Strumming acoustic guitar
Anyone knows how to simulate strumming the guitar.(upstroke-downstroke playable)
If you could develop a plugin would be interesting.
Thanks
Mario
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Comments
Use arpeggios
Yes arpeggios should already work out of the box. See https://musescore.org/en/node/35986
In reply to Yes arpeggios should already by [DELETED] 5
Rhythmic slash notation with chord symbol playback would be nice here though
In reply to Rhythmic slash notation with by Jojo-Schmitz
could you explain better your suggestion?
thanks
In reply to could you explain better your by dalo
It's unrelated as far as I can tell. I think he is suggesting it might be nice to be able to notation like this playback:
See https://musescore.org/en/node/42631#toggle-rhythmic-slash-notation
It's an intereresting proiblem in artificial intelligence to do this well, since there is no direct universally-agreed-upon mapping from chord symbol to voicing. Details differ according to instrument as well as style. Other programs like Impro-Visor specialize in this sort of thing.
In reply to It's unrelated as far as I by Marc Sabatella
Exactly what I meant
As far as I can tell the voicing of chords IA pretty straightforward, except maybe which octave the notes are in, and like in the. Are of guitar whether some notes are doubled in another octave, like E major having both e strings open
In reply to Exactly what I meant As far by Jojo-Schmitz
Voicing of chords is not really straightforward at all. There are dozens of ways any given chord could possibly be played, and the specifics will be different for guitar versus piano versus banjo versus mandolin etc. You might be thinking of the basic voicings beginning guitar players learn for simple major and triads, but those aren't how professionals would necessarily be likely to play those chords - even on guitar with standard tuning, to say nothing of the other instruments - and those voicings are only appropriate for music that is entirely based on those simple major and minor triads anyhow.
In reply to Voicing of chords is not by Marc Sabatella
And those wouldn't want strumming to playback... Not from chord symbols at least, but rather from arpeggiated spelled out notes
In reply to And those wouldn't want by Jojo-Schmitz
Maybe we're not talking about the same thing, but what i am tlaking baout is definitely strummed. I meant, finger picking exists too, and would need to be spelled out, but there are dozens of ways of strumming any single chord - and that's *only* considering six stirng guitar with standard tuning. Toss in all the other variables I mentioned, and it's a very difficult problem in artificial intelligence to figure out an appropriate way of voicing any given chord for any particular context. And much more so than for, say, playback of ornaments, selecting an *inappropriate* voicing would be worse than nothing.
In reply to Maybe we're not talking about by Marc Sabatella
Boys
My intention is to simulate for example the acoustic strumming realguitar of musiclab
In reply to Maybe we're not talking about by Marc Sabatella
Could be solved with playback of fretboard diagrams, maybe?
Thanks to all.
As soon as possible i try your suggestions.
In reply to Thanks to all. As soon as by dalo
I am preparing to experiment with producing strums. Are strums already worked out for stringed instruments?
If not, then, yes, using arpeggios seems like the correct approach, as someone has said - but a strum is slightly different. All of the notes are hit with one percussion, and all are allowed to ring after they are struck and while the next successive notes are struck.
I expect that I will need to release the pedal to notate this in piano. How is this achieved in notation? Also, I may need to accelerate the tempo by a multiple of 2 or 4. Can I use two staves, one at 100 and the other at 200 or 400? And how fast or slow can the tempo be set for?
In reply to I am preparing to experiment by Joe H
Chords are played at a single time (like a piano). Arpeggios are too slow to sound like a guitar. As i'm sure everyone knows, a guitar strum is slightly offset from a chord and not as slow as an arpeggio.
As far a multiple tempos are concerned, you can't do that simultaneously.
If you want to fix the sound of the strum of a guitar on several notes you will need to use the pianoroll editor, but doing this in anything but a short song will become time consuming, but I suppose that after you do it a few times it will become easier.
I think it would be good if something like the arrows were made to sound like a guitar strum rather than an arpeggio, or possibly allow the user to adjust the speed of arpeggios in general. You could then put in arpeggio symbols and make them invisible.
