Creating chords that span barlines in tab notation
I've been having difficulty using TAB notation to notate chords that span barlies. For example, to make a simple guitar C chord that lastst for 4 beats, starting on beat 3 of a four beat measure. . .
First I tried doing it the obvious way, using the keyboard in normal mode, note inpout mode. I changed the 4-beat rest into two 2-beat rests (number pad 6). Then I selected the second 2-beat rest, entered note inout mode (n), moved the blue rectangle to the 5th string, clicked on the whole note duration symbol and typed a 3. So far so good; I got a 3 tied to a 3 in the next measure. Then I moved the rectangle to the 4th string and typed a 5 (the way you make a chord in TAB input). But no, the tied 3s disappeared and tied 5s appeared on the 4th string. So this method does not work.
Next I tried entering the whole chord in the first measure as half (2-beat) notes, see <1> below. And I then left note input mode, selected the chord, and clicked on the whole note time value, see <2> below. This has to be a bug; there is no situation in which this would make any sense. But, looking for a work-around I select the 0 on the 3rd string and type a command-down arrow (I'm on a Mac) which move the 0 on the 3rd string to a 5 on the 4th string. Okay. Next I do the same thing to the 1 on the second string. Okay. Now I'm at <3> below. But when I try the same thing on the 0 on the 1st string I get <4> below. Now moving either 0 to the 2nd string toggles us between <3> and <4>.
Help?
Thanks,
Peter
Comments
The kinds of things you're doing could possibly be made work with some care, but they are definitely a pretty indirect way of going about things. The normal way to enter both rests and notes is left to right, and ties are entered directly by pressing "+". So in your example, you start by going into note input mode, then type Shift+6 to select half note, semicolon to enter the rest (these shortcuts different form standard notation, which would be 6 and 0 respectively), then enter the full chord on beat 3 by moving the cursor to the A string and typing 3, then Up 5 Up 5 Up 5 to complete the chord, then simply press "+" to enter the tied chord (half note duration is already selected).
Relying on MuseScore to create the tie for you by entering a too-long note value kind of sort of works, but as you notated, can be squirrely when chords are involved. There are different variations of the tie command that behave different in the presence of chords and it's probably possible to find a sequence that would allow you to start with the whole note, but I don't recommend going that route when the usual method works well already.
In reply to YouThe kinds of things you… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc, for telling me about the "+" command. I realize that I probably could have discovered it myself by reading a bunch of tutorials and practicing examples, etc. but, having used the technique of building multi-measure chords by stacking up multi-measure notes or by lengthening the duration of chords such that they cross barlines in standard notation, I didn't imagine that when tablature was required I would need to relearn how to make editing changes that are virtually identical for the two schemes conceptually. It's a pity that the editing techniques are not more uniform where they could be.
That said, I am delighted with Musescore and I appreciate all the work that the creaters/maintainers/explainers/etc. continue to put into it! Thanks!
-=P=-
In reply to Thanks, Marc, for telling me… by psl
FWIW, I'm slightly surprised it works as well as it does for standard notation; I'd half expect the same bug to be present there.
In reply to FWIW, I'm slightly surprised… by jeetee
jeetee,
At a guess the program identifies the note or notes that spill over into the next measure by their pitch (MIDI key number?) and remaining duration; and then it has to figure out how to represent the tied note(s) in the next measure in the current notation style. There are many ways to notate any given note in guitar tab (e.g. E4 in at least 6 ways) whereas there are far fewer in conventional notation, so the chances of picking the wrong one are far greater in TAB. It appears that a canonical form, i.e. lowest fret numbers, is the automatic choice.
Hmmm... It appears that this is handled better with standard notation; the note definitions are not canonicalized or "simplified" when extended across a barline. A chord of B#, D##, and F##, when extended across the barline by simply increasing the duration to a breve, is left as B#, D##, and F## and not simplified to C, E, G. No doubt there has been more testing and thought paid to standard notation.
So using the "+" to extend the duration should take care of the unfortunate string changes, but there will still be times when it's necessary to move chord notes to a different string, and the toggling between <3> and <4> is a bug since it's so clearly the opposite of what anyone would want or expect when changing the string of a note tied to another note; they should either be independent or move together, but not opposite. Do you agree? Is there anything I can do to make a fix more likely?
Best, -=P=-
In reply to jeetee, At a guess the… by psl
The message I was conveying was rather that also in standard notation the "correct/expected" way to add ties is to use the add tie "+" function and not by writing too long durations..
In reply to jeetee, At a guess the… by psl
I did a quick scan of the issue tracker and found this: #165851: Fret value extends to different string. Looks like the basic issue about extended durations that auto-generate ties producing string mistatches has been around for years, but apparently only one person thus far has run into it and reported as far as I can tell. So adding a "+1" there would help it get a little visibility.
Beyond that, the next thing you could do to increase likelihood of a fix is to volunteer to do the job yourself :-). That's not meant facetiously, it's how open source software works, and the "scratch your own itch" philosophy is a big part of that. I have no idea if you have software development experience or not, but your posts seem like they come from the logically-ordered mind of someone who might :-)
In reply to I did a quick scan of the… by Marc Sabatella
Marc,
Yes, guilty as charged; I wrote my first music compiler in 1965 (in IBM 1620 machine language, no less). And I realize I've been setting myself up for "Stop whining and fix it yourself" but people have been very nice about offering advice and fixes. If my hands were less full at the moment I would volunteer to work on it. What language(s) is/are involved?
Best,
-=P=-
In reply to Marc, Yes, guilty as… by psl
C++
In reply to Marc, Yes, guilty as… by psl
Hah, I figured as much! :-)
As mentioned, the main language is C++. Recently there is also use of QML for building the UI; this was formerly done using the Qt libraries from C++ more directly but that's been phased out in favor of QML over the past year or two.
Anyhow, this particular issue - determining the correct string to use for tab notes that are entered too long for the measure and thus the automatic tying mechanism kicks in - would probably be a pretty good first issue. I'm guessing it's code isolated to one function, probably just a few lines to fix, with minimal impact on anything else. The real work, of course, is getting started - figuring out how to build the project and then understanding the code well enough to even find the right spot to make the fix. There's help available there, too :-)
In reply to Thanks, Marc, for telling me… by psl
FWIW, the first place to turn when learning about MuseScore should always be the official Handbook, which you can access via the Suppoirt menu above or the Help menu within MuseScore. It's nicely organized by topic, and scanning the TOC for "ties" would take you right to the relevant section. I also recommend new users spend a few minutes looking through the note input section at least, since this is by far the most used part of the program for most people, and there are lots of useful things like this you might not discover by accident. In any case, even if you don't pre-read the Handbook, definitely take a look there first if you have questions, it really does answer most of them.
Also check out this 10-minute tutorial I made that shows off pretty much every note input feature:
https://school.masteringmusescore.com/courses/complete/lectures/31890621