Problem with playback velocity with dynamics and hairpins
In attached segment I can't make the dynamic at the end of bar 2 have any effect to the playback, regardless of what velocity setting I give it. Originally I had it directly below the first note of the 3rd bar and also had the hairpin starting on the same note so thought there might be some clash as the dynamic refers to the part whereas the hairpin to the system.
GIT commit: b25f81d
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Comments
The dynamic has to be attached to the staff you want it to affect (click it and drag it to see where it's anchored). Also, it's correct to have separate hairpins and dynamics for each individual instrument. In future, please bring support requests to the forums (https://musescore.org/en/forum) instead of submitting them as bug reports.
I think those hairpins and the dynamics in that score had been changed to system rather than staff
The hairpins are set to system, but the "pp" dynamic in bar 2 is set to "part". The "pp" is being defeated by the cresendo which is conflicting with it. The dynamic from the violin staff (to which the crescendo is attached) is being applied to the piano staves, because the crescendo is set to do exactly that.
Thanks very much for the replies. So, although I can set a crescendo to 'System' and it will affect both instruments, it must be applying the initial dynamic setting of the instrument to which it's attached, to the other instrument. Eg, if the violin is set to 'mf' and the piano to 'mp' and I attach a System crescendo to the violin, the piano dynamic will be overridden and become 'mf' like the violin, and then both will be subject to the same increase in velocity.
Perhaps this could be clarified in the Handbook, as I'd assumed I could save having to put in hairpins for both instruments. It would be nice if there was a percentage velocity option for the hairpins as that would make it easier to apply a proportionate change to instruments with different dynamic settings.
I don't quite understand the use case. You will need the crescendo on both parts anyhow or the person reading the piano part won't see the crescendo. Or, if he is reading directly from the score, he won't know it applies to him. The norm in music notation is that dynamics are reproduced on all instruments. You shouldn't deviate from what this without very specific reasons.
If the crescendo is set to system, it should propagate to all parts, shouldn't it?
There is no "system" property for crescendo in the sense of actually being copied to parts. The "system" setting for "dynamic range" in Inspector is regarding playback effect only.
Well, that is the problem then...
Sorry, but having thought I'd now understood the way the hairpins work, I've encountered another problem. In this next example, bars 1 and 2 are the same as bars 4 and 5, except bar 2 has a 'System' decrescendo and bar 5 has 'Part' decrescendos for both violin and piano. I would have expected bars 2 and 5 to sound the same, but the piano in bar 5 is much softer than in bar 2 - most noticeable if you mute the violin. What's causing this, please??
Not sure. As far as I can tell, they should probably be the same. So I'll reopen this in case someone wants to look at the why there is a discrepancy.
I've tried experimenting further, and found the cause! Although the piano crescendo and decrescendo in bars 4 and 5 are both set to Dynamic range 'Part', the crescendo in bar 4 is attached to the notes in the bass clef whereas the decrescendo in bar 5 is attached to notes in the treble. The other three permutations all work correctly: ie if both crescendo and decrescendo are attached to the treble clef, or both to the bass, or the crescendo to the treble and the decrescendo to the bass. So it's only crescendo to the bass and decrescendo to the treble that doesn't work properly. This obviously won't arise often, but ought to be made foolproof.