In reply to Chords are played at a single by mike320
Much of what is played on guitars and banjoes is strummed, rather than plucked.
A vertial up or down arrow indicates a strum. A rasgueado is a squigly up or down arrow.
Otherwise, it has to be done as an open pedal arpeggio in a multiple time sig (like 200/100) - to achieve rapidity.
In reply to Much of what is played on by Joe H
My point in adjusting the arpeggio (or rasgueado) speed was to help emulate the actual sound of a plucked instrument being played, which is not the same as a chord being played on a piano. If you could adjust the speed of the arpeggio, you could then save the altered symbol into a custom "Guitar" palette and apply it to each note to make the playback sound better. You don't normally see rasgueados on every chord in a guitar piece but you hear them, that is why I would want to make them invisible. When you put them in the custom palette, if they are invisible, they will be applied as invisible from the palette. BTW ragueados are in the arpeggio and glissando palette if you did not realize it. They just sound like arpeggios.
The speed option for the arpeggios would not be compatible with previous 2.0.x versions, so this could not be implemented before 3.0.
In reply to My point in adjusting the by mike320
I wouldn't classify a guitar as a plucked instrument. Only in the classical repetoire is plucking common for guitar. Folk and Pop guitar, banjo and mandolin uses strumming with the thumb or fingertips in either up or down strokes, and plucking with the thumb, or plucking with the thumb and three fingers, or the rest stroke used downward on one string, or the rasguead. These are only a few playing techniques. There's also bashing your instrument into the amplifier - but I don't expect MS to cover that. "MS people - I want to play my banjo with my tonsils!"
But, as always - MS is not for playback. MS can correctly notate all of what is noramally read from sheet music. I expect to have to do some heavy lifting to get it to sound how I prefer.
In reply to I wouldn't classify a guitar by Joe H
terminology....plucked, strummed, I realize they are different techniques. I think I've seen some scores on MuseScore.com where the user made it sound like they were hitting their guitar against the amplifier, but I don't think that was really their intent :D
In reply to I am preparing to experiment by Joe H
I am preparing to experiment with producing strums.
As already mentioned, arpeggios are slower than strums. However, you can apply the argeggio to a 'quicker note' (i.e. short duration) so that the arpeggio is played faster. Then tie that arpeggiated chord so it rings after it is struck.
For an example, play the attachment.
Regards.
In reply to I am preparing to experiment by Jm6stringer
A strum. Strums are just too important to ancient Folk music and to Pop music of the 20th Century to not get it figured out. Let there be strums!
Here is my first attempt on ukulele. I accelrated the tempo by a multiple of the fundamental tempo (80/800.) What is the tempo limit, the fastest tempo we can achieve? The next thing to do is to score these notes for four separate voices and see what that sounds like. An argpeggio performed with the legato pedal depressed allows for the notes to continue ringing. We don't want any successive notes to dampen a previously struck note. So we can use the legato pedal or we can voice the notes. Whatever you choose.
We need to know how high we can score a multiple. Anyone know what the limit to the Tempo rate is?
In reply to A strum. Strums are just too by Joe H
in musescore, possible: 5-999
In reply to A strum. Strums are just too by Joe H
Compare strumming solutions using ties... play attachment.
Regards.
In reply to Compare strumming solutions by Jm6stringer
Tempo change isn't necessary ...
See attachment...
In reply to Tempo change isn't necessary by Ziya Mete Demircan
That's an idea, however what I did in my experiments did not achieve a true strum effect. So, though you accurately transposed my notation to other values, we still have something that sounds like a quick arpeggio. Arpeggio is going to be neccessary in figuring strums, but we don't have the acceleration that we need without change of tempo.
At the end of the score, I take your work and accelerate it to 500 bpm, and now we have what is closer to a true strum. But we are not quite there because of other issues. Thanks though. We've accomplished something together.
In reply to That's an idea, however what by Joe H
Last try :)
with 128th's.
and added "let ring" effect, with pedal line.
