MuseScore and Music

[Kendall K. Down]

MuseScore is an excellent - and free - program for writing music on the
computer. It's latest incarnations are supposed to be better than
Sibellius, which has long been regarded as the top music score
production software.

One of the things I do with it is lower the music. For example, I have
in my hymn book the grand old tune Rhyd-y-Groes in the key of Bbminor
(B-flat minor), which sounds marvellous but the top note is F two
octaves above Middle-C (or an octave and four notes, if you wish to be
pedantic). Sounds great with a choir of professional singers but far
beyond the capabilities of an elderly congregation whose soaring top
notes have fallen by a whole tone every decade since 1967.

So I transcribe the music as written (Bb-minor), then change the key
signature from five flats to two, select all the music and use the
down-arrow key to move the whole lot down to G (for G-minor). (A-minor
isn't low enough, Ab-minor has a horrible key signature of seven flats,
so G is the best option.)

Unfortunately that means that some of the accidentals end up as flats -
MuseScore being clever because you have moved down. One chord, for
example, appeared as A-G-Db-E and to anyone who knows anything about
music, that is visually horrible, an atrocity, an abomination.

Of course, when you play it, it sounds fine, but that is not the point.
So I clicked on the Db, used the arrow keys to move it down to C and
then up again to C#, which gives you the well-known chord of A7 -
A-G-C#-E! A similar manoeuvre turned Gb into F#, the exact same note,
but visually and musically a much more acceptable choice for G-minor.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

[Stuart]

In article <tlcnt8$3fp7p$1...@dont-email.me>,
Kendall K. Down <kendal...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Reply-To: kkd...@nwtv.co.uk

> MuseScore is an excellent - and free - program for writing music on the
> computer. It's latest incarnations are supposed to be better than
> Sibellius, which has long been regarded as the top music score
> production software.

I use a combination of !Sharpeye, an OCR program for music, and !Rhapsody
4 on Risc OS. Unfortunatly Rhapsody 4 is now "abandonware" and cannot be
bought.

There is a PC version of !Sharpeye available though there is a cost but a
lot of time can be saved if you don't have to type the score in by hand.

http://www.visiv.co.uk/about.htm

--
Stuart Winsor

Tools With A Mission
sending tools across the world
http://www.twam.co.uk/

[Kendall K. Down]

On 20/11/2022 09:30, Stuart wrote:

> There is a PC version of !Sharpeye available though there is a cost but a
> lot of time can be saved if you don't have to type the score in by hand.
> http://www.visiv.co.uk/about.htm

Thanks for the recommendation. With MuseScore 1.3 it really is not a
problem. Your average four-part hymn (Isaac Watts) takes 5-6 minutes.

Later versions (I think they are up to 3.9 these days) may be better if
you are Ludwig van and composing your 7th symphony, but for hymn entry
they are a dead loss. As it is free software under GNU licence, I have
no hesitation in making 1.3 available for anyone who wants it.

Incidentally, my wife was tidying the music cupboard the other day and
came across the little collection of hymns to be sung at the Welsh
National Eisteddfod in Newport, 1988. At the back was a brand new hymn
composed for the occasion, with brand new music - so brand new that the
score was written out by hand.

What a mess! You'd think that people would take a bit of care, but no,
just jotted it down any old how with no clear distinction between black
notes and white notes and sharps that looked like naturals (and v.v.) I
think your SharpEye would have thrown its hands up in disgust and
retired defeated.

I had to type in what I *thought* was right, then play it through
repeatedly, pausing every time there was a marked disonance and raising
or lowering notes until it sounded right. It's actually quite a good
tune and clever harmonies, but by golly, the chap could have done with
MuseScore!

[Adam Funk]

On 2022-11-21, Kendall K. Down wrote:

> On 20/11/2022 09:30, Stuart wrote:
>
>> There is a PC version of !Sharpeye available though there is a cost but a
>> lot of time can be saved if you don't have to type the score in by hand.
>> http://www.visiv.co.uk/about.htm
>
> Thanks for the recommendation. With MuseScore 1.3 it really is not a
> problem. Your average four-part hymn (Isaac Watts) takes 5-6 minutes.
>
> Later versions (I think they are up to 3.9 these days) may be better if
> you are Ludwig van and composing your 7th symphony, but for hymn entry
> they are a dead loss. As it is free software under GNU licence, I have
> no hesitation in making 1.3 available for anyone who wants it.
>
> Incidentally, my wife was tidying the music cupboard the other day and
> came across the little collection of hymns to be sung at the Welsh
> National Eisteddfod in Newport, 1988. At the back was a brand new hymn
> composed for the occasion, with brand new music - so brand new that the
> score was written out by hand.

I am surprised you would condone involvement with Druids!

> What a mess! You'd think that people would take a bit of care, but no,
> just jotted it down any old how with no clear distinction between black
> notes and white notes and sharps that looked like naturals (and v.v.) I
> think your SharpEye would have thrown its hands up in disgust and
> retired defeated.
>
> I had to type in what I *thought* was right, then play it through
> repeatedly, pausing every time there was a marked disonance and raising
> or lowering notes until it sounded right. It's actually quite a good
> tune and clever harmonies, but by golly, the chap could have done with
> MuseScore!
>
> God bless,
> Kendall K. Down
>
>
>

--
There's nothing in Scripture that forbids letting our lawn
go wild. --- Garrison Keillor

[Adam Funk]

On 2022-11-20, Kendall K. Down wrote:

> MuseScore is an excellent - and free - program for writing music on the
> computer. It's latest incarnations are supposed to be better than
> Sibellius, which has long been regarded as the top music score
> production software.

I'm no music expert but I've played around with it. My son (who is
musically talented) used Sibelius in school but agrees that MuseScore
is a lot better.


--
In Fortran, GOD is REAL (unless declared INTEGER).

[Kendall K. Down]

On 25/11/2022 14:05, Adam Funk wrote:

> I am surprised you would condone involvement with Druids!

You might as well say to someone who went to the Royal Agricultural Show
at Builth Wells that you are surprised they were involved with cows.
There is much more to such things than the headline bits and although
there are certainly druids parading around the National Eisteddfod
field, every organisation that is anything in Wales has a stand -
Merched y Wawr (sort of WI), Croes Coch (Red Cross), Y Lolfa (a Welsh
publishing house) and on and on.

Every denomination has a stand - Presbyteriaid, Methodistaidd,
Beddyddwyr, even Catholics and Orthodox. So I was there on a church
stand, witnessing to the multitudes.

[Kendall K. Down]

On 25/11/2022 14:03, Adam Funk wrote:

> I'm no music expert but I've played around with it. My son (who is
> musically talented) used Sibelius in school but agrees that MuseScore
> is a lot better.

If you have a choir which relies on hand-written scores, producing
proper printed ones will enhance their singing as they no longer have to
peer myopically to see whether that is a sharp or a natural or whether
the blob is on the third line or in the space below it.

I use it to produce the music for my NewDisplay program, which projects
the words onto the screen and provides the music for the
organist/pianist at the same time. Saves carrying around an armful of
hymn books for those less well-known hymns/songs.

[Adam Funk]

I was joking, but you're right.


--
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're
told. Obedience is doing what you're told regardless of what is
right. (attributed to H. L. Mencken)

[Mike Davis]

On 27/11/2022 19:43, Adam Funk wrote:
> Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're
> told. Obedience is doing what you're told regardless of what is
> right. (attributed to H. L. Mencken)

Like it!!

Mike
--
Mike Davis