Playback of Violin Harmonics

• Jul 20, 2015 - 06:41

Sometimes composers of string music like to give the performer a chance to showoff by specifying harmonics. The performer must do a lot of shifting, but the result is a chime like, or soft flute sound that is unlike the normal sound associated with a violin, viola, cello, or bass. Examples: Sibelius: Violin Concerto, Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen, and Bartok: Roumanian Folk Dances. I would like the MuseScore developers to implement string harmonics into their playback routines. The attached file illustrates both natural and artificial harmonics for the violin: how they're annotated and the resulting pitches. However, the same applies to all string instruments: violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, lute, etc. Natural and Artificial Harmonics.png

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• Jul 20, 2015 - 23:29

Hello, I have had a similar concern in the past, and it's actually not too hard to tweak by yourself.

If you feel brave, you could make an instruments.xml file (DO NOT edit the original, make a copy and carefully copy and paste parts of the original into it. I'm sure you can figure it out, but I'll write an example for you if you want). Basically, you would have to add another voice to the Violin near the bottom of its XML entry. Or maybe, if you don't use Tremolo, then you could change the Tremolo voice in the mixer (F10) to whatever you think sounds most like violin harmonics and just deal with it having a different name. I did this to the guitar instrument to give it harmonics, and a few other voices, and it works great! One warning though, when Musescore has a lot of voices in the mixer, it doesn't always export the voices to MIDI correctly. But you might not care about that.

Finally, you could notate the music exactly how it sounds AND the way that it is written, and hide some of the notes, turn of the playback, and change the note head, all via the inspector (F8).

I hope this is helpful!

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• Jul 20, 2015 - 23:45

"you could make an instruments.xml file [...] I did this to the guitar instrument to give it harmonics, and a few other voices, and it works great! "
I do not know handle these "instruments.xml" files.
Could you please describe step by step how to obtain this, I am interested! Thanks :)

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• Jul 21, 2015 - 03:05

This will be complicated, but I hope it isn't confusing:

The xml file is in C:\Program Files (x86)\MuseScore 2\instruments by default

First, copy and paste the instruments.xml file to create a copy. Only edit the copy. Use Wordpad or something like it. Notepad doesn't work for me.

Ctrl-f and find violin. Now, go down to , and copy ALL of this including ALL THE SPACES:

Now paste it right on top of where you copied it from to get this

And change the second "Pizzicato" to "Harmonic". "Program Value" is the voice it will get in the program, so don't bother with this since you will use Musescore's mixer (F10) to change the voice. I don't know which voice would be right for that, maybe Vibraphone or something, but of course you'll have to settle for a sound Musescore already has for the time being. Try out a bunch of different sounds- find whatever seems to work best.

Now, as long as you didn't delete any spaces or anything, it should work. You can change the instruments.xml in Musescore's preferences window, under the "score" panel.

I apologize if these directions are unclear or if they don't work, but now you should see Violin Bowed, Violin Pizzicato, Violin Tremolo, and Violin Harmonic in the mixer, stacked on top of each other. If it doesn't work i could try to make one and attach the file.

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