Both hands shown on single staff

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creynders
Posts: 2

Post by creynders »

I'm guessing something changed in the latest version for how music notes are rendered when both staves use the same clef?

E.g. if we look at the first of Czerny's exercices, it uses a treble clef for both hands: (engraved in musescore)
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133221-Practical Exercises For Beginners, Op.599 – Carl Czerny Sheet music for Piano (S.png
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133221-Practical Exercises For Beginners, Op.599 – Carl Czerny Sheet music for Piano (S.png (21.29 KiB) Viewed 1615 times
When exported to midi it uses 2 different tracks:
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133447-MidiEditor - C__Users_reyndeca_Google Drive_documents_music_scores_synthesia_my .png
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133447-MidiEditor - C__Users_reyndeca_Google Drive_documents_music_scores_synthesia_my .png (29.91 KiB) Viewed 1615 times
However in Synthesia they're rendered into a single staff:
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133550-Erster_Lehrmeister_Op._599-nr01 - Synthesia 10.8.5686.png
Screenshot 2021-11-28 133550-Erster_Lehrmeister_Op._599-nr01 - Synthesia 10.8.5686.png (13.28 KiB) Viewed 1615 times
This is not a problem if you show the falling notes, but when you don't it's REALLY very confusing. I used synthesia to practice sight reading, which I'm horrible at, but now with the new change that's not possible anymore.

Would it be possible to add an option in settings or something to allow for rendering the hands in 2 separate staves even when they use the same clefs?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, I don't believe there has been any change. (That has always looked completely broken in Synthesia.) The closest thing I can imagine is that the app used to only generate sheet music for the selected hand, but now always shows sheet music for both hands. (You can work around this by changing one of the hands to "Background". See step #4.)

The real answer is coming with full MusicXML support. Synthesia 10.8 can load them now, but none of the additional musical information contained within is being used yet. Synthesia 11 is all about using that new information to the fullest to solve these sorts of problems once and for all. And correct staff selection is probably the most popular and longest-standing request that will be fixed by MusicXML support.
creynders
Posts: 2

Post by creynders »

Ah yes, I suppose that's right, that it used to generate sheet music only for the selected hand. Thanks for your answer!
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Nicholas wrote: 12-02-21 2:13 pm The real answer is coming with full MusicXML support. Synthesia 10.8 can load them now, but none of the additional musical information contained within is being used yet. Synthesia 11 is all about using that new information to the fullest to solve these sorts of problems once and for all. And correct staff selection is probably the most popular and longest-standing request that will be fixed by MusicXML support.
Yes and no, looking into my crystal ball. Yes, MusicXML will be an answer. But my guess is that the overwhelming majority of your users will not be using MusicXML files and correct staff selection will remain the most popular request.

How hard would it be to add an option (or maybe not even make it an option) to display RH and LH on separate staves when there is hand splitting information present? Splitting hands for a MIDI file in Synthesia is vastly easier than converting a MIDI file to MusicXML and cleaning it up to display readable sheet music.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

jimhenry wrote: 12-05-21 9:53 amHow hard would it be to add an option (or maybe not even make it an option) to display RH and LH on separate staves when there is hand splitting information present?
It's more than zero effort, so it'll have to be scheduled and added the same as any other task. I agree it will remain a popular request (despite the MusicXML workaround) and is a feature that should exist.

My guess is that the "free" MusicXML version of separate staffs will make it into version 11.0. The more-effort MIDI version of the feature will probably end up somewhere in Synthesia 11.x.
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