I would like to make clusters out of square noteheads that would stack without gaps. The notehead for Shaped Note 6 is almost right, but there is a small (half line width or so) space between stacked noteheads that is visible if you have a note on a staff line (see screenshot).
The width is OK and I could probably build a copmositve symbol out of the notehead symbol and a borizontal line, but I can't easily find one with the desired width.
I was wondering if anyone has dealt with this already, and created an appropriate symbol to use for stackable noteheads that leave no gap. If so, if you would be willing to provide a score that uses it that I could copy of provide instructions for how to create the symbol that I could then create a Notehead style for, I would be grateful.
I did this with shaped notehead 6 (21), Bob, building up in 3rds. No noticeable gaps on my screen, even at very large zoom.
PS. Ah, sorry, Bob. There is a gap when the notes are on a line, but not so when on a space.
Probably not what you want, but you can cover the gap with a square notehead from zymbols (switching off magnetic layout).
PPS. If you're not fussy about notes being square, you can create a new notehead using the cluster from zymbols. This can be expanded in intervals of a 3rd or 4th. (see cluster 2).
I made up a new symbol using 2 copies of the square notehead overlapping with one shifted down slightly. I then made a notehead style from it, much like Adrian's first screenshot. I can just pile on notes with the notehead and get a playable block.
Yeah I haven’t figured out anything to do with white clusters. Stacking boxes is not a great look I was considering making 3 noteheads, 3 sided boxes for the top and bottom notes and a 2 sided box for the middle notes. But building the components was more work than I wanted to do
What are you using for the “body”? A Box Line?That would probably be better than a symbol since you could adjust the size but you still need to make space for it in the staff in addition to needing a stem.
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Bob
I question the wisdom of using square (actually rectangular) noteheads in chords like this, because it's hard to read.
However, what I would do to avoid the tiny gaps is use a slightly bigger version of the Shaped note 6 notehead. I did this by using a copy of the music font Special noteheads etc. set to 21.5pt (rather than 19.5pt) which seemed larger enough to work.
Hope that helps
Jeremy
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music editor/engraver
Sibelius Ultimate on a Mac running OS 10.13.4
I do note that Gould shows some white clusters in Breaking Bars, and for me, it is a client requirement, and the in between border lines are not acceptable.
I could use a variant Box line with wide borders colored white with a line or symbol attached separately, but I don't find that nearly as useful as a notehead. Maybe I will try making up a tri-part set of notehead styles and see what it feels like.
I suppose the 3 symbol notehead solution is the most robust and best for using it with a macro.
Here is a solution with a boxed Text Style. The frame is set to white-out the background and the frame width can be set.
The text color and background color both are set to white (for the white cluster) and black (for the black cluster)
It requires at least 1 letter when inserting the text.
I set it to be in foreground, magnetic laout off and placed it over the notes. The placement and size adjustments are fiddly as it is to get the boxed text selected with the mouse.
What I really like about this idea is the concept of putting notes in place first, which will occupy space in the bar and provide stems and ledger lines (as desired, by choice of notehead), and then dragging the rectangle shape with no magnetic layout over the notes.
Positioning is a bit tricky, and it would need to be adjusted if the notes changed, but all in all, it is easier than a lot of options.
I found it very hard to control the height and width of the box to match the notes.
In a short test, I found that using a period (.) as the text gave a good width for a single column of notes but the box was too high to cover the notes I wanted. (I did notice that coloring the period white made it about impossible to click on the text to position it, but typing ~. with hidden objects shown provided a handle for moving.(actually ~ followed by anything gives a box of the same width, which is just the right width to cover up a square notehead, though not wide enough to cover normal noteheads - see screenshot).
You could avoid having to match the width if you use headless notes, which still provides spacing, stems and leger lines.
I could never get a good height, though. Maybe messing with line spacing would work? As long as one is making up a text style to provide erase background and positioning, I suppose you could tinker with that as well.
