31EDO Tuner

A Musescore plugin for tuning scores to 31EDO.

This is the version of the plugin for Musescore4. See here for the README of the Musescore3 version, or here for downloading the latest version compatible with Musescore3.

Features

This plugin can be used to tune the whole score, or only a portion of it, to 31EDO. It also provides functionalities for respelling notes enharmonically, or moving them up or down by one EDO step.

Accidentals

This plugin is compatible with the following notation systems:

• Circle of fifths notation, using double sharps and flats. In this system, a sharp or a flat indicates an alteration of 2 EDO steps, and a double sharp or a double flat an alteration of 4 EDO steps. For example, a chromatic scale between C and D would be written as:

• Neutral circle of fifths notation, using half and sesqui sharps and flats. In this system, a half sharp or a half flat indicates an alteration of 1 EDO step, and a sesqui sharp or a sesqui flat an alteration of 3 EDO steps. For example, a chromatic scale between C and D would be written as:

• Sagittal notation, using quarter tone and half tone arrows. In this system, a quarter tone arrow indicates an alteration of 1 EDO step, and a half tone arrow indicates an alteration of 2 EDO steps. For example, a chromatic scale between C and D would be written as:

These notation systems are not mutually exclusive, this plugin can correctly tune a score which uses a mixture of them.

Be sure to use the correct accidental, as there are several microtonal accidentals that look similar to each other, but not all of them are supported by this plugin. See here for a list of every supported accidental, and their name in Musescore Studio.

This plugin remembers which accidental is applied to any given note, and will automatically apply the correct tuning offset to the following notes within the same measure. This is also true for microtonal accidentals, for which this is usually not automatically done in Musescore Studio. A limitation of this is that the plugin only checks for accidentals for each voice individually, so if there are multiple voices with microtonal accidentals, it might be necessary to add an extra accidental for the first modified note in each voice. This extra accidental can be safely made invisible, as that won't affect the plugin, as in the following example:

Key Signatures

This plugin supports custom key signatures. If the custom key signatures only contain standard accidentals, no extra action is required other than inserting the custom key signature into the score.

If the key signature contains microtonal accidentals, then it is necessary to also add a text (System Text for a global key signature or Staff Text for a local key signature) to inform the plugin about the accidentals present in the key signature. This text has to be formatted as X.X.X.X.X.X.X, where X are the accidental applied to each note, arranged according to the circle of fifths: F.C.G.D.A.E.B. These accidentals are written using ASCII characters only in the following way:

Accidental	Text
	bb
	db
	b
	d
	t
	#
	t#
	x

If a note does not have an accidental in the custom key signature, you can leave the text for that note empty.

The text describing the custom key signature can be safely made invisible, as that won't affect the plugin, as in the following example:

Usage

If the score contains transposing instruments, ensure that the score is being displayed at concert pitch. If it's not, the notes of transposing instruments will not be tuned correctly. You can safely turn off concert pitch after running the plugin, as the tuning of the notes will not be affected.

See here for a known issue regarding transposing instruments.

Tuning

• If you want to tune only a portion of the score, select it before running the plugin. If nothing is selected, the entire score will be tuned.
• Launch the plugin: Plugins → Playback → 31EDO Tuner

Enharmonic Respelling / Pitch Up / Pitch Down

• Select the portion of the score you want to respell or pitch shift.
• Launch the corresponding plugin:
  • Respelling: Plugins → Playback → 31EDO Tuner Respell
  • Pitch Up: Plugins → Playback → 31EDO Tuner Pitch Up
  • Pitch Down: Plugins → Playback → 31EDO Tuner Pitch Down

Since these are actions that you'll probably do often when transcribing a piece in 31EDO, you might want to assign these plugins to a keyboard shortcut.

These actions are meant to be used to quickly write 31EDO pitches while writing a score, but can get quite slow if a large portion of the score is selected. To prevent Musescore from crashing, the plugins for respelling / pitch shifting notes will automatically stop after 20 notes.

Configure

By default the plugin will keep the tuning offset of the note A equal to zero, and tune every other note with respect to A. If you wish to set another note as the reference note, you can run the plugin Plugins → Playback → 31EDO Tuner Configure, which will let you set the desired reference note.

Installing

• Download the file 31edo_tuner_x.y.z.zip, where x.y.z is the version of the plugin. You can find the latest version here.
• Extract the folder 31edo_tuner and move it to Musescore's plugin folder.
• Follow the steps listed here to enable the plugin.