Add a stem symbol to symbols (Z) menu
I'm finding that while all the note heads and all the note flags are available in the symbols menu, stems are not, which makes the note heads other than whole note unusable. I also see that all the notes are available, but only pointing up. I'd like to suggest that either all the notes, both up and down, be available, or that they be removed and a stem symbol be made available.
Comments
Why do you want to create a note from scratch? If it's for tempo text see Tempo
marking as "needs info"
No, not for tempo. I want to be able to write out trills and ornaments for playback, make them invisible, and superimpose the actual trill or ornament notation for the printed sheet.
My deeper question is what purpose do all the note and flag symbols on the menu serve, if it isn't possible to use any of them due to lack of a stem symbol? I think it's a good idea to be able to create printable notation of any sort from scratch that isn't tied to any sort of playback function; to be able to play back any and all types of musical notation is of course a scoping nightmare.
It would seem that the technique I've described is a solution to the scoping problem, because it's much easier to implement printed features than it is to programmatically interpret them and play them back. I was assuming that that was the underlying purpose for the symbols menu. I went to the menu when I found that the "note heads" section of the palette didn't do what I was looking for.
I hope this provides the information needed. Thanks!
While your expectations and the picture you make of your needs may make perfect sense in themselves, I'm afraid they do not fit well the current MuseScore structure and, perhaps, the structure of most notation programmes.
The purpose of the symbols in the symbol palette is to be used as, I would say, 'decorations': to add marks which would display and be printed, but have no audible effect. For instance, I use 'decorative' time signatures in early music scores (the C and C cut symbols having completely different meaning in those scores, I set a modern time signature are 'real' signature, say 3/2, making it invisible and adding a historical time signature like "C3" with the symbol palette) or I use stemless note heads to indicate the range of a part, and so on. Other users dealing with different types of score can surely add other examples.
In addition, the stem of a note is not a symbol, but a real line, drawn with graphical instructions (think of the stems of beamed quavers; they can be all and each of different length, so they cannot be rendered using ready-made symbols).
Lastly, it is arguable that symbols placed 'at random' (as far as the programme is concerned: you, or I, we can detect a pattern in them, but for a software is much more complex!) on a score are easier to playback than data entered as, when and where the software is expecting them to be entered.
Your wish to render ornamentation is worth pursuing (with a bit of caution, as ornamentation is inherently free and any mechanic rendition would fall short), but no clear solution emerged yet.
By searching the forums for "trill + playback", you may get a picture of the previous discussion(s) on the topic.
M.
First, thank you for your response. :)
I have the feeling that we are saying much the same things, but are not quite communicating that fact with one another. Let me have a try at explaining what I want to do in terms of your response.
Let me say up front that I searched the forums using exactly the terms you suggest (as well as a number of others) before making my original post. So, if I may make the observation, I did my homework before posting, and didn't find a solution to my problem. I'll also say here that I do not wish to render ornamentation directly, and have not stated my intentions clearly enough if I have given the impression that I wish to do so. I just want to be able to put notes on the score that print but do not play back, as a workaround for not being able to play back ornaments directly.
Let's suppose that I want to show baroque ornamentations as they appear in the literature, and also to have them play back as they would be played in baroque practice. Let's use a trill for an example. I want to put a trill on, say, a high F (Helmholtz would say f'', top line of treble clef) quarter note (you will say crotchet, I believe). Not the "tr" trill, but the three-pointed zigzag symbol (in the Z palette in version 9.5.3, it's at the sixth row from the bottom, 8th position, right after the mordent symbol). Of course, I could just put the note there, go to the Articulations and Ornaments palette, and drag the symbol to the note. But for the reasons that you have stated well, this will not play back. (Making it play back is a "scoping nightmare" as I have mentioned, and I assume that you mean that it is "harder" rather than "easier" to play back symbols placed at random.)
Now, if I want to have the trill play back, I can write a series of notes that render the trill literally. I have done so, and it works fine. But I would like the printable version to have the correct notation for the trill. The only way to do this that I can see is to make the literal rendition of the trill (a long series of 32nd notes, for example) invisible, and superimpose a quarter note F with the trill marking on it. So, in effect, this correct trill notation is indeed one of the "decorations" that you describe: it is added to the printed version and has no audible effect. In other words, we are saying the same thing: your medieval "proportio tripla" time signature example is analogous to my trill rendition example.
