot") change the eighth to a dotted eighth
Right - move to the next note/rest: this time it moves to the first of the next pair of eighth notes to be changed.
Return to the beginning and begin the process again for the next pair of notes. Yes, this is complex, but, with practice, you can get it quickly and accurately. Another way would be to select the whole sequence and change them all to sixteenth notes, then do the moving and changing of the second eighth of each pair to the dotted eights as I describe, but I've found that my way is faster for me. YMMV