In reply to A strum. Strums are just too by Joe H
Unless the tempo really is that fast, you should use a tempo that fast in score. If the goal is just to get fast strumming, simply notate it fast - using 64th notes or whatever instead of quarters, or using the tremolo marking, or whatever. Tempo is number of *beats* per minute, it has nothing to do with speed of number of *notes* per minute. You can have a slow *temp0* but fast *notes*, that's what things like 64th notes or tremolo markings are for.
In reply to Unless the tempo really is by Marc Sabatella
I'm looking for something that sounds like a strum and we have found that by accelerating the tempo. Otherwise, all we achieve is a fast arpeggio. A strum is not just a fast arpeggio, although that is how we had to begin. There are other qualities I am searhing for. But each one of these efforts has led us further on.
In reply to I'm looking for something by Joe H
Again, no need to lie about the tempol that is not correct notation nor is it necessary to get the playback effect. Four quarter notes at 800 PM sound exactly the same as four sixty-fourth notes at 50 BPM. So unless the tempo really is 800 BPM, you should not be notating it that way.
Actually, though, you shouldn't be notating using 64th's either. It should be just simply chords with an appropriate strum symbol. if the playback effect for the strum symbol is not currently to your liking, it's worth filing a feature request to improve that, maybe by providing Inspector controls over the strum speed.
In reply to Again, no need to lie about by Marc Sabatella
Marc - You might want to look at the attachment in the post below. If you can notate the strum, please demonstrate it for us. So far we have only come close to a strum by accelerating the tempo. That is after using the smallest note values available.
If you would like to talk about the physics of a strum, that will be good entry into this discussion. Have you ever strummed an instrument?
In reply to Marc - You might want to look by Joe H
I don't understand the question. What do you perceive the problem to be with the posted file? The version with the 64th notes gives the sound of a strum pretty well already it seems to me, although I guess maybe you want to hear it faster? You could always go to 128th notes then.
In any case, though, that is not the usual way to *notate* a strum. Usually one would simply notate the chord normally and attach a symbol. So as I said, if you want to improve the playback effect, you should be focusing on making a feature request to make the strum symbols playback more like you want (eg, with speed controls in the Inspector). That way it can be notated *and* played back correctly, with no crazy workarounds needed like using 128th notes notes or tempos of hundreds of beats per minute.
Also not sure what you mean about "physics of a strum", but sure, I know how to strum a guitar, ukulele, etc.
In reply to I don't understand the by Marc Sabatella
Please look at the opening post.
Opener said, "Could we imitate strum?", "Maybe a plugin can be written" (posted by: "dalo".)
Then we came here. :D
And yes; Strum is much faster than Arpeggio.
It seems to be a good value with 128th (and higher values).
As you know: Strum (or Stroke) marks are at the top of the notation. It will not be on the left side of the note, like arpeggio. (generally used with up-Bow and down-Bow symbols.)
We did a kind of research. (With the possibilities available...)
And yes again, Slow strums is possible also. But imitating is very easy.
Maybe somebody will use this research and contribute to Musescore's guitar part or write a plugin.
That's good. However, that is only one strum. I have heard strumming that is much faster than that. I've accelerated your work to 400 bpm. 500 bpm is getting comical, but that's the great thing about digital - you can push beyond what is humanly possible in the analog world.
In reply to That's good. However, that is by Joe H
So...
Basically we've seen two ways to speed up an arppegio to make it sound like a strum:
1. Use tempo markings as you have... but, in reality, when a player (guitar, banjo, etc.) is strumming, he keeps beat with the normal rhythm and tempo and does not rely on additional written tempo changes to execute strums. (I do realize you merely used this method to get an arpeggio to sound like a strum for playback purposes.)
2. Make the arpeggiated chord of a smaller duration, then tie it so that it plays for the full value. Above, Ziya Mete Demircan has attached examples of using various note durations for arpeggios. Doing it this way, speeds up the arpeggio's execution, but keeps the score's assigned tempo intact. (I think a 16th note arpeggiated chord sounds good enough.)
See attachment - (hope you are using the default MuseScore soundfont).
You wrote: There are other qualities I am searhing for.
