musescore / musescore/MuseScore

Clef changes for octave-transposing (bass) instruments

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feature request
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Your idea

When toggling concert pitch the default bass clef for a "Contrabass" staff gains or loses an ottava 8. This is nice, the notes on the staff lines still look exactly the same no matter whether concert pitch is turned on or not. I want this to happen if the staff changes to tenor or even soprano clef as well, so something like "smart clefs" for octave-transposing instruments that only gain an ottava 8 if concert pitch is turned on.

Problem to be solved

The issue comes when certain passages in the Contrabass staff require tenor or soprano clef. Then the note heads always move an octave up or down on the ledger lines throwing off formatting and often times putting the notes in a range where I myself rarely read tenor clef in.

Prior art

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Additional context

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Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing how concert-pitch toggling changes the Contrabass staff's bass clef and ottava 8 behavior. Then investigate how tenor and soprano clefs are handled for octave-transposing instruments. Done means those clefs preserve the intended written note positions while gaining or losing ottava 8 consistently with concert pitch.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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