MuseScore Studio Handbook
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  • MuseScore Studio Handbook
  • About the handbook
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    • Style guide
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  • Introduction
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    • Create your first score
    • Upgrading to MuseScore Studio 4 from earlier versions
  • Navigation
    • Accessibility
    • The user interface
    • Navigating your score
    • Timeline
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  • Basics
    • Setting up your score
    • Entering notes and rests
    • Working with multiple voices
    • Input by duration mode
    • Alternative note input methods
    • Adding and removing measures
    • Selecting elements
    • Editing notes and rests
    • Copy and paste
    • Using the palettes
    • Properties panel
    • Adjusting elements directly
    • Parts
    • Default keyboard shortcuts
  • Notation
    • Instruments, staves, and systems
      • Instruments and system markings
      • Showing staves only where needed
      • Implode and explode
      • Mid-score instrument changes
      • Staff type change
      • Staff/Part properties
      • Brackets
    • Rhythm, meter, and measures
      • Time signatures
      • Stems and flags
      • Beams
      • Regroup rhythms
      • Tuplets
      • Barlines
      • Measure numbering
      • Measure rests and multimeasure rests
      • Pickup and non-metered measures
      • Measure properties
    • Pitch
      • Clefs
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      • Transposition
      • Octave lines
      • Noteheads
      • Ambitus
      • Respell pitches
    • Expressive markings
      • Articulations
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      • Slurs and ties
      • Laissez vibrer ties
      • Breaths and pauses
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    • Repeats
      • Repeat signs
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      • Jumps and markers
      • Items across repeats and jumps
      • Changes and courtesies at repeats and jumps
      • Measure and multi-measure repeats
  • Idiomatic notation
    • Keyboard
      • Pedal
      • Cross-staff notation
      • Accordion notation
    • Guitar
      • Fretboard diagrams
      • Guitar techniques
      • Creating a tablature staff
      • Entering and editing tablature notation
      • Customizing a tablature staff
      • Applying capos
      • Alternate string tunings
      • Guitar bends
    • Harp
    • Percussion
      • Inputting percussion notation
      • Customizing the percussion panel
      • Percussion kit customization
      • Other percussion notation
  • Alternative notation
    • Mensural notation and Mensurstrich
    • Slash notation
    • Custom staff types
  • Text
    • Entering and editing text
    • Formatting text
    • Staff Text, System Text and Expression Text
    • Tempo markings
    • Lyrics
    • Fingering
    • Chord symbols
    • Figured bass
    • Rehearsal marks
    • Header and footer
    • Text blocks
  • Formatting
    • Page layout concepts
    • Positioning of elements
    • Score size and spacing
    • Systems and horizontal spacing
    • Pages and vertical spacing
    • Using frames for additional content
    • Working with images
    • Using sections for multiple movements or songs
  • File management
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    • Project properties
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  • Sound and playback
    • Playback controls
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  • Support
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    • Revert to factory settings
    • Troubleshooting
  • Appendix
    • Command line usage
    • All keyboard shortcuts
    • Changes for MDL percussion
    • Upgrade from MuseScore 3.x
    • Glossary
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On this page
  • Overview
  • Customizing appearance of staff lines
  • Customizing appearance of generated elements
  • Customizing appearance of notes
  • Notehead schemes
  • Changing staff type mid-score
  • External links

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  1. Alternative notation

Custom staff types

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Last updated 3 months ago

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Overview

MuseScore has four staff types, each of them has different build-in templates, see .

To create a custom staff used on whole score :

  • Use this step common to all four staff types: find and add an instrument similar to the target staff type by or in the , then change its , notehead scheme is also customized there.

  • For percussion staff (type 3, see ), in addition to the above, use Edit drumset window for related settings, see .

To create a custom staff to be used on one section of score:

  • Use the element.

  • The Change Instrument text element also change staff type by changing the instrument, see .

Modified Stave Notation (MSN) is a formatting common used in large print. To use MSN see MuseScore 3 tutorial page , it works similarly inside Musescore 4.

Customizing appearance of staff lines

[this section is a work in progress, please add missing info]

  • Number

  • Color

  • Visibility

  • Line distance

Customizing appearance of generated elements

[this section is a work in progress, please add missing info]

  • Clef

  • Key signature

  • Time signature

  • Barlines

Customizing appearance of notes

  • Ledger lines [ a work in progress, please add missing info]

  • Stems [ a work in progress, please add missing info]

Notehead schemes

\ _Download this testing score file [MS4 Noteheadschemes.mscz](https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/2023-10/ms411_noteheadschemes.mscz)_

The nine supported by Musescore are:

  • Normal: The default scheme used by vast majority of musicians.

4 solfege related notations:

  • Pitch name: Noteheads automatically and dynamically change to include the English pitch name in the notehead.

  • German pitch name: similar to Pitch name but B replaced with H, and B♭ with B.

  • Solfège Movable Do (also called Tonic Solfa): Noteheads with solfege literally written. It uses Ti and not Si.

  • Solfège Fixed Do: Noteheads with solfege literally written. Used in France, Italy, Spain, etc. It uses Si and not Ti.

4 shape note notations, need further config if you wish to create desired playback:

  • 4 Shape (Walker): used in books such as William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1835).

  • 7 Shape (Aikin): used in books such as Jesse B. Aikin’s The Christian Minstrel (1846), and books by the Ruebush & Kieffer Publishing Company. It's the most used 7-shape system.

  • 7 Shape (Funk): used in books such as Joseph Funk’s Harmonia Sacra (1851).

  • 7 Shape (Walker): used in books such as William Walker’s Christian Harmony (1867).

Changing staff type mid-score

[this section is a work in progress, please add missing info]

  • Most of the above plus line & step offset

External links

For Notehead scheme:

are used by musicians to designate notehead shape meaning. In Musescore 4.1.1, schemes for a staff is named "Notehead Scheme", same options for a note is named "Notehead System", see .

Musescore has nine of them. Five of them are directly fully supported, notes written create correct playback. Four "shape note notations" are supported in terms of notehead engraving, users need to take advantage of to create desired playback, see .

To create custom "shape note notations", see .

See

staff/part properties preview window score

Staff/Part properties
Setting up your score
Layout panel
Staff properties and Advanced style properties
Staff/Part properties
notehead
Drumset customization
Staff type change
Mid-score instrument changes
Creating Modified Stave Notation in MuseScore
'Notehead schemes'
Noteheads
'Transposing instruments' feature
Noteheads
Noteheads
Overview
The Music Notation Project Wiki > Shape Note Notation
IMSLP.org Wiki > 4-shape notation
IMSLP.org Wiki > 7-shape notation
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/tree/master/src/notation/view/re…
shape note SMuFL specification
Ms4 noteheadschemes