Lute tablature note values incorrectly treated
Is there a way to display note values correctly in lute tablature in Musescore 4? Musescore incorrectly shows either the note values of all voices on one stave or the note values of the top voice, not as it should, the shortest note values of all voices (as if written as one voice). See pdf file.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Musescore faulty lute tab note value treatment.pdf | 29 KB |
Comments
It's simple: Attempt to show rhythms in all 3 voices (or 4) has never been implemented. For good reason: lute tablatures, as I'm sure you know, display only one rhythm value (with flags, or other figures, according to the Renaissance and Baroque periods), that of the upper part (let's say the melodic part).
Everything else (whether or not to hold certain notes, whether or not a second voice enters at a certain point) is determined by the lutenist himself, by his experience and knowledge of the repertoire and lute playing.
The two-voices display (with the rhythm displayed above and below) has nevertheless been implemented in Musescore 10 years ago. Nothing more.
In short, you have to choose: either transcribe a lute score in standard notation (with the usual 4-voice availability, which is what I personally do quite often), or stick to a 1-voice lute tablature (as Sarge Gerbode does, for example, in French tablature). Or display the two ways is wished on the same score.
In reply to It's simple: Attempt to show… by cadiz1
I'm not sure I understand you. What I was hoping Musescore would do automatically was to convert many voiced staff notation into 1 voiced lute tab notation. I write the staff notation first, then copy it into a lute tab score. I assumed that Musescore would not attempt to show all voices in the tab, but instead would convert them into conventional lute tab practice (ie, effectively one voice with only the shortest note values shown on top of the stave). I can't find a way to convert my many-voiced staff notation into single voiced tab without having to laboriously re-write the staff notation as if it were single voiced, then copying that into the lute tab. I want to avoid that if possible. I also don't want to write into the lute tab stave directly as that is equally time consuming. I want one staff notation version (for eg guitarists, showing correct voice leading) and one lute tab version showing only the fastest note values, for lutenists. Is there a way to do this automatically when copying from staff many voiced to tab one voiced, and if so how, and if not, Musescore writers should implement it.
In reply to I'm not sure I understand… by Conall
Thank you for specifying your use case.
"What I was hoping Musescore would do automatically was to convert many voiced staff notation into 1 voiced lute tab notation"[...]
As far as I know, no program is capable of doing this. Just imagine: you have three voices with different note values in the standard staff, and the program would have to destroy the polyphony and rhythm of voices to keep the shortest note values.
What you can do, however, is export your score in MIDI format. In the import panel, you can, among other things, reduce the writing to 1 voice - image below.
But there will still be some editing (at best) to do before you change the staff type (back to Tablature). Unfortunately, the MIDI Import panel no longer exists in V4. Removed (for the moment at least), see: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/midi-import
In reply to I'm not sure I understand… by Conall
[deleted]
This would be possible via a plugin in MS3 by adding intelligent voice merging to the TAB Ring plugin, (which would preserve your polyphony and rhythm). This would not yet be possible with MS4.
In reply to This would be possible via a… by yonah_ag
The OP doesn't want to preserve the rhythm of Voices 2 and 3, as here:
but to overall this rhythm with the shortest note values, as is the case in the lute repertoire.
Note values are completely erased, and it's up to the player to rebuild it when playing.
In reply to The OP doesn't want to… by cadiz1
Yes, I appreciate that is the case. This is exactly what a voice merge would do. Presumably the notes are supposed to sustain as per the standard notation. This is what TAB Ring does.
In fact I can't see any rhythm changes in your example, only note duration changes.
Here's a simple example of TAB Ring processing. You can hear the note's in voice 1 sustain properly after TAB Ring has been applied, and way beyond their written duration. This would work equally well if this score was collapsed to a single voice.
https://musescore.com/user/28842914/scores/13203472
This works with any tablature stave.