minor chords are recognised as major chords in full german notation (MS2.0.2): user error or bug?
Hello.
When I input minor chords in full german (lower case minors) mode, like "a" for Am and "c" for "Cm", MS does display them right, but internally stores a major chord, as seen with switching to another display style or generating the accompaniment from the chords.
Do I use it wrong or is it a MS bug?
steps to reproduce: (or open full_german_lower_case_chords.mscz instead of 1-4)
1. create new score
2. set style > general > chords symbol to "full german" and "minor in lower case"
3. input some notes
4. add some minor chords on top (ctrl+k), all lower case with no ending "m", like "a", "c", "f".
-> display is ok, minor chords displayed as simple lower case letter.
5. change chords display style to standard, uncheck lower case minors
-> chords are indeed recognised as Major, not minor as expected
alternate 5: generate the accompaniment and you'll see & hear that MS recognises the chords as major and not minor.
Am I using the styles option in a wrong way or is this a bug?
The reverse test, encoding chords in standard notation "Am Cm Fm", then switching to german style lowercase displays the chords as "am cm fm". So I guess there's a bug in parsing minor chords with no ending "m" that does not take the style into account.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| full_german_lower_case_chords.mscz | 4.63 KB |
Comments
As far as I know 'full German' would have a-minor as "am", not just "a", but at least they would need to get entered as "am", to get reconized as minor by MuseScore. But aparently this doesnt really work
In reply to As far as I know 'full by Jojo-Schmitz
I got a paper score here which has chords 'F d g C' accompanying a short children's song, and I'm pretty sure the two chords in the middle are meant to be d-moll and g-moll.
I propose that, when 'full german' plus 'lower case minor' is checked, lower-case input is INTERNALLY automatically treated as moll chord but RENDERED with just the letter. (Or make it an additional option.)
As things are now, there's no way to fix the chordsToNotes plugin because MuseScore does not handle the information correctly :(
At least AIUI.
In reply to I got a paper score here by mirabilos
I'm not sure what you mean. If you turn on the lower case minor chords, then you type chords with lower case letters and they *are* treated as minor. What are you seeing that leads you to believe otherwise? Try exporting to MusicXML and you'll see they are definitely minor.
In reply to I'm not sure what you mean. by Marc Sabatella
The chordsToNotes plugin asks MuseScore for the chords and gets, apparently, the wrong ones back.
To reproduce:
1. Download chordsToNotes.qml and place it into the Plugins directory
2. Start MuseScore, enable the plugin
3. Load the attached MuseScore file
4. Press F2 then Shift-F2 to transpose up then down, to ensure MuseScore has fully parsed the chords
5. Run the plugin via the menu
6. Watch it generate D-F#-A for “d” (incorrectly) and D-F-A for “dm” (which does not exist in “full German, Moll in lowercase” notation)
To be honest, I don’t really care where (core or plugin) the bug is, just that it gets fixed… but there is the problem that, when changing the notation mode, for example back to “Standard”, that “d” is (incorrectly) converted to “D” (instead of “Dm”) and the (incorrect) “dm” is converted to the correct “Dm”, so it’s very reasonable to say that there’s (at least “as well”) a bug in MuseScore core.
In reply to The chordsToNotes plugin asks by mirabilos
As I said before, no, there is no bug in MuseScore here. It is doing exactly what it is designed to do. You ask for lower case letters to represent minor chords, so that is exactly what you get. If you then *change* that option, lower case letters no longer represent minor chords, so of course they become major. If you want an *additional* command to change the spelling of chords - say, change "d" ro "Dm" - that would be a new feature worth requestng. But the existing option does exactly what it needs to do.
As to whether there is a bug in the plugin or not I cannot say.
The problem is, they are recognzied as minor internally, but if you turn off the option for lower case minor chords, then there is no way to continue to represent that fact. They get converted to capital, and now that they are capital, they can no longer be recognized as minor, because there is nothing left to indicate that fact. Had you entered the chord as "am" or "ami" or "a-", then turning off the lower case minor chords option would have converted to "Am", "Ami", or "A-" and they still would have been recognized as minor.
In reply to The problem is, they are by Marc Sabatella
what about entering them as "am" but render as "a"?
