Early music - editorial accidentals in brackets
Hi,
I am a musicologist working mainly on baroque music. In my career I used many different programs to prepare critical editions (like Finale, Sibelius, Lilypond) but now I would definitely like to switch to Musescore (especially since I abandoned Windows and started to work on Linux). Musescore is just perfect for me, but it doesn't have one, but very important feature. So, going to the point.
Why is it not possible to put editorial accidentals in square brackets? Or am I missing something? Of course I know I can put editorial accidentals in parentheses, but it's not the same, because it has different meaning. Cheating with text brackets around accidental is not for me, as sometimes I work with really huge scores with lot of editorial work. A majority of publishers that I am working with, uses square brackets. Unfortunately this small problem makes Musescore problematic to use. When I switched to Musescore it was a biggest surprise for me, as in all programs that I've been working with this was not an issue.
Is it possible to fix this problem?
Best,
Marcin
Comments
For the records, I have filed a feature request for this point: #67656: Implement square brackets for accidentals. Of course, this does not mean that it will be surely implemented or within any specific time frame, but at least there is an 'official' place where to follow the implementation.
The point is perhaps less small than it may look at first sight: it is not only a matter of adding two glyphs to a font (which is very simple in itself); a representation for this new accidental property should be created in the score, the property should writeable to file and readable from file; also a user interface should be supplied to enter (and remove!) the property from the accidentals. From how things are progressing, I do not expect any additional feature to be included until the next major release, 2.1, planned for end of this year - beginning of next.
A way currently supported to indicate editorial accidentals in early music editions, is making them small and placed above the staff (I have two plug-ins working with version 2.0.x to automate the process). But I understand that publishers have their styles and usually they are not negotiable.
Me too, I would like to make MuseScore as suited to early music editions as possible, so let's try to have this implemented.
M.
In reply to For the records, I have filed by Miwarre
Thanks for a quick response. I understand it's not an easy process, still I think it would improve usability of Musescore - so I am looking forward next release. The problem with accidentals shown as "musica ficta" (above the staff) is that if you have figured bass part, such accidentals are misleading (assuming you put figures above the staff).
Once again - thanks for response and for great job.
In reply to Thanks for a quick response. by mkonik
Another problem is when there are chords (keyboard literature or violin/viol/cello solos): if the editorial accidental is placed above, it is impossible to know to which note it refers.
Which is yet another reason to have this implemented. It will require some code of course, but it would not be tremendously complex; the main concern is score file structure compatibility; the file structure just changed deeply with the advent of version 2.0: more changes should be planned carefully to reduce as far as possible additional compatibility issues across versions.
Let's see if something can be done, though!
As we are on the topic, I believe it would be useful to generalize the applicability of round parentheses and square brackets to a fair deal of score elements: time signatures, clefs, rests, augm. dots, dynamics, even key signatures may all need to be surrounded by either type of enclosure.
I wonder if
hasBracketshould not be a variable of the generalElement(orScoreElement) class, rather than of theAccidentalandNoteclasses alone (I cannot easily figure out where the note head parentheses are stored, though).In case, it should be an enum
{ BRACKET_NONE, BRACKET_ROUND, BRACKET_SQUARE };, rather than simply abool.In reply to As we are on the topic, I by Miwarre
In the above list, I forgot to mention parenthesized articulation signs, which have been requested for instance in this post .
Another observation on editorial accidentals. When using the above-the-staff method, if a transposing instrument is involved then the accidentals do not stay put when changing from concert pitch to transposing, but maintain their distance from the notes; e.g. they can sink into the staff, of rise up sky-high.
I'm not sure what a practical solution might be. Logically it would be to move them down only so far as just above the staff, or up only as much as needed to keep clear of the note.
In reply to Another observation on by John Kilpatrick
One practical solution I use is a plug-in which positions the accidentals 'rightly'. Once the score is 'up and running' or after each large format change, I run the plug-in and all editorial accidentals go into position. There are always special cases to look for and correct manually, but in 99+% (!?!) of the cases it works fine.
I never published the plug-in because I never had time to prepare a suitable documentation, but I can provide it to anybody interested.