Renaissance French lute tablature for 7 course lute

• May 30, 2020 - 16:37

I have just fond musescore and would like to find a way of using this to write lute tablature in the French style. Is this possible?
Many thanks, Jeremy


Comments

Indeed, it is one of the proposed styles. The easiest way is to choose it in the creation wizard - image below. By default, the Lute (Tablature) is setted with the French style - and six courses. You get this: template.mscz

Then, of course, a standard staff can be associated to it, and the lute can be set with different numbers of courses.

lute.jpg

Yes - IMO Musescore does a very nice job. It takes a little while to set it up but you can then save it as a custom template for future use

I recommend starting the New Score Wizard. After inputting the title, etc (you can leave these blank for now), you'll be invited to choose a template file. Select 'General' and then 'Choose Instruments' from the drop-down list.

In the next dialog box click the 'Common' button to reveal more types of instruments and choose 'Early Music' , then 'Strings - plucked' and finally 'Lute tablature'. Then as shown by Cadiz1 above select '6-string French'. (You add the seventh string later.) Keep on through the wizard until you end up with a blank score.

Now, right-click in an empty bar and choose 'Stave/Part properties'. Here you can choose the number of strings and their pitches. Then click 'Advanced style properties' and choose your font and note value symbols - there are lots of options. You can also untick 'Show time signature' here. Slightly more 'authentic' time signatures can be found in the Master Palette (shortcut 'z') - scroll down to 'Symbols / Mediaeval and Renaissance Prolations'. If you like a barline at the start of each line go to 'Format/Style/Barlines' and tick the box "Barline at start of single stave".

You can also add a linked stave to show the music in staff notation as well. Lots of info on tablature in the Handbook here: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/tablature.

HTH. I'm currently using the lockdown to make Renaissance guitar scores, so this is quite fresh in my mind. :)

Edited.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.