musescore / musescore/MuseScore
Ability to change between "pitched" and "unpitched" clefs for the same instrument
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- C++
- Stars
- 15.1k
- Forks
- 3.3k
- Avg merge
- 2d 2h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 91
Description
Your idea
Ability to change between "pitched" and "unpitched" clefs for the same instrument - i.e. it should be possible to add a percussion clef to a pitched instrument staff in order to indicate that a particular passage doesn't require pitches (e.g. body percussion or instrument tapping).
Problem to be solved
In music written for a normally-pitched instrument (including voice) you may wish the performer to change to performing unpitched sounds for some period that would be best notated using percussion clef. Currently there's no straightforward way of adding a percussion clef to a staff that's for a normally pitched instrument, even using Staff Type changes or the master palette.
Also, if you simply want to use a percussion clef but don't care about playback and don't want to deal with drumsets, this would allow simpler note entry for percussion parts (i.e. just treating the pitches as though it were a treble clef).
Prior art
No response
Additional context
Can be worked around by using change instrument to a percussion instrument, but then you're forced to deal with the oddities of drumsets etc.
It does seem it's possible in principle for a staff to change from an initial percussion clef to a pitched (treble/bass etc.) clef via editing the mscx file, but not back again, not sure why. Even using the master palette I don't seem to be able to add a "visual only" percussion clef to a staff for a pitched instrument, unless I do it as a symbol, in which case everything has to be manually positioned.
Checklist
- This request follows the guidelines for reporting issues
- I have verified that this feature request has not been logged before, by searching the issue tracker for similar requests
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue names no files or tests. Start by reproducing the current staff type, master palette, and change-instrument workarounds, then trace how clef changes are represented for pitched and percussion instruments. Done means a pitched instrument staff can switch to a percussion clef for a passage and back again without requiring a percussion instrument or manual symbol positioning.
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