Automatic transposing of chord symbols to guitar schemes

• Sep 5, 2015 - 18:49

Hi, gang!!!

As you know I'm so lazy and I wonder if the development team could add to my lazy life adding a new feature: the automatic transposing of all the chord symbols (guitar schemes, specifically).

I mean: today, if I wrote a piece, let's say in C mayor, and I put into the score all the necessary guitar chord schemes to the guitar man player, BUT... things of the life, I suddenly have to transpose it to E flat mayor (due to the voice range of a particular singer), all the written notes of the score will be transposed to the right new tone (which is a very great thing and I really thanks for that)... BUT... the guitar chord symbols won't change automatically. We have to change it, chord by chord... by hand!!!

So... to all of those people whom be so lazy (like me), PLEASE!!! Can you add this feature, please? ???

BTW: There is no an "standard" full set of guitar chord symbols into MuseScore, and MuseScore doesn't recognize this symbols associated with anything into the score (I guess it is just "text" to the internal MuseScore gnome). We have to put the right finger on the right string, on the right space, each time we put a new chord. Isn't it be possible to add a full set of guitar chord schemes (symbols), whom be full recognized by MuseScore, in a way that the gnome knows automatically which symbol to use on which chord of the score? ???

Thanks a lot for your time!!!

Greetings & Blessings from Chile (South America)!!!!!!!

Juan


Comments

The problem is there is no autoamted way of doing that. There are a zillion different ways of playing, for example, an F7b9 chord, and a zillion different ways of playing G7b9, not all of which can be derived just by taking an F7 voicing and moving everything up two frets. And in msot cases, that isn't even clsoe to what you'd want - one doesn't normally play a G chord by taking an F chord and moving it up two frets.

As for editing the fret diagrams, see the Handbook under "Custom palette". You are welcome to create you own set of fret diagrams that reflect the ones you personally happen to use most often, which probably won't resemble the ones someone else would use often.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Oh!!! I really know the enormous number of possible combinations!!! Hahahahaha!!!

But, man, in the 90% of the time, we don't need to have the "full" (if there is something like this) possible guitar chord schemes (because whatever we put on the score, guitarists always play what they want to play).

No!!! I didn't mean to put all of this into MuseScore.

I'm just talking about the basic "standard" mayor, minor, seventh, augm and dim schemes to the 12 possible pitches. I'm talking about the symbols that use just the 4 first spaces (lower part) of the standard guitar. Just that.

The real issue here is about today this guitar chords are just "text" to MuseScore. There isn't any "Musical" meaning to these "events" recognized by MuseScore.

I'm asking MuseScore sees these symbols as an important part of the score itself, full related with the notes on the staves.

If I write a C, an E and a G, at the same time, I'd expected that MuseScore recognize that like the C mayor chord and it has to know that this chord has some specific guitar scheme symbol.

When MuseScore recognizes it as a musical event, then it will be able to transpose it to any tone, according the notes transposing.

That's what I'm asking.

Please!!!

In reply to by jotape1960

What I am saying, though, is that even just for a "simple" chord like G7, there are literally hundreds of ways it could be played. MuseScore could not possibly guess which one you want. That is not its job. Perhaps someday someone could write an add on - a plug-in or something - to handle some very specific set of cases that some very specific set of users found useful.

Marc:
If you look in the palettes right now, the only preset in the fretboard diagram right now is a standard C chord. I understand that putting all the guitar chords in is impossible and unhelpful, but I feel like the palettes should at least include the Four Chords C D G and Em. That's half of all guitar music right there... adding A major Dm, Bm, etc. would be nice, too.

Right now we have to write out fretboard diagrams by hand for everything but C. It would be nice to have palette items for the mot common chords. That would help the OP out a lot, too.

I would be happy to write out the fretboard diagrams, and upload them as a mscz file for the developers to use. You are probably busy with much more important things.

jotape:
Also, why not just use capos? C to Eb means capo 3 I think. And of course you could change the tuning on the guitars (we guitarists are always tuning anyway). Using capos and changing tuning would make it unnecessary to transpose chord diagrams to obscure or weird chords. While a good guitarist should be able to barre everything, most people (myself included) hate barring and prefer to capo.

en espanol, como bueno que yo puedo (y con ayuda de el Dictionario):
Yo uso el "capo" y yo cambio el afinacion porque no tengo que cambiar los diagramas de acorde. Nosotros guitarristas no nos gusta tocar el guitar usando los acordes de "barre" (barre chords, no se el espanol), nosotros, por lo general, prefiemos usar el capo.
Como fue mi espanol? Yo asumo que es mas facil leer en su propio legue, y yo disfruto practicar mi espanol...

