Grace notes

Grace notes can be applied to the score from the Grace notes palette.

For bagpipe players there is a comprehensive range of grace notes in the Bagpipe embellishments palette.

Types of grace notes

Grace notes are small (cue-size) notes which ornament a previous or following note. They take their value from this parent note but do not themselves count towards the measure duration.

There are several kinds:

• Acciaccatura:

  

  Usually written with an oblique stroke through the note flag, or through the beam, if there is a beamed series.

• Appoggiatura:

  

  A stressed note which takes half the value from the parent note.

• Grace note after (trill endings).

Adding a grace note to your score

Note: For standard staves and tablature, the following instructions for adding grace notes work in both note input and normal modes.

Add grace note with keyboard shortcut

1. Ensure that the "parent" note is selected (multiple selection is possible in normal mode)

2. To apply an acciaccatura, press / (slash).

You can create a custom shortcut for other types of grace notes if you wish (see Preferences: Shortcuts).

Add grace note from palette

1. Ensure that the "parent" note is selected (multiple selection is possible in normal mode)

2. Click on the desired symbol in the Grace notes palette.

Alternatively, you can drag and drop a grace note from the palette onto a note in the score.

Multiple grace notes

Sequential grace notes

You can add a run of grace notes to a selected note by repeatedly doing any of the following:

• pressing the relevant keyboard shortcut (see above)

• clicking on a grace note icon in a palette

• dragging and dropping a grace note from a palette onto a note.

Grace note chords

To input a chord of grace notes:

1. Add a single grace note (as described above)

2. For standard staves, use one of the following methods:

   • Press Shift and a note letter, A to G; this will add the corresponding note above

   • Press Alt+1-9

   • from the menu bar, select Add -> Intervals and choose an interval from the list. This will add a note at the indicated interval above the selected note.

3. For tablature, select the grace note in normal mode, then add further chord notes using the method of adding intervals in step 2.

Editing grace notes

Change duration

To edit the visual duration, click on the grace note in normal mode, and select a duration from the note input toolbar or by using a keyboard shortcut (see Selecting duration).

Change pitch

On a standard stave, change the pitch of a grace note using one of the methods described in Editing notes and rests.

On tablature staves, use one of the methods described in Changing the pitch in normal mode (tablature).

Grace note properties

The same properties are available for grace notes as for normal notes. See Notehead properties, Stem and flag properties.

To control whether a slash should be shown through the stem, there is one additional option for grace notes only

1. Select a grace note

2. Go to the Properties panel

3. Under Note, select the Stem tab

4. Toggle Show stem slash.

In the case of a beamed group, setting this for any note in the group will set it for the entire group.

Grace note style

You can adjust the default size for all grace notes in Format -> Styles -> Sizes -> Grace note size.

Note that Grace note size is independent from Small note size, which is the size used for cue-size notes; the two sizes are often the same, and they are in MuseScore Studio by default, but do not have to be.