One of the musical projects I’m working on this week is preparing some flute and clarinet parts for songs that will be used at the service we are both playing for at St Theo’s, Rushey Mead, this Sunday. My friend Roger, who is leading the music, is able to send me MuseScore files of the tunes (with lyrics and chords) but I then load them up in MuseScore and work out parts for Jane.

The thought struck me that it would be useful to be able to listen to a vertical slice of harmony and hear both the tune and my proposed harmony at the same time for any given point in the song. I did some searching and it turns out that (a) I’m not the first person to think of this and (b) it still isn’t available despite having been raised several times over the past decade.

However, I did find an eminently useful suggestion. MuseScore makes it easy to adjust the playback speed and, if you drop it low enough, that makes it much easier to listen to what is going on before the next notes come along. That was perfect for my needs and possibly even better than what I had originally wanted. Anyway, one song is now done and I’ve got another four to get cracking on with tomorrow… as slowly as I need.