Is there a way to block automatic open strings in guitar tab?
The guitar tab in musescore is a nightmare, I don't know why anyone thought making the conversion put as many open string notes as possible in the tab was a good idea.
When I paste 6 minutes worth of content into a tab staff, I spend 20 minutes just moving the ridiculous zeroes into the proper place, on the 5th fret of the lower string.
Is there a way to fix it?
Comments
Simply first to bring you a contrary testimony. Yours is exaggerated and probably reflects, I guess, a use still incompletely understood of the TAB feature.
Not only the guitar tab in MuseScore is not a nightmare, but because of its customization capabilities, different styles and fonts, it is a chance and far superior to known commercial programs ...
Let's come now to your concern.
If I understand correctly, you copy and paste the content of the standard staff in the Tab staff, and you find that the open strings of the guitar, eg the G3 (third string) is displayed by an 0 in the Tab. This is the default behaviour and this is what is expected in the most cases.
Please note that if you enter the G note / fret 5 directly in the Tab staff, the problem no longer arises: you are the master of your entry via the Tab staff.
Otherwise, by using the standard staff, and then copy-paste, MuseScore is not in your mind, and can not guess if a user prefers to get a G on the third open string, or on the fourth string, fifth fret.
If is is your choice, the operation will be done easily and quickly (and that is the reply to your message)
So: right-click on a G open string -> select -> more -> tick "same pitch" (G3) and "same staff" -> Ok
Press now Ctrl + Down arrow key: bam, at once, all your G in your score are on the fourth string 5th fret.
In the next version, there will be the possibility to refine this choice by choosing also "same string" (and also, a shortcut for Select -> More)
If you wish, and I invite you to do it, share your score so that we can better help you. Because, generally, this change of location conditions also that of the neighboring notes, and therefore, it is probably preferable to think rather or also in terms of range selection. That is for why the seeing of your score, its context, would be useful.
In reply to Simply first to bring you a… by cadiz1
The tab feature is pretty broken (try moving a full measure of notes down a string and then back up) and pretty awkward to use to the point where I write guitar parts in regular music notation and then copy it to the tab because it's still faster.
I also thought of the fix you proposed, but it didn't work. Sometimes the pitch got assigned to the fifth fret by itself, and other times it already had a note underneath, which wouldn't happen if you could block the open strings beforehand.
Also, musescore doesn't have to be in anyone's mind to realise that a power chord is usually going to be played on adjacent strings, same for a rock chord voicing (1 5 8 10, that moving one fret up is easier than moving 3 strings up and 5 frets down, also changing the fingering on the way there.
I never got the chance to properly learn programming, but I can imagine that kind of functionality as a few simple functions/algorithms.
In reply to The tab feature is pretty… by HeavyGroovist
The tab feature is not broken at all. Simply needed some learning curve (and again, if you want specific frets location, preferable some times to enter directly the fret marks into the Tab). Please share your score, and provide some details on what you are doing and where (which measures)