Anyone using MuseScore?

[Johnathan]

The tutor books I am using to learn the CBA include performance speeds for each piece.

I have found that the free software MuseScore is very helpful when learning a new piece as I can write the music in MuseScore and then play it back, reading from the music displayed on screen whilst hearing the tune being played. The facility MuseScore provides to slow the music right down allows me to first pick up the melody at a readable speed and then to add the bass. Once I have the bass and melody in synch I gradually increase the playing speed until I can play the piece at the specified speed. When I can do that I move on to the next piece.

I have this theory (I could be wrong about this) that when a musician is competent about playing a piece they don't feel rushed. They find they have the time to relax into the music. They can find the spaces between the notes and feel when to change bellows direction or move their hand position. When I slow the playback speed right down this is the sensation I get. I think it is because my mental processing is able to keep up with all the demands that are being made of it to play the tune. Once I feel that the playback speed is slowing me down I find that I can increase the playback speed to a point where I feel hurried and a little pressured again. But after a while I accommodate to that speed and the sense of having more than enough time comes back. Then I can increase the speed again.

Is anyone else finding that software is helping them in their playing?

 

[Glenn]

Excellent idea Johnathan.
Years ago I had a DOS (remember that) version of Sibelius and later a dodgy version that didn't work too well.
This was pre-accordion days for me.
I found it useful to note down ideas for the band I was playing in at the time.
Since the accordion (last 4-5 years) I have not thought about notation software as it appears rather expensive.
As is now obvious, I had never heard of MuseScore. Why I'd never looked for a free scoring software I don't know.
Maybe I thought it was like searching on Google for free money. I assumed it was not going to exist.
I will certainly download it now and see how it performs.

One issue for me is that my computer and accordion are normally in different rooms.
Do you deal with this in a clever way or do you bring the mountain to Mohamed?

 

[Johnathan]

I have the Computer and my accordions (and saxophone) in the same room.

MuseScore produces very good print outs and transposition is easy. So it can prove useful even if you cannot get your Accordion and computer together.

I have found occasionally that MuseScore can lose its way a bit on playback when you set repeats. But since cutting and pasting is straight forward I tend to duplicate the bars in the score which overcomes this issue. Perhaps this will get fixed in version 2.0 when it comes out later this year.

As for DOS yes I remember it well(ish). My computing experience goes back to Commodore 64s and the Amiga, before the PC took over.

 

[BobM]

I use it, but have to put up with the lack of a # on a UK Mac ‘pooter.

 

[Glenn]

I think my brother still has the ZX81 I had with 1k of memory. Those were the days.
My most productive composing was done with a 4 track cassette recorder.
When I got a MIDI sequencer my imagination was more involved in the technique rather than the music.
Is this a common problem amongst accordionists?

 

[Tom]

Haven't tried MusicScore. I bought Printmusic and use it the same way you do. It's good once you figure out how it wants you to think. Midi input is pretty good, scanning is Ok if the parts are crisply printed. I agree, it's very helpful for learning if you do read music. You can loop parts, add and subtract accompaniment, etc. First computer I used was an IBM 360. Now it's portable laptops and tablets. I imagine there will be iOS and Android music composition apps soon if there are not already, I haven't looked.

 

[Soulsaver]

Your timing on this is super, thanks.
I notice occasionally that players choose to play pieces an octave lower on a higher reed rather than follow the dots as written, for richer sound/the comfort of the arm.
So what? Well my teacher advises against this until you are well advanced so it/you don't interfere with growing the eye/mind/hand coordination.
I've had a quick look at this & maybe easily could re- arrange the music to an octave lower (maybe include the coupler indicator) and print it. Play more comfortably and still grow the coordination. And maybe use your ideas to help with learning to play the tune and tempo. Could be good stuff, thanks.

 

[Glenn]

Well I guess this would work Soulsaver.
However, I'm surprised that your teacher has the idea that octave transposition hss a negative effect oh hand/eye coordination.
I woulkd have assumed it improived it having an octave offset in yoiur brain to contend with.

 

[Johnathan]

Well I guess this woukd work Soulsaver.
However, Im surprised that your teacher has the idea that octave transposition hss a negative effect oh hand/eye coordination.
I woulkd have assumed it improived it having an octave offset in yoiur brain to contend with.

I think I can see where you music teacher is coming from.

When you are learning to read music you are learning to relate each specific note on the scale to a specific key on your keyboard. This is tying in the mental process of recognising the note to the muscle memory of where the key is on the keyboard. If you start playing an octave higher or lower you will retain the relative position of one note in the scale to other notes e.g. the relative position of c to f. But you will confuse the position of the single key that relates to that specific note on the chromatic scale.

I also am learning saxophone and sometimes I try to play along with music written in g major. With my tenor sax I can mentally shift all the notes up e.g. read a written b as a c, a written c as a d. Then I just throw in the three sharps F, C and G and I am transposing on the fly. But it can get confusing when I then go back to playing the music as written.

 

[Soulsaver]

Insightful - that's exactly his point Jonathon. He also has pet hates - likes to see the bass chords printed in full without letters above, in addition or instead off for example. Anyway - I'm paying for his advice - so I don't ignore it. And rewriting it will be good experience.

