Guitar Playing in Position

• Oct 21, 2017 - 16:22

This is a poser for the Development team. Currently when I import a midi file then change the instrument to guitar add a linked staff and make that tablature the program picks the first comparable note on the guitar spreading the playing line out along the High e string then moving to the B string and so on. Guitar Players try not to play like that, the efficient way is to Play In Position, which means pick the lowest common fret that will allow the melody to be played in a block of 4 frets (often 5 are necessary but that is details.) I would like to see a feature that would allow me to select a "position" or home fret, and have the program start by not allowing any notes to be played on a fret higher than that, with the possible exception of the open note for each string. This is similar to setting a capo but it does have some nuanced differences in how the tablature is notated.

Currently this can be done note by note by highlighting the note on the string and draging it down to the string you think is more appropriate. This gets very tedious if you are working on a large piece.

I would think this would be a simple if f (fret) is lower than p (selected position) then move to the next string, recheck.

Anyone have any thoughts?

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• Oct 21, 2017 - 16:53

I have seen similar requests before, so let me give a few options.

First, if fret positions are visible to plugins a plugin might be the way to go about fixing this. It can start off with an interactive box for you to choose your fret. Since I don't mess with guitars or plugins much I don't know if this is doable. There is someone working on improving plugins for version 3.0, perhaps he will expose frets to plugins if necessary.

Next, you can select every note of the same pitch by right clicking it and choosing select->more... from the context menu. It allows you, for example, to select every F#3, you can then adjust every F#3 to the correct string at the same time. Unfortunately you can't easily select a range of notes like F#3 to A4 and move them all at the same time. I don't know if my example is accurate, but presumably if you are moving F#3 to another string, some of the nearby notes will need to be moved to the same string with it. You can repeatedly use the right click a different note select->more... and "add to selection" so you can move several notes to the same string at once.

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• Oct 21, 2017 - 18:05

It had been a while since this discussion had not reappeared (two years). See: https://musescore.org/en/node/71121 and https://musescore.org/en/node/78526
This is probably a sign that the current behavior, when you have completely assimilated it, gives satisfaction, I guess.

Then, you wrote: "the program picks the first comparable note on the guitar spreading the playing line out along the High e string then moving to the B string and so on. Guitar Players try not to play like that, the efficient way is to Play In Position, which means pick the lowest common fret that will allow the melody to be played in a block of 4/5 frets"

Well, here you make a generality that is not necessarily timely. There is not a single category of guitar players, but a lot of guitar players playing many different music styles.

What you are describing is probably the most used for some styles (let's say quickly, blues, jazz, rock) to facilitate eg the playing with effects (eg bends etc.)
But in a multi-voices context, classical / early repertoire, traditional / folk / picking styles , this is not really the expected result (we will always find exceptions of course)

« Currently this can be done note by note by highlighting the note on the string and draging it down to the string you think is more appropriate. »

You can do this of course punctually, but if dragging is one way (among many others), it's surely not the most effective way.
You can considerabily optimize and will become much more efficient by selecting multiple notes at once (with Ctrl pressed), or by Select> more (same pitch eg), and problably also with copy-paste for certain sequences after a first edit.

But the most common case is to select a sequence of notes (one measure, or two or two and half etc.), and press Ctrl + Down arrow, one time or more (or Ctrl + Up, according what you want to achieve), and then edit some notes if necessary.

With a little practice, using a selection and Ctrl + Up/Down, it becomes second nature! And you appreciate really this behaviour.

Let me give you a single example.
This:
ex.jpg
I guess your wish would be to start in the fourth/fifth fret. So, let's imagine the existence of a dialog box. You make a range selection -> the dialogue asks you which position you want -> you answer 4 or 5 and confirm.
Well, currently, just make the selection and press Ctrl + Down arrow. That’s all ! I much prefer the use of the keys than to waste my time with the dialogs...
Ex1.jpg

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• Oct 24, 2017 - 22:49

Thank you for your quick and insightful response. there are problems working with your example, if you select every note in the same pitch, you will most likely be taking something from a section that is already in the right place for the position you are playing that part in. In most pieces you will play several different home frets, depending on style and dexterity and how much you want to make grand arm gestures. There are anywhere from 1 to 5 places a given note can be played on most guitars, For example Middle C can be played on the B string at the 1st fret or, quickly, G-5, D-10, A-15 or E-20. Changing string will affect both the timbre and sustain of the tone produced but it will be at the same frequency.