Your point about beamed quavers and varying stem length is certainly a good one, but I don't think it's relevant to the issue I'm describing. My statements do not address beamed notes (that would be another "scoping nightmare"). What you have said is most certainly true about beamed notes but not true of other types of notes, whose stem lengths are not required to vary. So your example does not support your assertion about stems in general, with which I disagree. The stem of a note can certainly be rendered as an unvarying symbol, rather than a line with sizing handles, so long as support for beaming is not required.
Furthermore, I didn't realize that there was a use for stemless note heads for describing ranges, but that still doesn't explain why there are both half and quarter note heads and no stem. It also doesn't explain why all of the flags for single (unbeamed, that is) notes of less than quarter-note value are there, with only the 64th and 128th notes usable without a stem. Finally, it doesn't explain why the entire series of stemmed notes is there, but only the longa has a downward-pointing stem available.
It would seem to me that if these symbols exist at all, there was an intent to support the placing of notes "by hand" that would print but not play. This given, the implementation of this idea does not serve the intended purpose, and the requirement is in need of refactoring.
Either of two organizational structures would make more sense. First, have all the unbeamed notes available, with both upward-pointing and downward-pointing notes. Second, have all the note heads available (as they are now), and provide all of the stems (a stem without a flag, a stem with one flag, a stem with two and so on), with the flagged ones pointing both upwards and downwards, as separate symbols. The available symbols are a combination of both of these approaches, neither one of them implemented fully, and therefore neither fully serving the purpose they intend.
I hope that this clarifies my position. :)
Bob
Bob, thanks for your explanations; now I see your issue more clearly.
From my (limited) knowledge of the program internals, I think the symbols we may see in the symbol palette are the building blocks the program itself uses to draw scores (not all, as the internal font used to draw symbols has almost 500 glyphs, but a nice selection of them). Among those building blocks, completely formed notes -- with head, stem and, if required, flag -- are not present because the program does not uses them: the head is a glyph, the flag is a glyph, but the stem is not a glyph, it is drawn as a line of the required length using graphical instructions.
Why there has been such a design decision, I cannot say, we should ask the author(s). I can imagine that this is a way to ensure consistency among all the stems, those which could be included in the glyphs (minim, crochet, and non-beamed lower durations) and those which could not (all the beamed notes). The program also has a setting (currently well hidden, that is true!) for making all those stems 'fatter' or 'slimmer'.
Can this design decision be changed? (or sided by the addition of the dozen or so of glyphs with completely formed notes?) Possibly yes, but perhaps there are other constrains I cannot imagine. Again, only the author(s) could give an informed answer.
However, I can think of a couple of possible alternatives:
1) One is also a feature request: a way to mark notes as not to be played back. So, you could put the trill notation (the single note with the ornament sign) in one voice and its rendition in another voice of the same staff. The first could be marked are non-played and the second as invisible.
2) Another is an approximation of the above which is already possible (but a little more cumbersome): put the trill notation in one voice and the (invisible) rendition in another. Then, by right-clicking on the main trilled note and selecting "Note properties", set the "offtime offsset type" to "user" and "offtime [offset]" to the note value (see below). In this way, the note playback time would be shortened by all its value, making it effectively silent.
You may experiment if it is actually possible to take away ALL the note value or if it is necessary to leave a very short time of playback.
The note value must be entered in conventional internal units, which you may find in this table .
Is this better than your request? I don't know, possibly not. But it is available now!
For your request to be complete, I think another symbol would be needed: a separate ledger line for notes above or below the staff (which also is currently rendered as a graphically drawn line segment and not as an independent glyph).
M.
Problem solved! Your section 2 does exactly what I want to do. I didn't think of using a second voice.
I did indeed conduct an experiment to make the note not play. You don't need the table. Just set the ontime offset to negative 100%. Leave the offtime offset alone.
Your point about the glyphs not including stems is a good one. So is your point that ledger lines would have to be included. Thanks for your help! As you say, this is available now.
Bob
To set a note to silent right-click and choose "Note Properties.."; velocity type: "user"; velocity: 0.
It looks like you have found a better way to workaround the problem. Adding stems to the Z palette is not practical and distracts for better methods.
Thanks everyone for the help. Yes, this is a better way to do it.