How to create drum notation with v2

• Jan 6, 2015 - 23:25

Hi mscore users and devs!

I have already watched this video more than once

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL6BDCE01557636C85&v=KFj7v5S4Akw

and I've also read this

http://musescore.org/en/node/36086

but both seem to be MS 1.x specific and I'm hoping to use v2 to write drum notation but I cannot work out how to input even the most basic 4/4 rock beat.

My main problem is that when I try inserting a second note into the same point in a bar (ie a snare note on top of a hihat note), it replaces the already existent note even though I chose a different voice 'channel' before inserting it, as is demonstrated in the above video.

I would appreciate if someone could please explain step-by-step how to create a simple drum pattern under mscore v2, like the one created in that video.

I've also been unable to work out how to change the voice (as in the mscore 'channel' ie 1-4) of existing notes?

Thanks for your help!

Comments

• Jan 7, 2015 - 05:09

By default, if you create a score with a recent 2.0 build, the snare drum and hi-hat pedal should *already* be in different voices. 1 for snare, 2 for hi-hat pedal. But hi-hat with stick - open or closed - is in voice 1 along with snare. This is normally exactly what you want - it's the most conventional way of notating drum set (sticks have stems up and are all in one voice, feet have stems down and are all in another voice). So you wouldn't *want* to change voices to enter hi-hat open or closed along with snare - you'd simply want both notes in the same "chord". You do this by either pressing "Shift" while typing the keybaord shortcut (eg, "A Shift+G" to enter snare & closed hi-hat together), or by clicking the icon for the econd drum then clicking that spot in the score. Either of these allow you to build "chords" of drums - each note is added to the chord.

Double clicking the icon will *replace* the current chord rather than add to it. So I am guessing that is what you are doing. It also always uses the pre-defined (according to your drumset settings) voice. If you wish to place a note using a voice *other* than the default, don't use the double-click-icon or type - these always use the default voice. Instead, click the icon then click the score.

But, this is not something you should normally need to be doing. As I said, in this particular case, it's really the usual thing to have hi-hat open/closed and snare in the same voice. But if you want them in different vocies once, you probably want them in different voices throughout the score. So don't override the default each time you enter a hi-hat note - *change the default*. That way it gets entered the way you want every time. To do this, hit the Edit Drumset button in the drum toolbar, find the note you wish to change, and use the dropdown to change the default voice.

As for changing voice of notes after entering them, you can't do that note-by-note - it generally wouldn't make sense, because there would be no way for MsueScore to know what to do with whatever was already in that other voice. But there is the Edit / Voices / Exchange commands, which lets you exchange the complete contents of two voices for a selected range of measures.

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• Jan 7, 2015 - 10:13

Thanks Marc! You comprehensively answered my questions.

I think we should update the handbook drum notation page I linked to to mention that writing drum notation is essentially creating chords (when more than one instrument is being played at a time) and this requires holding the SHIFT key to enter concurrent notes.

I can do that later and I also think I can improve the soundfont editing docs too.

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• Jan 7, 2015 - 21:56

For the record, I shall be updating my Drum Entry tutorial video once the stable release of 2.0 is finally here.

I did begin to start updating tutorial videos, but there have been soem interface changes since then, so I am now waiting for the stable release to happen.

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