I wonder if the best thing to do might be what Sib does with its cluster symbols - make up a bunch of different sized black and white rectangles and just drag the appropriate-sized rectangle into place, covering up notes or not, as needed.
You could even make up notestyles that use the symbols, so you could use a single note that displayed as a 4-note high cluster.
It would at least provide a mechanism that is easy to explain how to use, which is something all the other mechanisms lack.
Does anyone use such clusters regularly? How do you accomplish them?
Fiddeled around a bit more with the boxed textstyle.
1. using ~ and text looks good at first but it will hide the object on PDF-Export.
2. The position and size of the box can be set with the handles (if you manage to grab it with the mouse :-) ) or with the inspector.
3. For easier selection you can filter for text.
4. with a trick it is possible to insert a textbox without any text:
click with the mouse to insert a text box and don't enter anything. The textbox will disappear when you click anywhere to finish it. But if you now undo (eg. with ctrl+z) the empty box will re-appear.
I use clusters from time to time (see pic, from a Jonathan Harvey score in preparation). In this case, I used a vertical line for the black clusters (width 1.25sp) and set its default position to be 0.63sp to the right of attachment point.
This line width is slightly narrower than a standard Opus notehead on purpose. so I use a specially-created headless notehead style, which shows accidentals. For clusters on ledger lines, this style slightly reduces the width of the ledger lines which suits the cluster line.
For the white clusters, I use a box line, created from the default one with a border 0.19sp wide. This is set to a default position of 0.09sp to the right (ie half of the border width).
Because the box is a horizontal line, it behaves differently. I set the right end to be 1.19sp to the right of the notehead (which is the same width as the black line, adjusted for the width of the border).
Immediately after entering this box line, I type shift-[spacebar] which attaches the right-end to the same note as the left-end, which gives exactly the right width for the box. Then setting the top and bottom positions is possible with the arrow keys without disturbing this placement.
(When the top or bottom of a box line is on a stave line, I move it 0.09sp so the border is clearer.)
Because the box is 'empty' I use the same headless notehead style.
These two very different methods work well enough for me, in that they are positionally stable in score and part, and getting exact placement is straightforward once the default positions are set correctly.
Dunno if that's of use, but it's what I do.
cheers
Jeremy
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music editor/engraver
Sibelius Ultimate on a Mac running OS 10.13.4
I wonder if, having defined 2 appropriate lines, a plugin could look at selected chords and replace the notehead styles of the notes with a headless note style, and figure out the size of the box needed from the notes present, then create and position an appropriate box to function as a cluster.
Not sure if it is workable, but at least your mechanism is fairly straightforward.
There are a number of workable solutions for the black clusters, but the white ones are really hard. Too bad there is no way to fix the width of the box line.It is really easy to move it and change completely. You can reset it in the Inspector, but even when knowing the desired width, unless you set the left hand X value to 0, you have to do some awkward addition.
Also, it is very helpful to use View > Show Handles when moving a box line around. Only 2 corners are moveable and you can switch whech corners are active by dragging up or down.
It will not resize unless you click on one of the handles, so the simple thing to do is to always avoid corners when you want to move but not resize a box, and show handles when resizing.
It seems to me that sometimes it resizes more than I would like it to.
I'm not sure why you're having trouble fixing the box width. Did you set the default positions for the box line, and then snap the right-hand end to the same rhythmic position as the box itself is attached?
The default position settings I use are shown in the attached.
Haha, looked around at different Cluster Notation Styles and now found out that I accidentally had invented a new white Cluster Style (white outed background.
Here is a summary of different styles (also Jeremy Hughes' solution included).
I have a similar box, I think, but when I select an object and create a box I just get a straight line, which I then have to turn into a box. At that point the sizes are gone and I have to guess or use the Inspector.