I just tried to import a song from midi, a violin solo for "My Wild Irish Rose" just as a simple example. The Program put the entire song on the first 2 strings, High e and B, from fret 1 to 12 on High e and frets 3 and 4 for the B string. In playing this, even if I was to expand it to harmonize with myself I can only play up to a 5 note spread in the middle of the neck, only 4 at the low end (farthest from the pickups) and maybe 6 at the end closest to the pickups. Every player I have talked to including a couple local classical players agree that unless you are looking for something in particular you group your notes to a region of the fret-board you can reach with minimum searching outside that area, in this case I would break it up to a first position and a 7th position grouping, depending if there are the high notes in the passage I am working with.

This example has 128 measures, with an average of 3 notes per measure that comes out to a lot of time moving numbers on the tab chart 1 by 1. If I move all the notes in a given pitch in this example, the parts I would be playing in 1st position would also move to lower strings to take in the higher portions of the song. I can read music to a point but not in real time, and as I am mostly playing to my dogs in the back yard, I don't think it is practical to learn to sight read music, considering the amount of ongoing training I have to do for work. What I would see as an Ideal would be to highlight a certain part of the music, and evoke a dialog asking what the home fret I would like to use, then any notes in that highlighted section are played on lower frets they would be moved down, usually either one or 2 strings until it is a movement of the fingers instead of the whole arm to play the next note.

I have seen other requests from guitar players who would like to see something to simplify this process, and it is more complex than this as playing chords has to be accounted for in not assigning 2 notes played at the same time to the same string, and still keep them to a range that 1 hand can reach. Just the fact that the Tablature with playing markings is available at all is great! I Love the program for allowing me to simplify the transcription process, it takes huge amounts of time to do this by pencil, (ask me how I know :-)) And while I appreciate you are not the person who looks at this aspect of the development, my hopes are that my clarification here might reach the right person who wants a challenge..

Thanks again for your polite and respectful response to a new user of the software.

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• Oct 25, 2017 - 02:24

"I just tried to import a song from midi, a violin solo ffrom midi, a violin solo for "My Wild Irish Rose" just as a simple example "

It would be useful if not necessary that you attach this file midi (there are many on the net, I do not see it that one precisely), to understand your approach, and how to optimize it.

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• Oct 25, 2017 - 07:01

I found a file that could match what you describe. This one: wildrose.mid
After isolating the violin part, I get: 2 wildrose violin solo.mscz

From what you say, you change instrument, so violin for guitar. And after linking a TAB staff to the standard staff you get this: 3 wildrose TAB linked after violon.mscz

The result is what you describe: "The program put the entire song on the first 2 strings, High e and B, from fret 1 to 12 on High e and frets 3 and 4 for the B string." Hence your difficulties.

The thing it takes to know is that the violin and guitar do not adopt the same clef (mainly, I will be able to develop later)
The violin plays with the treble clef.The guitar with the treble clef 8vb (with the little 8 under the clef.) This can not matches by adding a Tab.

So, you have to change this clef, and immediately after, select the first staff (Ctrl + Shift + End), and make Ctrl + Down arrow.
Now, you are in the correct register of the guitar :)

And so, in the Tab staff, all is good now. All is playable in first position. 4 wildrose new clef TAB sib.mscz

And I you prefer, you can transpose eg in C, more adapted than Bb for guitar (but here it is only a melodic line, so not really a problem): 5wildrose in C.mscz

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• Oct 25, 2017 - 13:32

WOW You Rock! (so to speak, :-)) That is a great starting point, neat and elegant! And it can be moved to whatever key I want to play it in from here, very simple solution! I looked at the boards for about 2 weeks trying to find this answer, no one else came up with it for others who asked before, or if they did I didn't understand it. Now I can go back and clean up all of the stuff I have been playing with since I got started with this program. I can't tell you how excited and pleased I am with this new source for music that my tired old hands can play.

Thanks again, a thousand thanks!

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