Specialty Staff Line

[Fourniture]

Your idea

Sometimes composers want to specify pitchless sounds on a pitched instrument (e.g. taps on a cello's body). The customary way of notating this is to have a percussion-type line appear above:

This should be input in the same manner as described in post #24545, except there would now be another option in the right-click menu, titled, "Add pitchless line", or something similar.

Problem to be solved

Musescore cannot notate this.

Prior art

No response

Additional context

Please also see post #24629.

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

[cbjeukendrup]

I think this can be achieved using a staff type change, from the Layout palette.

[Dima-S-Jr]

I think this can be achieved using a staff type change, from the Layout palette.

Obviously, a "Specialty Staff Line" means a line separate from the main staff and having a different distance (greater) than between the lines of the main staff. This cannot be done with the help of "staff type change". It's more like a "linked staff" or something like that.

In general, there really is a point in such a notation. Thus, it would be nice to experiment with various techniques on woodwinds, brass, keyboards, etc.

[cbjeukendrup]

That was absolutely not obvious from the example image, but anyway.

Creating extra staves is already possible using the instruments panel. The number of lines of the extra staff can be set to 1 in the staff/part properties dialog. It looks like the only thing that's necessary would be a special form of "hide empty staves" that does not show/hide the staff per system but per measure.

[Fourniture]

The point is that I requested a dedicated feature that would do this, not a workaround. #24545 also lays out a process for adding any elements to a staff, so it can be expanded in the future to include more things besides ossia and a pitchless line. Remember, ossia are not, strictly speaking, an extra stave; they are a snapshot of another option for the performer. A pitchless line is also not an extra staff, but rather a staff extension for a small period. There are times when whole measures (of a violin or trumpet part, etc.) are converted to a pitchless percussion stave for an extended period, but this idea is for times when all that is needed is a staff extension.

[MarcSabatella]

I think you may be confusing three different notations here:

• non-pitched notes to be played directly are normally notated directly on the staff, no additional line required. This is already supported by merely changing noteheads and/or using instrument changes. if for some reason you really want an extra line (it is not at all “customary” in my experience) you can use a staff type change as well.
• non-pitched notes meant to indicate an accompaniment rhythm in addition to the normal notes are normally notated above the staff without any additional staff line. This is supported already as “rhythmic slash notation”.
• notation of an alternate version of measure (whether percussive of not, whether one live of five or seventeen - is called an “ossia”). This is already supposed via the “cutaway” option for the staff properties, although no doubt, a more direct ossia feature would be nice as well.

It isn’t really clear what you are asking for above and beyond these things that are already supported or understood as part of a more general ossia feature. Do you have a published example to demonstrate?

[Fourniture]

From Music Notation in the Twentieth Century, by Kurt Stone:

[MarcSabatella]

So, how does this differ from an ossia that just happens to show a percussion staff? What additional feature are you requesting that is not already possible by simply adding a cutaway percussion staff or that would not already be be solved even better by a dedicated ossia feature?

[Fourniture]

You are asking me why I want a feature for pitchless percussion lines, when we could (1) add an extra staff, cut away measures, and still have to deal with formatting issues; or (2) use an ossia feature for them, when that is not what the ossia is for.
I ask for a dedicated feature that does what it is supposed to do, is only used for what it is meant for, and can be expanded to include other options. It doesn't matter whether ossia and pitchless lines use the same code; it matters whether the user sees options for what he wants to do. This is user experience 101. If Musescore continues to want to use workarounds, they will never compare to Dorico or Sibelius.