Ability to "lie" about required instrumentation

• Nov 2, 2015 - 15:27

Some sympathy for us organists! A fairly easy one, I would imagine.

Given that the entire model of organ architecture is at odds with the MIDI model of this and all music-editing applications, those attempting to credibly produce organ music, or write new compositions for organ, with MuseScore have to decide between two options: (1) Write the staves and notes as they appear in professional, standard organ music, and assign to the staves varying voices chosen from flutes and reeds on MuseScore that add up to a credible sound-set (2) Choose "organ", lose the ability to control contrasting sounds, or control registration or sound in any way, suffer the "short notes kill long notes" "feature", and lose the ability to perform any music not suitable for a very loud, if beautiful, plenum with 16' (there certainly is much music suitable for this sound, but not even all rock music is fortissimo).

The only reason, other than ignorance and laziness, why someone might choose (2), is so that someone searching for "organ music" finds the work, whose instrument is listed as "organ". If you do not care at all what it sounds like online, or are a truly fundamentalist believer in "MuseScore is a score preparation program; if you don't like its performance skills, use something else", perhaps this is adequate. But I suspect that even among the people who print scores from MuseScore (especially from the site) to play them on physical instruments, every single one first clicks "Play" to see what it sounds like.

Here is a movement I just prepared, with some care to simulate credible organ registrations, including mutation stops, https://musescore.com/user/1831606/scores/1361021 , which is listed as "recorder music" because I used/abused "recorder" to produce very credible organ flue sounds. It is listed as an arrangement for recorder; it is not. It is an organ score. I would like the ability to assert precisely that searchably.

The organ continues to play a mighty important role in the history of Western Music. Given that real support of organ music in MuseScore is not at all in sight, this little proposed feature would help a great deal. It would help others who find one or another sound inadequate (e.g., oboe for the slow-starting English horn) and would like to divorce MIDI instrument choice from "real instrument" cataloguing of the score.


Comments

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Interesting; let me play with that. It would be nice to remove "recorder" from the cataloguing altogether. Or I suppose I could invisibly introduce the "organ" at the silent invisible rest at the end.... While that may suffice for a patch, I do believe that the explicit divorce of MIDI choices from intended real-world instruments, when needed, remains a noble goal.

In reply to by [DELETED] 1831606

At least, you could select an organ as instrument in the new score wizard, and then change the sound to flute in the mixer. I don't think MuseScore.com would pick the score as being for organ right now, but at least it could in the future. Currently there is nothing in your score to hint MuseScore or MuseScore.com that it's actually an organ score.

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

That latter ("Currently there is nothing in your score to hint MuseScore or MuseScore.com that it's actually an organ score.") is exactly, no more, and no less, than the problem whose solution I seek.

Selecting "organ" in the new score wizard also gets you a three-staff instrument whose voices cannot be decoupled (change one, change them all). Independent voices is the name of the game here. The sound is not "flute"; there are different voices on different manuals that could be at different pans and volumes, too. The way the score is right now sounds exactly correct; on the ability to "pick it as being for organ (and not 'recorder' - no 'recorder' could play it)" is all that is lacking. MIDI instrument choice does not equal real-world instrument choice.

"MuseScore" per se doesn't really have to know; MuseScore.com does, though.

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

I took a look at this. I'm not interested, in this suggestion, in incorporating or duplicating a pipe-organ simulator. All I want to do is say "this is for organ!", so that somebody looking for such finds it. I'm not proposing any enhancement or change at all to performance or visual score capabilities. The only part of the organ I wish to "simulate" is the sign on the stairway to the organ loft that says "organ loft."

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

This trackname can be translated in any of the 50+ languages that MuseScore supports and it can be set to anything by the user. It's not going to work to use it for indexing scores on musescore.com.

If you want a score to be labeled as an organ, score it for organ and not for recorders. Change the sound if you want but keep the instrument as being an organ. At least, MuseScore.com will have something (the instrument id) to rely on in the future. Currently, there is nothing we can do for a score like this, since organ is not even mentioned.

(PS: I'm in charge of the MuseScore.com backend, one of the developer of MuseScore and the MuseScore apps, not a random stranger)

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Exactly which method shall I use to "score it for organ" (choosing a single organ from the New menus is useless, as the three staves cannot be handled separately) and which to "change the sound" (instrument change? mixer? Staff properties?). I want it to sound correct and be labelled correctly. My thesis is that it is a bug that now I have to choose between those.

"Organ" is not a "sound" but a parallel, earlier theory of instrumentation to MuseScore.

In reply to by [DELETED] 1831606

Good heaven!

I did what the man said, and I think I've achieved success on this:

https://musescore.com/user/1831606/scores/1361906

I scored THREE organs of one staff each, and put an instrument change at the first note, and the indexing says Organ(3) (that is, I created the score for "three organs" and deleted two staves out of each). (of course, I can hide the instrument-changes) This may be the Holy Grail...stay tuned ....

In reply to by Shoichi

No, if you want "organ" indexing, you must have "organ" as the "real" instrument behind the staff, and you must "mid-staff" change to the instruments by which you wish to implement the "organ". In short, "mid-staff change" provides all you need to "lie about instrumentation", although for multi-staff instruments, it's tricky (see what I posted).

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