Could you explain any change setting you have made besides what your screenshot shows? I am not really sure what "snap the right-hand end to the same rhythmic position" means. :(
it appears as a line above the stave, with the rightmost handle selected. At this point, it extends from the originally-selected note to the next note, if one exists. The behaviour if there is no further note in the stave (or the original object is a bar rest) is that it spans one quarter-note, I think.
• type shift-space
Because the rightmost handle is selected, you can extend or contract it by typing space or shift-space (like most lines). Typing shift-space contracts the line so it spans, in effect, zero beats of music. Using the appropriate default position settings for the box (as in my screenshot one post up) will give it the desired width.
• Without changing the handle selection, type ctrl-[down-arrow] one or more times
This opens up the box vertically in one-space increments by extending the bottom of the box downwards. It doesn't change the attachment points of the line. If you prefer to drag with the mouse to open it up, constrain the movement with shift-drag, or the attachment point may change.
• To extend the top of the box upwards, select the leftmost handle (type alt-[left-arrow] twice) and then raise it using ctrl-[up-arrow]. To move a box of the correct size vertically, select the box itself – not either of its handles – and use up-or-down-arrows, or shift-drag.
Hope that's clearer!
J
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music editor/engraver
Sibelius Ultimate on a Mac running OS 10.13.4
Thanks, Jeremy. I guess it makes sense to use arrow keys rather than the mouse to move these things around. I will give it a try and see if I have better luck. I will probably create a score that has cluster lines of different sizes, so the user can just copy one of the desired size into a score, but I will need to explain how to create one from scratch as well. Thanks for all the detail.
Kai - nice document. I suspect that the opaque white ones will mostly not be desired but it is good to know you can produce one without having to import a graphic if one is needed. Thanks for putting the summary together.
> Kai - nice document. I suspect that the opaque white ones will mostly not be desired but it is good to know you can produce one without having to import a graphic if one is needed. Thanks for putting the summary together.
>
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> Bob
The opaque isn't a standard, but I like it. Perhaps the reason that it wasn't used lies in the history of hand engraving where you couldn't white out things easily.
You can of course use the textbox only with the frame without whitening out the background (1 click with the inspector) and use it together with hidden Noteheads like the other solution with a boxline. The Boxline has the huge advantage that you can set the line thickness which isn't possible with the textbox.
I write this to put together the different possiblities that work. Therefore I skipped the approach with using special square Notehead styles because they only would work on odd numbered intervals like 3rds, 5ths but not on even numbered intervals like 2nd, 4ths etc.
>This line width is slightly narrower than a standard Opus notehead on purpose. so I use a specially-created headless notehead style, which shows accidentals. For clusters on ledger lines, this style slightly reduces the width of the ledger lines which suits the cluster line.
Jeremy -
Why did you choose to make the line narrower than the Opus notehead? It it were the same width you could cover up existing noteheads with it, which would be simpler than having to hide the noteheads.
Trying to modify notes with hidden noteheads is tricky, though I find that you can click the stem to select it, then shift-click the stem again to passages select it, then you can apply a visible notehead, do what you want, and then hide the noteheads again.
Is your headless notehead different than the standard one?
It seems to me you would want it to show both accidentals and rhythm dots if you want to correctly represent the duration, and it looks as though there is no option to not show rhythm dots, but the standard headless note does not show ledger lines. So is your special notehead a copy of the standard headless notehead, but with ledger lines showing?
It’s narrower because we experimented with it being the same width as the Opus notehead, and it looked too wide. The oval shape of noteheads gives the impression in stacked thirds of being slightly narrower than they are. There is a similar effect in letter shapes, whereby curved letters like C and O are usually slightly taller than other letters.
Alt-[up-arrow or down-arrow] from the stem gets you to the nearest notehead.
You’re right that the headless shape needs to show accidentals. I can’t remember (away from computer just now) about the ledger lines showing or not by default.
best
J
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music editor/engraver
Sibelius Ultimate on a Mac running OS 10.13.4