MuseScore

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MuseScore is a free software music notation editor with playback. Its built-in capabilities are already somewhat friendly to xenharmonic music (it supports many accidental shapes natively, and the tuning of any note can be changed for playback), and it can be made an even more powerful tool with plugins.

Plugins

The following plugins only affect the playback of the piece - they don't do anything to the appearance of the score. Generally they have a "retune" button that retunes all or part of the piece to pitches computed from the score (so they do not work in real time - you have to retune again after any changes).

  • Fifths-based tuning by John Moriarty - as the name implies, you set the size of your "fifth" and then it auto-tunes your score based on that. Uses the MuseScore Tonal Pitch Class (tpc) enum, so it only supports the four "standard" accidentals: flat, sharp, double-flat, and double-sharp (x). Does not allow octave stretch - octaves are always 2/1.
  • Porcupine tunings by John Moriarty - you set the size of the porcupine generator, and then it auto-tunes your score based on that. The natural notes are tuned to porcupine[7]. The sharp and flat modify pitches by the chroma from that 7-note MOS scale. Same implementation as Fifths-based tuning above.
  • Accidental Tuner by Gilbert Yammine - lets you define the amount by which any given accidental modifies a pitch, then you can retune all or part of the score automatically based on that. The seven naturals cannot be retuned.
  • Microtonal plugin for Musescore 3.4+ (deprecated) by euwbah et al. - Retune + Transpose in almost any EDO. Supports microtonal accidentals in alternative symbols for ups and downs notation.
  • Xen Tuner: Microtonal MuseScore Plugin Suite by euwbah et al. - Successor to euwbah's Microtonal plugin for Musescore 3.4+. A MuseScore 3.6 plugin to give first-class support for microtonal/alternative notation systems. Uses external text files to store tuning information, which are imported via the plugin using system or staff text elements.
  • Micromodulator by Hachem-H - (4.x compatible) MicroModulator is a plugin that allows the use of microtones. It efficiently adjusts the pitch of each note based on its accidental.
  • 11EDO Orgone[7] Tuning by Alexandru Ianu - (4.x compatible) retunes to 11edo using naturals based on the 4L 3s smitonic scale (Orgone temperament), which is compatible with a standard piano layout for a retuned physical instrument.
  • 27ED4 Nelindic by Alexandru Ianu - (4.x compatible) retunes to 27ed4 using naturals based on the 6L 1s nelindic scale. Properly scales with tetrave equivalence.
  • 19 TET Tuning by AVgLink - retunes to 19edo using standard circle of fifths notation.
  • Quarter Tone (24 TET) Tuning by AvgLink - retunes to 24edo using quartertone accidentals.
  • Xentuner by Keenan Pepper attempts to address the shortcomings of (a) Accidental Tuner which doesn't allow naturals to be retuned, and (b) plugins such as "Fifths-based tuning" that allow retuning naturals but don't make use of the nice palette of accidental symbols. Works by creating a JSON file saying what the naturals should be, and how much each accidental should modify the pitch. GUI to come later...

External links