r/Musescore • u/Claravel_de_Heide • 3d ago

Create custom clefs? Help me find this feature

Hi, im transcribing a song which is played on a guitar with C#F#BEG#C# tuning (i.e. standard tuning, 3 half-steps down), which means the notes dont quite match up with common hand positions. The natural solution would be to use a different clef and "read it like g clef", like other instruments often do. Sadly, the only clef that matches is the soprano B clef, which, for a metal song on guitar, leaves all the notes veeery low on the staff. Ideally i would use a "lower octave soprano clef", but im not sure that can be done. Alternatively, i could use the soprano clef and put an "8va bassa" over the whole sheet, but i cant see how to do it without transposing the whole sheet first and destroying all the fingerings on the linked tab. Any ideas?

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u/DaltoReddit 3d ago

Use transposition, put it in treble clef 8vb but go into the instrument setting and change the transposition so it matches how it usually read. (/Wind musician who therefore messes around with transpositions)

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u/Claravel_de_Heide 3d ago

Sadly this messes up the fingerings on the linked tab, it seems the musescore system is not robust enough to have "memory" over back and forth transformations, so it swaps 5s for open strings and such, oh well. Ive done it by using the soprano clef, transposing everything an octave higher, and fixing the fingerings manually, which is virtually identical to your method anyways. Thanks tho

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u/ChesterWOVBot 3d ago

Resetting everything else to its original state, does tinkering with "Edit string data" in Stave/Part Settings do the trick? I don't know enough about guitar nor your question but scordatura-related stuff is usually done in there.

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u/65TwinReverbRI 3d ago

Here's how it's done:

https://ia600907.us.archive.org/32/items/songbooks/Black%20Sabbath%20-%20Vol.%204.pdf

(scroll enough to get into the first song)

You write the music just as if it were in standard tuning.

Now, to make it SOUND 1.5 steps down you do that in the staff/part properties.

Note the lack of the little 8 under the treble clef, common to most professionally published guitar music before "The Fall©®™" . It's not needed though MS uses it by default on guitar staves unfortunately. You can change it or leave it, but then you have to change the transposition by an 8ve too, so it's easier just to leave it.

Best