What do you mean? As Marc suggests, would not Inspector controls over the arpeggio speed facilitate 'strum' playback?
Regards.
Dalo said: "My intention is to simulate for example the acoustic strumming realguitar of musiclab"
I just wanted to explore the topic, knowing that everyone will have some partial knowledge and experience and maybe some things will add up to something. Of course, I know that different beat lengths can be used to represent the same movement in time. I sometimes notate something in 4/4 and then find another file that I did of the same thing in 2/4 and they sound the same. Incidentally, that is good for you to bring up because if the arranger feels it needful to accelerate the tempo to achieve a desired strum, they would then have to renotate their melody.
Jm6stringer - You posted a score of Yankee Doodle. I suggest that you take what was done so far and see how it can apply to your score. Do you want slow strums? You say: "I think a 16th note arpeggiated chord sounds good enough." I think so too, for Dalo's purposes. I am thinking of notating a Beatles song like Helter Skelter and getting it right. I'm thinking of thrash metal - Led Zeppelin, Ramones. And what is beyond that, which can only be gotten with digital.
Yes, my purpose was just to begin with what a beginner would know - so I notated a four quarter note arpeggio. The obvious next step was to notate it with the shortest note values. But I was busy and figured that I would leave that for someone else, especially since I did not think that it would give me what I was looking for. Maybe 128th would work. If not, maybe we need 256ths or 512ths? My purpose was to begin with an arpeggio and develop strums and compare how it could be done.
Let's not overlook that there are already strums available in Electric Guitar - and I think that they might be much faster than even what I have produced. However they are uniform throughout. I want more control - I want to be able to design my strums. And if the Inspector is an avenue for that, then I must inspect the Inspector. :)
Jm6stringer - I think we can do better than that. Take a listen to the Electric Guitar. Notice that the notes are not sounding simultaneously. This guitar is being treated as a "plectrum instrument" which I think is an erroneously position. The synthesized violin need not be a "bowed instrument." What if I want to bow an electric guitar and strum a violin? Likewise, with all other instruments. that's a somewhat related issue.
I realize that MS was founded by "serious musicians" and the intent was to transcribe all of the great Classical music in the public domain. One day that will be accomplished - and then we will go on to new vista. I'm doing this for all of the kids out there who want to strum on their cello, and bow their bagpipes. For all of the high school jocks who are getting by with only a little air guitar to sound out their compositions in their imaginations. Poor kids. Douglas MacArthur would be rolling in his grave.
Oops. Here is an attachment with a few measures of electric guitar. I include it only as a reference and standard. I think that for Yankee Doodle, we don't want that speed of strumming. But it would be interesting to talk to whoever designed that strum and find out what went into it. I see that this guitar is categorized as a "Plucked Instrument." Yet all chords are strummed (not plucked) quickly. And how quickly?
In reply to Dalo said: "My intention is by Joe H
For the record, MuseScore is not just for classical music. But it *is* primarily for notation; playback is very much secondary. You can already *notate* strums just fine, there is just some quibbling over how the playback works. And as far as I can tell could be improved very simply by adding an Inspector control. No need to invent experimental notation systems that would be unreadable anyhow just to improve the playback when there is such an easier way.
In reply to For the record, MuseScore is by Marc Sabatella
If we think separately from "arpeggio".
In later versions, can the "up-Bow" and "down-Bow" symbols be added for guitar and other strummed instruments? And as a result, a fast chord-arpeggio (maybe 256th, 1024th)
In reply to "in inspector control" If we by Ziya Mete Demircan
Anything is possible if someone submits a formal feature request and cites examples from published music showing how the symbol is typical used and interpreted.
In reply to Dalo said: "My intention is by Joe H
Let's not overlook that there are already strums available in Electric Guitar - and I think that they might be much faster than even what I have produced.
...Are you using the default FluidR3Mono_GM.sf3 soundfont? Does the electric guitar sound used in your mixer show "Clean Guitar' as I see it? (I don't know of any *available* strums in Electric Guitar.)
