Tablature sugestion
I have tried tablature notation with version 2.0 - 4703. For me, it is very interesting as it allows to transform ordinary notation into tablature or even transform music-xml into tablature.
I would like to make some suggestions.
First all the tablature I have used is for an Spanish instrument, Bandurria, and may be, the notation I usually read is specific of Spain. Because of that, this features can be made optional/configurable. As have seen, some aspects of tablature notation are not very standardised.
1. As I have seen in MuseScore, stems are always up. I tried to change that with the keyboard using x-key but It did not work. In the tablatures I have seen before, stems are always down. May be this could be configured in the staff properties or could be changed for each note as in an ordinary staff.
2. Rests do not appear in the TAB staff. May be, this could be configured in the staff properties, so rest could appear in the same way as they appear in an ordinary staff.
3. Half notes have no stem, which make them identical to a whole note. I always have seen them with a stem, similarly to ordinary notation. But this has the problem of being distinguished from a quarter note. Sometimes, quarter notes are differentiated by means of a dot below the stem and other times, half notes are indicated with a shorter stem or using the tremolo simbol.
And finally a question, about the pitch of each string for a given instrument, where is it stored? ¿Can it be introduced within a new instrument? This can be useful when on used an "exotic" string instrument so it wolud not be necessary to reintroduce the pitch of the string for every new tab-score.
Thank you.
Gracias
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Comments
Hello jesbaq,
Thanks for your comments. I suggest to read the tabulature creation and the staff properties handbook pages; they may be somehow out of date, as the program has been heavily re-factored since I wrote those pages, but should be a starting point anyway.
1) For modern tabulatures, stem position is not standard: I have seen examples with stems above the staff, stems below the staff and even lots of examples without any stem at all!
2) The example you give is the first tabulature example I have seen in which rests are shown; in all the tabulatures I have seen (either modern or historic) rest are never shown.
3) How to distinguish whole, half and quarter notes in modern tabulature is an issue with no standard solution. The solution I have chosen seemed to me a reasonable compromise between the various practices (historic tabulatures have specific symbols for them).
For all these three points, if the examples you give refer to a standard practice for bandurria tabulature, below stems, visible rests and stemmed half notes can be added as options.
Additional points:
4) Another difference I noticed between common modern tabulatures and your examples is the position of augmentation dots: usually dots are placed beside the stems, while in your examples they are placed beside the note numbers. Again, is this standard for bandurria?
5) Lastly, are there examples of historic tabulatures specific for bandurria? Or did they use the same tabulature system as, say, vihuela or lute?
Gracias y hasta luego,
M.
In reply to Hello jesbaq, Thanks for your by Miwarre
Hello Miwarre ,
1) I think that the fact that in modern tablature stem position is not standard could be a good reason to make this setting configurable. For me as MuseScore user this point is not critical.
2) Until I tried to find free software to write tablature, I always saw rests in the scores I used :) . Maybe this is specific of Spain and other countries as I comment below. Then I realised that there were other types of tablatures.
As an example, Tuxguitar is a free source program that have a notation similar to the one you have implemented, but you can see the rests if you see the tablature without seeing the ordinary score simultaneously.
3) For me as MuseScore user this point is not critical to understand a tablature, and as you say there is no standard solution.
I think (but I am not sure) that the notation I sent as example is used by what we call in Spain "orquesta laudística" that could be translated as lute-istic orchestra, as special kind of guitar orchestra very popular in Spain and may be in Portugal and Latin America. Tuna can be considered a kind orquesta laudística and they usually use the same notation as I sent in the message.
The notation we use is about the same as an ordinary score but substituting the head of notes by numbers and of course, horizontal lines represent the strings as in any tablature. There is no standard way to distinguish quarter note and half note. In the examples I sent below, a half uses two tremolo-like bar on the stem and a whole uses four of this bars (representing four quarter notes). Other times, quarter note is indicated with a dot below the (down) stem.
Most of times orquesta laudística is composed by amateur musicians and that is the reason why tablature is very popular, so you do not have to learn the academical music notation. Normally, bandurria play melody and not just rhythm as many times guitar does, and maybe because of that a richer notation, including rests, fermata, etc. is needed.
The instruments of an orquesta laudística are usually bandurria (known also as soprano bandurria), laud (spanish lute known also tenor bandurria), and guitar. Some variations, like folkloric groups (my case) include also some small guitars (guitarrico, requinto, guitarro) or some regional instruments, like timple in the Canary Islands. All of them are plucked string instruments.
Therefore, at least in Spain there are quite many people using the notation I sent you as example. I do not know whether this notation is only used in Spain or not and whether it is historical or recently adopted, but it is widely used in orquesta laudística.
You can find some examples here:
http://sites.google.com/site/serafinmateo/partituras/folklore
These ones, includes both score and tablature for several instruments, including guitar and bandurria:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzZ…
(Alelulya, Bach)
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzZ…
I guess they are generated with modern software, probably finale or sibelius.
I hope this information is useful for you.
Thank you for your attention and for your work with tablature.
Hasta Luego.