New Flexible System for Writing Percussion Parts

• Jan 5, 2016 - 15:00

Hello there,
I would like to propose the introduction of a new system for writing percussion/drumset parts that doesn't solely rely on the very strict rules of the current one (where you cannot write notes other than those provided here below):

Screenshot (19).png.jpg

It seems to me that the current system for typing in notes in a percussion staff is unnecessarily cumbersome, and needs the flexibility that every other kind of staff has.
I'm posting pictures of some typical situations where I found myself as an educator:

4-Part Writing-001.jpeg

4-Part Writing-002.jpeg

4-Part Writing-003.jpeg

4-Part Writing-004.jpeg

As educators, we often need to use basic 2-line staves, many times with no fancy note heads, just regular ones.
The 3-line staff is still used for some purposes, but modern educators often choose 2-line if it is sufficient.
The images show some different and possible notation for 4-part writing in modern drumset.

These are just examples of what I need to do, and cannot do easily on MS 2.0.

I hope this can be helpful,

Gianpaolo

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4-Part Writing-001.jpeg 228.46 KB
4-Part Writing-002.jpeg 240.53 KB
4-Part Writing-003.jpeg 246.67 KB
4-Part Writing-004.jpeg 222.32 KB
Screenshot (19).png.jpg 25.19 KB

Comments

• Jan 5, 2016 - 15:31

See the Handbook under Drum notation. You can customize the notes however you like already - just click the Edit Drumset button and have at it. Otins are more limited for controlling staff line distances, but right click the staff and see Staff Properties. You can basically do most of what you want already using these two techniques.

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• Jan 5, 2016 - 16:26

Hello Marc,
I've already been thru the storm of "customizing" the drum palette, and again, in my opinion, it's too cumbersome and technical: it just makes people want to quit the program. I've already tried to do this and, as soon as I change the distance between the staff lines, the stems get too long because a pentagram (5-line staff) is sub-intended under what should be a bona-fide 2-line staff: this means that what the program sees are subtracted lines from a 5-line staff, and no matter what you'll do, they will always be seen that way.
Again, I ask you,
is there any chance that I can recover what I patiently wrote with the previous version of MS without starting it all over?

Gianpaolo

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• Jan 5, 2016 - 19:12

Well, the issue with staff line distance in two-line staves messing up stem length was a bug, pure and simple, not a problem with the drum set editor. In fact it has nothing to do with drums ets at all. And that bug is fixed as part of that same change mentioned above. Also, the fact that two-lines drum staves in scores imported from 1.3 display differently in 2.0 is a bug pure and simple that is also fixed already in the nightly builds, and this also has (almsot) nothing to do with the drum set editor.

The drum set editor is about giving you control over which drum notes display on which lines,, using which note heads, and it does work quite well. For most people, it is something you customzie once in your life if you happen to prefer a different arrangement than the default which is based on a pretty common standard, so most people won't even need to touch it). Once you've made your customization, you save it to a drumset file and.or template and you never have to mess with it again. And that is the advantage of that system - it makes customization take a little work, but after that, everything works smooth as silk. The idea, make common things - entering notes according to your favorite arrangement of notes - easy. Any design that didn't separate out the drum set definition from the entry of notes would lose that big advantage, and would instead force you to work harder on every note entry.

The main change that happened between 1.3 and 2.0 regarding drum sets is that the notion of which line is which has changed. The fiox for the future release adjusts things automatically, but for now, you will hae to do it manually in your drum set definition. But again, do it once and load that into all scores and it should be fine. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details as it has been a while since I worked on this and I don't currently have access to 1.3, but see if the following holds:

For 1.3, in a two-line drum staff, I believe the lines were numbered 2 & 6, based on the fact that these were meant to correspond to the 2nd and 4th lines from the top in a 5-line staff, and a 5-line staff is numbered 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 (the odd numbers are the spaces). Whereas for 2.0, the top staff line is always 0 regardless of how many lines are in the staff. The next line if 2 is you single space your staff in Staff Properties, or 4 if you double space your staff (as was always forced in 1.3 if you selected a two-line staff). So you would simply need to adjust your drum set definition accordingly. It is unfortunate we didn't add this automatic conversion in for 2.0, but it will be there in 2.1 (probabvly not for 2.0.3 if there is one).

BTW, with the change I made for the future release, I considered changing this so that the two lines would always numbered 0 and 2 regardless of the line spacing, and in fact implemented it that way as well and could easily make it a style option, but in the end I kept it consistent with 2.0.

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• Jan 5, 2016 - 21:31

Thanks Marc,
so in the end you recommend me to try the latest night build, that solves the problem of stem length. It would be fine, but what if the files I produce are not well-read by the subsequent stable version of MS? And, speaking about double-spacing a staff: what if I double-space a staff, but I want the note immediately below one line to be touching it? I saw the final result on this picture: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1799936/9614716/af2d6d0a-50b… and it seems like the note will be centered in between subsequent lines. Again, check the pictures with the lines widely spaced that I posted above to get the idea.

Thanks so much,
keep on,

Gianpaolo

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• Jan 6, 2016 - 03:47

Well, I recommend you *try* a nightly build, but as with any nightly build, it's experimental and not meant for real work. Scores created with a nightly build won't necessarily open with any released version of MuseScore.

In the picture you psoted, I deliberately custyomzied my drumset to center the notes as most published music would normally do. I could just as easily have set them to be spaced as you seem to prefer. As I said, I elected *not* to change things so that the staff lines are numbered 0, 2, 4, ... regardless of spacing. So the line number will refer to the "normal" position of the staff line, allowing you to have notes spaced int he unconventional way you show in your images if you like.