 

[Glenn]

I too understand the direction from which the music teacher is coming from but I don't really buy it.
Does this mean that if you play piano and you then try a keyboard with a slightly smaller key width you're going to mess up all the notes?
Or if you play quatre man duets and do not sit in the middle of the piano?
I think the brain has a mental picture of the relative, not absolute positions of the keys.
Thus make your brain have an offset.
It is true of the accordion you are faced with a different wrist/keyboard angle as you move up or down.
This of course is something that has to be learnt.

 

[Johnathan]

"rewriting it will be good experience"

One of the features of MuseScore is keyboard entry - you use the numeric keypad to select the note duration and the letters of the keyboard to select the note. This is both a fast way of entering music (much quicker than dragging notes onto the stave) and in itself a good exercise to help your sight reading as you have to look at the score and identify the note (c, d, e etc.) so that you can enter it into MuseScore.

 

[Glenn]

Hi Johnathan,

I have it downloaded and installed, now having a little read of some of the help files.
I'm certainly going to give it a try.
And it's free...

 

[Anyanka]

I use MuseScore for some of the No.1 Ladies sheet music, but have found that the PDFs created in the programme don't show properly on some computers: apparently the staves show, but the notes don't!

Still, I think it's an excellent freebie, and particularly useful for my whistle playing: I can only read for the D-whistle, so any tunes in other keys need to be transposed into G or D (and then played on the appropriate whistle to return the tune to its correct key).

 

[Johnathan]

Just thought I would update this thread with my latest experiences.

Since my original post I have been tackling some pieces that have proved quite demanding for me because of the speed that is specified in the tutor book combined with the relative complexity of some of the music. In such cases I have found that what works best (at least for me) is to start slowly playing either just the bass or just the treble part and gradually increase the speed. But instead of starting to combine playing both the treble and bass once I can play each part slowly on its own, I now take the separate playing up to the specified speed and sometimes even faster than required. This gets me to a point where I have the ability to play both the treble and the bass parts with the minimum of mental processing.

At that point I slow down again and combine playing the bass and treble together. Since I can now handle both the bass and treble parts with little thought I can focus my attention on combining ensuring the timing between the treble and bass is spot on.

The one thing to watch here is that sometimes when you start to combine the bass and treble parts you find you need to adjust the timing of the bellow changes. If I find I need to change the timing of the bellows at all then I make sure I can play the treble and bass separately with the same bellow phrasing, before finally combining the play again. This has proved for me to be a quicker way of getting a tricky piece up to speed.

I am also trying out the latest daily build of MuseScore 2. It is does crash out occasionally but it has not lost any data or damaged any files yet. I make copies of files I am using in MuseScore 1.3 so that if any damage does occur when using the daily build I still have the original file to fall back on.

MuseScore 2 has a couple of interesting features. It now gives you the option of a 1 bar count in before the music starts to play - a little more time would be nice, but it is better than no count in at all. Also you can now mark a section of the music to loop in playback, so that you can practice just a few bars, without having to stop and restart the music. When it is finished MuseScore 2 looks like it will be a very handy upgrade.

Kind regards

Johnathan

 

[Pietro]

I've been using Musescore for a while now although I never considered it as a teaching aid. I am constantly trying my hand at arranging accordion music for accordion ensembles which I am involved in, but the more I try, the more I realise what an art this is. I've not actually managed a complete a piece yet, but I keep plugging away with Musescore and learning more about the software. I'm fairly well on with the theme music from 'Skyfall' and keeping my hopes up that I can complete it.

 

[Brennan]

I've just taken up MuseScore and it's an improvement on ScoreWriter, for which I paid good money!

Two questions for anyone out there:

1. I don't seem to be able to delete rests, though notes are quite easy to delete.

2. Does anyone know if the circular symbols for accordion coupler settings are available for MuseScore?

 

[Pietro]

Hi Brennan,

Still getting to know this software, but I think,

1. You normally replace a rest with another value eg. a note.

2. Look at the bottom option on the left 'symbols' you can make up coupler registrations from there although its fidley.

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[fjsys]

I use it quite a bit. It is a good for the money (free)
To answer what I know.

1. Pete is correct, usually you just add notes to replace the rest. However when I am using two voices and there is a rest for the first half of the measure there is no way to delete that rest. The work around that I have found is to right click and select "Set Invisible." it still kind of shows up in the display, but it will not show up when you print.

2. Pete is correct with this one as well, it is under Symbols. The one thing that always gets me is that you have the blank symbol then have to add the dots. However when you add the dots they always go to the bottom of the symbol first and then you have to re-position them. Make sure that the dots get into the symbol, this makes relocating them easier.


Another note is that fingering is a pain to put in, there is no notion of above/below placement. It always starts out right next to it and you have to move it. If you want to underline counter basses you can edit the text and underline it.

Ben

 

[Pietro]

Funny how a little discussion makes you think harder, regarding the subject of couper registration in Musescore. I've found these to be a bit of a pain to look neat and regular, so I've just experimented by creating some nice looking ones by constructing them in large magnification positioned at the beginning of the score. You can then copy and paste them with ease anywhere in your score as often as you wish. When you finished with your templates you can just delete them.

Pete