In reply to what about entering them as by Jojo-Schmitz
It would be possible for a user to create a custom chord style file (akin to the chords_std.xml and chords_jazz.xml we provide) that did something like that.
Well, having MuseScore itself play back chord symbols would also be an effective fix ;)
OK, to recap:
- create a score
- switch to full german note names, lowercase minor chords
- enter (ctrl-k) some chord symbols, e.g. 'C' and 'c'
- hit F2 then Shift-F2 so the plugin gets the chord symbols parsed by MuseScore
- run through the plugin
- watch it generate the C major chord for both 'C' and 'c'
The general idea here is: how to get the plugin (which allegedly gets any and all information about the chords from MuseScore and doesn't parse them itself any more) to recognise 'c' as C minor iff the aforementioned option (lowercase minor chords; the German note names are just a distraction at this point as this is mostly the H/B/Heses vs. B/Bb/Bbb confusion) is set (and as C major if not)?
In reply to Well, having MuseScore itself by mirabilos
I'm writing a plugin to generate notes from Harmony texts. Right now I don't make a difference between "C" and "c". Is there a way to get settings for chords like if "full german" is used in a plugin?
EDIT: meant "full german"
In reply to I'm writing a plugin to… by PerD
C and c is the same chord in German. C and cm are different.
In reply to C and c is the same chord in… by Jojo-Schmitz
Have you read the thread? Or you just mark words? "full german" is the correct definition I think.
In reply to Have you read the thread? Or… by PerD
Full German has got nothing to do with C vs c, but with B vs Bb vs H, B becomes H (in German and Full German), Bb becomes B (only in Full German)
C vs c is the diffrence for 'lower case for minor chords', but IIRC only for cm, not for plain c which still gets interpreted as a C major
And yes, I read that thread and even replied to it, back when it started in 2016...
In reply to full german has got nothing… by Jojo-Schmitz
You didn't reply to @mirabilos • Feb 27, 2017 - 18:10, so I thought that what he wrote was the final conclusion about "C is major, c is minor". Ok, so german/full german only means "H/B" instead of "B/Bb"? And the "c = minor" is another rule that has to be decided? When I read @mirabilos posts I get the feeling that if you use "c = minor" it implies full german, but not the other way perhaps.
"H/B" is used in Sweden also.
In reply to You didn't reply to … by PerD
Well, there's different settings, German/full German, which deals with H/B/Bb (and yes, there is not only Germany using this) and lower case minor chords which deals with that, they are not related to one another
In reply to C and c is the same chord in… by Jojo-Schmitz
The way I learnt this, C is Dur/major and c is Moll/minor, unless the “m” distinction is used anywhere.
I have an open bugreport in the chords-to-notes plugin for the F…d…g…C repeating accompaniment of a piece where I wanted to let the chords sound. The plugin author came to the conclusion that this is buggy in MuseScore itself: you cannot currently (2.3.2) enter a lowercase “d” and get D minor.
In reply to The way I learnt this, C is… by mirabilos
I'm not sure what you mean. The distinction between major and minor is only virtually? As long as you don't use a plugin to generate the notes it's up to you to decide if it means major or minor?
I have made a plugin now based on chordsToNotes, it has a choice "Lower case means minor chords" when it starts, and other choices. All chords will be playable, with correct duration. It also generate bass notes which can be different using "slash notation".
I don't know how to "release" the plugin though.
In reply to I'm not sure what you mean… by PerD
https://musescore.org/en/node/add/project_project
In reply to I'm not sure what you mean… by PerD
There is a button on https://musescore.org/en/plugins to add a new plugin. Most people host them on github to make updating them easier. https://github.com
In reply to I'm not sure what you mean… by PerD
MuseScore does know the difference between major and minor, and uses this to export to MusicXML. But whether or not you want lower case root to automatically mean minor is separate from the German setting - it's a different checkbox in the same dialog.
In reply to MuseScore does know the… by Marc Sabatella
Now I finally understand "full german" vs. "Lower case minor chord", I hope.
I have released my plugin ("Notes from Chord texts") and it takes care of those settings. But one have to set "Lower case keys mean minor chords" when the plugin starts. It would be nice to get the setting from MuseScore ("Lower case minor chord"), is it possible to read settings from a plugin?