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• Jan 7, 2016 - 19:14

I don't know about RSS, but as far as I know that page is update automatically, so simply checking that page periodically should be sufficient.

That file indeed seems to not be there, but maybe try the one before it. Not sure if it is 2.0.3-based or master-based, but if you see things working differently with respect to staves of 1-3 lines, that will be a good clue it's based on the master. Also I guess you could check Help / About.

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• Jan 8, 2016 - 13:29

Hello,
tried the build you recommended, this is what I get:

DIM_Polyrhythms_1.0_(render-friendly)-1.png

While this is what I should get:

DIM_Polyrhythms_1.0-1.png

At this point, since I see there is a lot of work to be done,
I think I'll turn to Sibelius for professional music needs,
since MS is still great, but it's still in a development stage.
I'll keep on following you, since I believe your project is fresh and has a long road to go.
Keep on with the best,

Gianpaolo

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DIM_Polyrhythms_1.0_(render-friendly)-1.png 154.56 KB
DIM_Polyrhythms_1.0-1.png 178.42 KB

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• Jan 8, 2016 - 17:43

I'm not really sure what you mean, those two look almost identical to me, you simply need to set the line distance you desire. Is there spme other aspect of this you think is "incorrect"? I guess the display of the dots on the repeat bars is different. Not really sure there exists any sort of objective standard for which is more "correct" when dealing with non-standard staff configurations, but if you have any pointers, I'll be glad to look at implementing them. Right now, I'm guessing we are special-casing staves with an even number of liens to make the dots center, and are choosing to go with the outer rather than inner spacing because in default line spacing there wouldn't be enough room to place them inside. It would probably be trivial to change this to check the line spacing and place the dots inside if there is room.

So anyhow, as far as I can tell, we are already doing almost everything as well as could be expected. if there are specific things where you think there is room for improvement, please list them, we can't fix problems no one tells us about!

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• Jan 8, 2016 - 20:30

Hello Marc,
and thanks again for answering.
All I can say about special-type staves, including but not limiting to, 2-line, 4-line and even-line staves in general is that I've never, ever seen the kind of spacing you're talking about. I attended a course in percussion instruments for 8 years, have a degree in Jazz Musical Disciplines now and I've seen a lot of percussion music, classical, modern, jazz, you name it. I've never, ever seen outer spacing of the dots of the repeat bars, I swear. So, please, instead of trying to invent something new, stick out with the customs first. There's a lot to be learned in tradition, even with the so-called contemporary music we all hate to read and play. Just pick out any manual (I recommend "Essential Dictionary Of Music Notation" by Alfred Music Co., which would be of tremendousl help for your work, see here: http://amzn.com/0882847309), and you'll see most of the rules, even for writing the most original things, have already been decoded.

Again, I wish you good work,
don't hesitate to ask for tips if you feel,
I'll be glad to help.

Gianpaolo

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• Jan 8, 2016 - 21:30

I get what you are saying about outer spacing of dots, but please realize, we are not *trying* to invent things. Outer spacing of dots is actually extremely common in guitar tablature, which is really the main place where I have ever seen staves with even numbers of lines. See for example this:

tab-repeat-2.jpg

So what you are seeing here is just the natural extension of this to 2-line staves, and I agree it looks silly if the line spacing is sufficient to prevent it. But that's like, three lines of code to fix - hardly a "long road" to go.

BTW, I hadn't encountered this case yet because virtually all the percussion music I have access to is on 1, 3, or 5-line staves. Pointers to published standards - or even just examples - of music with 2-line staves would be appreciated so we have something to draw from. The Alfred book you mention is nice but very cursory. Elaine Gould's "Behind Bars" that I have mentioned is far more comprehensive / authoritivative / definitive. It's the main resource we have relied on, as well as of course consulting hundreds of published scores in different genres. But I don't recall it going into detail about 2-line percussion staves and how to adjust different symbols for it.

Anyhow rest assured, we do take seriously the desire to do things in standard ways. But we in the business sometimes joke, "the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!". Which is to say, sometimes different standards are in conflcit and we have to make difficult choices. The more information we can gather the better.

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• Jan 8, 2016 - 22:03

Hello Marc,
And pleased to hear from you again.
I so agree that most of the percussion music you'll find in a perfomance setting is either on 1, 3 or 5 lines. But educational contexts seem to get past the boundaries, and to set up new standards for their intuitive simplicity and ease of use. Talking about pointers and standards: the pictures I posted at the beginning of this post are drawn from the following books (and true cornerstones in drumming education, for they settled the standard for the days to come, including ours): "4-Way Coordination" by Marvin Dahlgren & Elliott Fine (http://www.alfred.com/Products/4-Way-Coordination--00-HAB00019.aspx), "Advanced Technique for the Modern Drummer" by Jim Chapin (http://www.alfred.com/Products/Advanced-Techniques-for-the-Modern-Drumm…), and "Technique Patterns" by Gary Chaffee (http://www.alfred.com/Products/Patterns-Technique-Patterns--00-EL03587C…). You can find PDF copies of them on the internet, if you just need consultation. They gather a wealth of examples with 2-3-4 lines. Keep in mind them when making decisions for us drummers.

Wish you good luck,

Gianpaolo

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• Jan 11, 2016 - 03:30

I don't think there would be any point in providing an option to customize the spacing of the repoeat dots - we should simply add code to handle 2-line staves specially if there happens to be enough room between the staves to fit the dots. I'd still like to see more published examples and advice from music engraving experts - the Gould book doesn't show any examples of this to borrow from - but absent that I could probably come up with a reasonable rule on my own.

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