In reply to by joseph.branden…

Those four chords, the specific voicings you presumably have in mind, might be very common in some genres (eg, folk), but are virtually unheard of in others. Or more to the point, if one plays a C chord, it would almost never be that particular voicing of a C chord. Like, they are essentialy unheard of in jazz or blues, probably the same is true of funk, R&B, flamenco, or quite a few other genres.

Still, I have nothing against putting a few more enteries in the palette. That costs nothing. It;s the automatic generation of fretboard diagrams from transposition or analysis that I think is beyond the scope of what notation software should be trying to do. Separate experimental tools like plugins or utilities that generate MusicXML, sure.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"include the Four Chords C D G and Em. That's half of all guitar music right there..."
[...]

"most people (myself included) hate barring and prefer to capo."

Seriously? Do not be offended, but I have great doubts on your knowledge of the guitar repertoire, and your play level when you wrote "most people hate barring and prefer to capo": the barré is a demanding technique, perhaps, but that belongs to any guitarist worthy of the name ... sorry.

In reply to by cadiz1

"Most people" means most people, not most good guitarists. Not every one can afford a teacher and a nice guitar. Your average guitarist isn't gonna be an expert that can barre everything on the fly like that. At any rate, I was exaggerating a little. I don't know what level of guitar the OP is writing for but I assumed it was nothing too technical or anything like that. There was no reason for you to personally doubt or attack me and my "play level" because I was trying to offer helpful advice to someone. That was rude and juvenile, and does nothing to help the OP. Obviously barring is a common technique but especially when transposing, you should use a capo. because a capo is nothing but a transposition device. Barring can change the voicing of chords, because there are so many ways to do it.

I was exaggerating when I said those four chords are half of guitar music, but seriously, it's pretty close. If you look at chord charts for most popular music. Obviously I'm not referring to classical guitar or anything like that, but most guitar music is written for a regular steel string or an electric. Those four chords are the first things anyone ever learns on guitar, and obviously should be included because they are VERY common in genres of music that frequently use guitar such as bluegrass, indy, folk, worship music, rock, etc. If you head to a guitar store and buy a book on guitar, chances are those are gonna be the first four chords in the book.

At any rate, the guitar is one of the most versatile instruments in the world and has many diverse playstyles. A classical guitarist may be able to make a concert hall weep while he plays a Brahms masterpeice, but he would be pretty confused if you hand him a Schecter tuned to drop Bb. And the best blues guitarist in the world would have trouble adjusting to the classical guitar.
Some of us can play any style, on many different types of guitar. Some of us are more focussed on one style.

Either way, there are a few things that most guitar music has in common, and I think the four chords are present in a very large amount of guitar music, and thus should be included in the palletes. One of them already is. And when the OP discussed the transposition, he specifically mention the open position chords near the nut. Those four chords (and a few others).

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The guitar in standard tuning uses those chords a LOT, and of course standard tuning is what I have in mind. We can't assume special tunings like the open tunings used in blues or the drop tunings used in metal.

A first position G major chord on a standard tuned guitar is always that shape, unless you barre it somehow, but that would put you in second position I think. Besides, the first position chords are the one the OP wanted musescore to detect and transpose.

In reply to by joseph.branden…

"I'm just talking about the basic "standard" mayor, minor, seventh, augm and dim schemes to the 12 possible pitches. I'm talking about the symbols that use just the 4 first spaces (lower part) of the standard guitar. Just that."

The twelve tones of the chromatic scale can't be done without a lot of barring and some of them might be higher than four frets (I think, I'd have to try it out), especially adding in augmented and diminished chords, but at any rate, I think that's what most people who play a standard-tuned, steel-string acoustic guitar in a chordal fashion would want.

