Guitar Notation

Hi David, feedback on the way the current tablature notation works in the MuseScore nightlies is very welcome. As the lead developer Werner Schweer is no guitar player, nor does he use tablature software, I'm sure he can use good feedback, suggestions and references to improve things.

Hello David,

I wrote most of the current code for tabulatures (no intention to step on Werner's feet, of course!). The background I have is mostly with historic tabulatures (for lute and viol); I have little to no experience about modern tabulatures.

I know the current implementation is incomplete and I would be very glad of suggestions and examples.

However, the trunk code just underwent major re-factoring and has been highly unstable for a few months. This is why I suspended working on the tabulatures, waiting for it to 'recover' (which is starting to happen now). I plan to resume it shortly.

So, any help will be VERY welcome, with 2 caveats:

1) I firstly have to go back and review if and how the global re-factoring affected the tabulature part; until this is done, the time you will spend risks to be wasted.
2) the internal working of tabulatures is to some extent separate from the 'regular' musical notation and I deal only with them; so, specific guitar aspects of 'regular' notation is not my department...

Thanks indeed,

M.

Hi, just tried out MuseScore and specifically the r4620 nightly because of the guitar tabulature. I'm not a professional as David is, but I've done a lot of guitar tabulatures for private use.

First off, I don't know if this is the right place to put, but the save/load function for editing staff types is greyed out and does not work. So at the moment it is not possible to turn off the stems of a note in the tabulature. This is probably just disabled in the current nightly and not intended. If needs be I can send in a bug description, though.

My main point however, would be that tabulature editing should be more string-centered. At least I, as a guitarist, often think more of where my fingers should be instead of which note (in which octave) I am playing. At least if I want to create a tabulature. Right now tabulature-creation in the nightly is note-centered (for lack of a real word). If I press 'e' on the (qwerty) keyboard it inputs that 'e' in which octave it is, irregardless of which string I have selected with the cursor. e.g. if I have selected the A-string of the guitar and input an 'e' it will create an open-string note on the low E-string. So the system prefers the internal octave over which string I have selected. In my opinion the system should be more string-centered, so that if I select a string and press a note on the (qwerty) keyboard it creates the lowest possible note on that string. E.g. if I have selected the A-string and input an 'e' it should create a note on the 7th fret on the A-string.

There is a second input-method that could be implemented, but which will probably be hard to program. If I select a string and input a number it creates the note on the corresponding fret. E.g. if I have selected the A-string and press '7' it would input the note on the 7th fret, which is an e. This would be nigh-perferct as it would be very intuitive to use. But I doubt it is possible, since inputing numbers already determines note length.

That being said, I really enjoy the intuitive way of how MuseScore works, especially the drag-and-drop feature. Time and again I am impressed of the high standard that free software has these days and MuseScore is certainly one of them. A big thank you to everybody involved.

Miwarre,
I posted a topic in the "Features" forum suggesting that the current way of handling Tab isn't very "friendly". I did this as I read somewhere (I think) that V2 may only be a couple of months away and I thought it would be a mistake to go live with the current method.

You may recall that we had some discussion via email at the turn of the year about how MS could handle guitar tab. Do you still have that correspondence? If not would you like me to resurrect it here to stimulate some discussion?

Steve

I Just had a thought on the problem of entering numbers to indicate frets in Tab entry mode conflicting with the existing use of numbers to select note value in note entry mode.....................

Currently, one way of entering note entry mode is to hit "N". Would it make it easier to program round this problem if you had to hit "T" to enter tab entry mode? Then the program would know what the numbers represent because it would know the currently selected entry mode. I realise it's an extra keystroke but I doubt that people would want to switch between modes very often

This still leaves the problem of how you tell the program which string to use. Following this logic you could use "S" (for String) but maybe that's getting a bit cumbersome

Aloha from sunny Northern Ireland!

I'm a tabber "hobbyist" with many transcriptions on various tab sites. I have a great deal of experience with guitar tab software, especially Guitar Pro. I started using tab software in around 1999 and have been ever since. Despite how comfortable I am with using and creating tablature I have never been able to get to grips with the tab systems offered by the likes of Sibelius or Finale. The tab system is always extremely (I don't use that word lightly) convoluted and time-consuming. I've just finished having a play around with the latest nightly build of Musescore and I've found it to have the same basic but significant problem with regards to its note entry function for tablature.

The great thing about tab from a transcriber's perspective is that it's all numbers (and the great thing about numbers is that our keyboards are equipped with dedicated buttons for each of them). Guitar Pro, and all other guitar tab applications, take advantage of this by allowing the user to navigate to a string with either the mouse or the cursor keys and to then simply type the fret number he/she desires directly onto the string (if it's a double-digit fret number you just type each digit in quick succession). For a tabber to be using both the mouse and the keyboard to cycle through the fret numbers - and to do so for every note - is like pulling teeth.

When I use Guitar Pro I have one hand on the NUMPAD and the other hand on the cursor keys, only using the mouse to add articulations which aren't bound to keyboard shortcuts. This is the fastest way I've been able to tab over the years and it's so intuitive that it took virtually no practice to get the hang of it.

Here's a diagram showing the functions of the NUMPAD in Guitar Pro:

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1893/numpad.png

To have this (or something similarly intuitive) available to us in Musescore would be beyond awesome.

Given that this is an open source project I think it might be worth checking out another open source project for ideas - TuxGuitar. It's a tablature editor with much of the same functionality as Guitar Pro (in fact it supports Guitar Pro's file format). Perhaps the code used for the note entry system can be a source of inspiration.

I'm not a programmer so I hope I don't sound like a dumbo haha.

Cheers,
Paddy.

You need to create a new "TAB mode", where you

- select a string and start typing numbers
- Right arrow key advances to the next note
- Left arrow key previous note
- Up arrow, up a string (in pitch e.g. 6 string to 5 string)
- Down arrow, down a string (in pitch e.g. 4 string to 5 string)

This is the method GuitarPro and Sibelius use.

If MuseScore adopts this method, not only is TAB entry SUPER EASY, MuseScore would be contributing to a standard for TAB entry.

This method is easily the best comparing all notation programs.

MuseScore in it's current for is not realistically useable for TAB input.

This would also be a nice feature to add

I would like to know if there is a way (or will be a way) to drop tune guitars.