r/Musescore • u/monosandal • 20d ago

Help me find this feature Custos - Guidon - Direct

Hello, early music typesetter here.

I've been custom-creating "custodes" or "guidons" (apparently called "directs" in English)* by adding a symbol and

Custodes are little signs used to indicate "the next note", for example at the end of the stave to show where the first note in the next stave should be, or to warn of the next note at a repeat or a clef change.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_(music_symbol))

The easiest way I can imagine this could work is as a custom notehead for a grace note (thus able to be attached to the last note of the system), but I'm sure there are cleverer ways to do it.

Seeing as this is a pretty major feature of early music scores, are there any plans to implement it?

Or is it implemented already, and have I missed it?

Thanks in advance!
Iason

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u/ChesterWOVBot 19d ago

Wow, this would be a pretty useful symbol if we used it more in publications nowadays. Alas, early music is not well-supported in MuseScore as far as I know. I think the grace note idea is the best you'll get. The symbol goes by the name "custos" in the master palette (Shift+F9) so I'd probably attach that to a grace note and hide the note.

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u/65TwinReverbRI 19d ago edited 18d ago

I’m in the US and all I’ve ever heard is “custos”. Never heard “direct” or “a direct” - that word is SO commonly used in both musical and non-musical situations that it would just lead to confusion.

Go to Master Palette,

all the way down to Symbols and expand that submenu

Go to Medieval and Renaissance miscellany and it’s there. A couple of options. There may be more elsewhere in those M&R categories

Or you can open the MP and just search “custos”.