Not classical, not jazz, not R&B, not deathmetal, just standard steel string using the most basic chords that anyone can play, regardless of experience level. Obviously it would be very difficult to write every voicing of every chord in every tuning for every style. Especially jazz with all its ninth chords and such. I have a 200 page book of chord charts that covers only four ways to play each chord in standard tuning. But at any rate, the OP just wanted to keep it simple and transpose to whatever is easiest to play-- the open position chords.

In reply to by joseph.branden…

That's what I'm asking for!!!

The basic schemes, just that.

BUT... People, the real central and main thing here is the MuseScore capability to recognize the guitar chord as a musical event (like the staves musical notes and rests), to be able to perform the transportation process when it is necessary.

Maybe, just maybe, we can forget the visual chord symbols itself (to be honest, it is just an aesthetic issue to me). Thing about the character (letters) of the name of the chords.

If I write a song in C mayor and I use C, F, G, G7 and C (such a wonderful masterpiece, men!!! hehehehe), then, because something out of my control, I have to transpose it to Eb mayor, I'd expected MuseScore changes all the chord names (characters) in the full score to the new tonality: Eb, Ab, Bb, Bb7 and Eb.

That's the central point, here!!!

Of course, it would be nice to have the option to use the syllabic chord names that we (the spanish language people) use, in this part of the world. But, it is just a... "colateral" issue.

In reply to by jotape1960

If you use ctrl-K to write the names, I'm 95% sure that does work. Try it. And you definitely deserve the solfege symbols.

Si usa ctrl-K excribir los nombres de los acordes, pienso que los acordes transpueten. Tratalo. Y nosotros sin duda debemos tener los simbolos de solfege.

(sinceremente, estoy excribiendlo en espanol para practicar mi espanol. Necesito mucho practica. Pero, es mas facil leer en espanol? Con mi espanol mal? Al menos, no use` Google Translate)

but anyways, if you just write "Capo 3" or something like that, the guitarists will play the notes transposed, even if the names aren't.

In reply to by joseph.branden…

I'm not talking about alternate tunings. I'm just talking about what chords, and what voicing of what chords, are commonly used. "C" might be a common chord in almost any genre, but I can assure you, it is *not* common in many genres to play it the way it shows in the palette. It's pretty much only common in folk-based music, including folk rock / pop.

But again, my point is, I am not oppsoed to adding a few common / beginner chords to the palette. But in order to be useful, a transposition facility would have to be able to deal with any chords, not just the few simple ones it has been preprogrammed to understand, and I'm saying that is just not feasible. We can transpoe chord *symbols* because all we really need to do is transpose the root, not figure out exactly how to voice it in another key.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, Marc. You're right about those schemes are only playing by "first grade" students and a few specific kind of musician.

BTW: The old MIDI software I used (software that is absolutely obsolete, today) had almost ten different possibilities to each chord name. SO... if there is 12 different possible pitch, and there is 4 minimal different flavour to each pitch (mayor, minor, augm and dim), we have: 12x4x10=480. 480 possible chord symbols!!! I doubt if I know more than 12, Hahahahahaha!!!! I'm not a guitarist, sorry, even the fact that I love the guitar sound and I can play it, but I can not to say that I full control/domain that beautiful instrument. I'm far away from that!!!

Here I'm uploading a MuseScore file with the 12 basic guitar chords fingering symbols.

I'm absolutely conscience about it doesn't represent the whole world of the guitarist possibilities. It is just the basic of the basic of the basic.

Attachment Size
Guitar Basic Chords.mscz 12.49 KB

In reply to by jotape1960

And to be clear - you or anyone else who happens to find these chords useful (I essentially never would) is welcome to add them to your custom palette. That is why the feature exists - to allow each user to have his own favorite symbols easily accessible.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, it is absolutely clear.

BTW: Is there a way to avoid the change from the flat symbol to the normal "b" character, in the name of the chords, when we use another character? ??? I'm talking about, for example, if you write Eb, MuseScore put the standard flat character (special "b") into the chord name, but if you write Ebm, MuseScore shows the standard "b" character. Is there a way to avoid it? Or Is it a bug? ???

In reply to by jotape1960

if you are using 2.0, that shouldn't happen, unless maybe the score is imported from 1.3 and is using one of the old-style 1.3 "chord description files" that expects a different abbreviation for minor rather than the new 2.0 system. A score created from scratch won't do that, but certain 1.3 scores might if they are expecting "mi" or "min" or "-" because of the settings they were created with in 1.3.

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