Take a listen to the Electric Guitar. Notice that the notes are not sounding simultaneously.
...This might be a matter of sound perception (psycoacoustics) - specifically auditory masking. More info. here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking
But it would be interesting to talk to whoever designed that strum and find out what went into it. I see that this guitar is categorized as a "Plucked Instrument." Yet all chords are strummed (not plucked) quickly.
...Again, what soundfont and what guitar/mixer sound are you listening to?
Regarding the points above, I have attached the following .mscz file using the first few measures of your 'electric_guitar_strum.mscz' score where I have used the piano roll editor to show that the chordal tones are all struck at the same time - not strummed.
electric_guitar_strum.piano roll.mscz
Please have a listen; and look at the piano roll images. You can open the piano roll editor yourself to verify the 'On Times'.
Getting back to sound perception...
Most anyone who has tuned a stringed instrument (guitar, piano, etc.) has listened to 'beats' as an aid in tuning a unison. Well that's because two notes very close in frequency are perceived as a single sound with fluctuating volume (beats). A perfect unison exhibits no beats. Eventually, if the components are different enough in frequency, they are coded independently on the auditory nerve (which transmits sound information to the brain) and so perceived as two sounds instead of one.
Now, imagine hearing a chord comprised of different pitches. The cilia in the ear (responding to different frequencies) are going nuts trying to assimilate all the info. to send to the brain, so not surprising that some auditory info may be perceived as occuring at discrete time intervals when, in fact, they were all generated by the playback engine at the exact same time. The human ear and acoustic perception both display some idiosyncrasies (in fact, it's a basis for mp3 compression).
So... You can press the software's limits - i.e specify strum techniques and tempos down to the microsecond - but to what end? Human perception has its limitations.
Regards.
OOPS! ...Almost forgot...
What if I want to bow an electric guitar and strum a violin?
...A new soundfont would be required - comprised of samples of those very sounds.
In reply to Let's not overlook that there by Jm6stringer
Well that's because two notes very close in frequency are perceived as a single sound with fluctuating volume (beats)
Interesting analysis. I know about the beats caused by slight discrepencies in frequencies, but didn't have any in-depth info on that.
Neither did I know about soundfont choices.
Right-O. I'm just investigating the question in the OP, as I'm very interested in pushing MS to the limits and seeing what effects I can get in playback.
OP says: Anyone knows how to simulate strumming the guitar?
In reply to Right-O. I'm just by Joe H
Probably the best way to get a correctly-notated score to playback better in this respect from within MuseScore is to right click the measure and use the Pianoroll Editor to change the "on time" for the notes. You can make it as fast as you like that way. But it's pretty labor intensive. Probably better to export the MIDI file and then process it in a sequencer that is more geared for that type of manipulation.
In principle, a plugin *could* automate this, but I'm not sure the on time offsets are accessible via plugin.
You know, there's nothing at all odd about using a 500 bpm tempo, if it gets the desired strum that I am looking for. And since we know that we can always revalue the other parts of the score, I can revalue the melody, even if that means rewriting a 1/4 note to a whole note and a whole note to two double whole notes. The rules of revaluation work both ways.
And I assume that 500 bpm is there to be utilized. So don't be amazed if I push MS to the limits at times - just to see how it works.
In reply to You know, there's nothing at by Joe H
JYes, 500 BPOM is there to be utilized - if that is *actually* the tempo of your piece, and you actually expect human musicians to read it that way and play it that way. Always keep in mind, MuseScore is primarily intended to be a tool to produce *notated nscores*, for human musicians to read. The results of what you propose are *not* going to be what musicians will want to or even necessarily be capable of reading. That is why this sort of "solution" is not recommend - it might happen to produce the playback effect you want, but it will produce unplayable scores. Better to find a way to get actual scores notated correctly to also play back as desired. But if this serves your needs for now, that's great.
In reply to JYes, 500 BPOM is there to be by Marc Sabatella
I'm using this for effect. We can do anything at that stage. things like this can be explained to musicians in the studio, if nessesary.
