slur positions between note staff and tablature staff

• Jun 29, 2019 - 01:13

Scoring classical guitar I have note staff and linked tab staff. When I slur notes in the note staff the slur that appears in the tab staff attaches the wrong notes. If i tie the upper notes in a slur, the lower notes get tied in the tablature line, or the slur even crosses between them. Both are in voice 1. thanks badslurs.png


Comments

If you right click the tablature, select staff/part properties and click Advanced style properties and click the Note Value tabs, you will see that the stem position is set to below. Since the stems are below, the slurs will be above. In the standard staff you have actually done nothing to force the slur to be assigned to any note in the chords but rather the chords themselves. If you select the slur and press x (to move it above) you can then add another slur below. The slurs are still both connected to the same chords.

I hope all of this clarified what is happening in both of the staves and you will see it is best that the slurs be displayed as they are. The alternative is to change the stem direction on the tablature to above so it will mostly resemble the standard staff. One thing I don't understand is how the 8th note C-natural stem got pointed up unless you selected it and pressed x.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks for the response. I actually made a mistake selecting the notes between ctrl and shift select so i slurred chords not notes. I tried a bunch of variations on the stem direction, how i select notes and tie them, still it seems to place the slurs in opposition between standard staff and tab staff.

I plan on splitting it into voices. Perhaps I should start that way, but I'm primarily piano guy and guitar is fairly new, so I'm playing with distinct voicing, but prefer just to get all the notes down, and figure out my preferred voicing later, where the slur issue will resolve.

I think the c-natural stem you are referring to is just a 'ghost' image of the two segments of the score i overlapped in paintbrush to create the snippet of music displayed.

thanks you very much again for your explanation.

In reply to by JeanneElaine

To be clear, as long as you have chords (which is any time there is a note), you can only apply slurs to the chords. If you split them into voices, which is a) unnecessary and b) far more difficult than entering separate voices in the first place, you can then add slurs to the "chords" in the individual voices. I say "chords" because every note is part of a chord to MuseScore, it doesn't matter if there is 1 note in the chord or 10. The slur always defaults to being applied to a part of the chord, with the direction depending on stem directions and beaming.

In reply to by mike320

thanks again for that.
yes i agree it would be easier to score with voices initially, but piano is my native instrument, when i'm diddling on guitar coming up with tunes by ear i often don't spot the voicing until later, and most guitar scores i come across don't seem to emphasize voices as much as piano, so i kind of transcribe all my notes on guitar down and hunt for the voicing afterwards.

In reply to by JeanneElaine

Sorry, I've been gone a while. Your explanation helps my understanding. What will help some is to know that you can select several notes and press ctrl+alt+2 to change several notes to voice 2 at once. The slur will remain in voice 1. If you want it in voice 2 instead, you will need to delete it, select the first note you want in a group ctrl+click the last note and press S to add the slur. This will put it in voice 2 with voice 2 auto avoidance in effect.

If all of the notes have the same rhythm, they should be in the same voice and the slur should automatically point the best direction.

In reply to by mike320

Oh gosh, no apologies needed. That's grand. I just have to figure out if it is as common to voice the notation on the guitar as it is on piano. I haven't seen it done in any guitar notation so far, but I know as a piano player we definitely use voicing, and it is my nature to find those key notes that are driving a tune, not just play "dust in the wind" as a seamless set of eighth notes. So far I'm using slurs and fermatas to denote my intention.

thanks again.

here is an example of the voicing I"m used to https://musescore.com/user/6300386/scores/1514336

In reply to by JeanneElaine

Since I'm not a guitarist, I'm not sure what the expectation for notation would be. Perhaps one of the several guitarists here will contribute their knowledge.

From a MuseScore input perspective, I would suggest that you select the emphasized notes and change the velocity type to offset and set the velocity to about 10 (a little higher on pp sections and lower on ff sections) to get the notes to stand out. Play with the number, but 10 is around the minimum to make a note stand out IMHO. You should use the CC11 method of single note dynamics or the single note velocities are currently ignored.

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