I know we have been told since the beginning that Musescore is intended as a notation tool, with playback being "very much secondary". But more and more it seems users are looking to have their scores sound and look as they imagine.
In my understanding, this issue is tied to more to the midi timing of a note event than to its notation. In the old (old) days on my Atari using Notator, it was common practice to advance or delay the 'note on' command by a number of "ticks". (I believe that 1/768 was the standard resolution, though you could double that to 1/1536 if desired) This was very helpful for combining instruments with slow or fast attacks.
With this function, it was possible to notate a single block chord, but by adjusting the attack of individual notes, you could have it sound as a strummed chord. (up or down, depending on how you ordered the delay) I would generally put strummed notes (or trills as well) on a hidden track so that they would not clutter up the score display.
The Atari was greatly limited by its low memory and inability to easily swap memory items, but it had the benefit of the outstanding Motorola midi timing. The above operations were very time consuming, but once you created a single up or down strum, you could copy it to any chord voicing you desired.
On a (slightly) related topic, a standard function of Notator was the ability to 'humanize' both the timing and volume of notes so that the playback had a much more authentic feel. An added benefit of this was that for playback of larger orchestral scores, the 'note on' midi triggers were somewhat staggered so that instead of 20 or more notes occurring on tick 1, the notes were spread out a bit, placing less stress on the CPU.
Now, if anyone is still listening, I would propose the following tool: (plugin, algorithm, gadget or whatever you want to call it)
Create a function, possibly tied to the up/down stroke notation symbol, which maps the 'note on' command of a group of notes to a pre-set or user-defined delay sequence.
For example, with the guitar chord C, the low open E would be at position 0. C would be +2 (or more) ticks later, E +2 more, G +2, C +2, and high E +2. Reverse the order for an up-strum. This would create a fairly authentic strum sound. Choose your own voicing, notate it as a block chord, and simply select up or down strum and there you have it.
Note: I know Marc is sick of me mentioning Notator every time I post, but after all these years, I am still amazed at how much functionality they managed to put on a single 720k floppy disk.
Cheers,
Tom
In reply to I know we have been told by toffle
As a former Notator user and fan, I never tired of being reminded of it :-)
It would in principle be easy enough to design a playback implementation that could be attached to the up.down stroke (or whatever other symbol you wanted) and could be applied automatically. It's not a bad idea at all. It's that pesky priority thing again though :-). So what it would take is for someone with the necessary C++ skills to find it fits in with their own personal priorities. I would be pretty confident a PR implementing such a feature would be merged, assuming it was done well. Frankly, it could probably be done in 100 lines of code or less...
In reply to As a former Notator user and by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc. Though I no longer have a working Atari, I still reference the Notator manual regularly to refresh myself as to how simply some things can be done. As you say, a function like this could easily be accomplished with less than 100 lines of code.
Cheers,
Tom
In reply to As a former Notator user and by Marc Sabatella
It would be even simpler iff:
- the plugin API had proper documentation
- the functions/properties available wouldn't be so, hmm, "highly selective"
I've yet to find out after which system props/methods are exported.
Just during the last week I had three situations where I needed to script things but couldn't
because the neccessary functionality was missing (at least according to the help/manual
available in the plugin creator).
@dalo... (and any others interested)
Your forum page has been linked to by someone six years into the future from when you first posted. ;-)
See:
https://musescore.org/en/node/323518#comment-1090604
which points to a reply I made here on your page
https://musescore.org/en/node/59726#comment-691601
where I attached an example score which uses an arpeggio to sound like a strum.
Well, that example is outdated because MuseScore now has an arpeggio stretch property that can be adjusted in the Inspector.
Used together with the up/down arpeggio symbols found in the palettes, this eliminates the struggles endured by the people responding here for 2 years after the initial post.
Anyhow... Here's an example of a strumming acoustic guitar using the currently available tools:
Strumming_Horse.mscz
Use the View menu to see the invisible down/up arrows denoting the strum direction.
I added a few extra measures without the arpeggiated strum for comparison. If you slow the tempo using the play panel and mute the harmonica, what is subtle becomes more obvious.