Portuguese Guitar Lisboa and Coimbra tunings

• May 19, 2019 - 16:16

Hello forum!

I'm a long time MuseScore user (having ditched a very much convoluted Sibelius 7), but first time poster. I tried to follow the advice for adding new instruments by editing the instruments.xml file, as posted here on the forums, but have not been successful in getting the TAB portion to function properly (notation works fine of course). The problem is the red notes, suggesting that my notation is out of the range of the instrument for each and every string. This is even after disabling "Color pitches outside of usable pitch range" in preferences --> note input, as well as editing the string information manually after creation of the score; it simply does not work, and it seems that the TAB that is output does not recognize the new tunings I have prescribed; neither in the xml file method, nor in attempting to make a template from a pre-existing stringed instrument.

Below is the code I attempted to add to the instruments.xml file to no avail (with regard to the TAB):

              Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)
              PortGuit(Cmbr).
              Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)
              pluck.guitar

                    21
                    48
                    55
                    57
                    62
                    67
                    69

              G
              1
              48-90
              48-90



              world


              Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) [Tablature]
              portuguese guitar (coimbra)
              Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) (Tablature)
              pluck.guitar
              tablature

              world


              Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)
              PortGuit(Lsba).
              Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)
              pluck.guitar

                    21
                    50
                    57
                    59
                    64
                    69
                    71

              G
              1
              50-92
              50-92



              world


              Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) [Tablature]
              portuguese guitar (lisboa)
              Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) (Tablature)
              pluck.guitar
              tablature

              world

Is there any way the programmers of this fine program can add Portuguese Guitar with both the Coimbra and Lisboa tunings, or at the very least, provide some assistance to get the TAB portions to work?

Thank you,

Cordially,

Marcelo Damon

Comments

• May 19, 2019 - 16:53

Hello and thank you for your assistance.

Attached is my non-functioning xml file for both tunings of the Portuguese guitar. I attempted to set up the string tunings both ways (in the xml, and then afterwards in the edit string data). Neither worked. Hopefully you can make some sense of it.

When I attempted to add "" before and " after, such as you suggested, TAB still didn't work, and came out as a stave of notation. See that attached picture.

Attachment Size
TAB-Error.png 1.23 MB
instruments.xml 473.18 KB

Reply

• May 19, 2019 - 16:57

so the relevand part seems to be:

<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-coimbra">
<longName>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)</longName>
<shortName>PortGuit(Cmbr).</shortName>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)</description>
"
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
"
<StringData>
<frets>21</frets>
<string>48</string>
<string>55</string>
<string>57</string>
<string>62</string>
<string>67</string>
<string>69</string>
</StringData>
<clef>G</clef>
<barlineSpan>1</barlineSpan>
<aPitchRange>48-90</aPitchRange>
<pPitchRange>48-90</pPitchRange>
<Channel>
<program value="24"/>
</Channel>
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-coimbra-tablature">
<trackName>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) [Tablature]</trackName>
<init>portuguese guitar (coimbra)</init>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) (Tablature)</description>
"
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
"
<stafftype staffTypePreset="tab6StrSimple">tablature</stafftype>
 <!--  <clef>TAB</clef>  -->
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-lisboa">
<longName>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)</longName>
<shortName>PortGuit(Lsba).</shortName>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)</description>
"
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
"
<StringData>
<frets>21</frets>
<string>50</string>
<string>57</string>
<string>59</string>
<string>64</string>
<string>69</string>
<string>71</string>
</StringData>
<clef>G</clef>
<barlineSpan>1</barlineSpan>
<aPitchRange>50-92</aPitchRange>
<pPitchRange>50-92</pPitchRange>
<Channel>
<program value="24"/>
</Channel>
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-lisboa-tablature">
<trackName>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) [Tablature]</trackName>
<init>portuguese guitar (lisboa)</init>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) (Tablature)</description>
"
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
"
<stafftype staffTypePreset="tab6StrSimple">tablature</stafftype>
 <!--  <clef>TAB</clef>  -->
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>

As you can see this looks strange, which those " , so try

<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-coimbra">
<longName>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)</longName>
<shortName>PortGuit(Cmbr).</shortName>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra)</description>
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
<StringData>
<frets>21</frets>
<string>48</string>
<string>55</string>
<string>57</string>
<string>62</string>
<string>67</string>
<string>69</string>
</StringData>
<clef>G</clef>
<barlineSpan>1</barlineSpan>
<aPitchRange>48-90</aPitchRange>
<pPitchRange>48-90</pPitchRange>
<Channel>
<program value="24"/>
</Channel>
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-coimbra-tablature">
<trackName>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) [Tablature]</trackName>
<init>portuguese-guitar-coimbra</init>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) (Tablature)</description>
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
<stafftype staffTypePreset="tab6StrSimple">tablature</stafftype>
 <!--  <clef>TAB</clef>  -->
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-lisboa">
<longName>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)</longName>
<shortName>PortGuit(Lsba).</shortName>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa)</description>
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
<StringData>
<frets>21</frets>
<string>50</string>
<string>57</string>
<string>59</string>
<string>64</string>
<string>69</string>
<string>71</string>
</StringData>
<clef>G</clef>
<barlineSpan>1</barlineSpan>
<aPitchRange>50-92</aPitchRange>
<pPitchRange>50-92</pPitchRange>
<Channel>
<program value="24"/>
</Channel>
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<Instrument id="portuguese-guitar-lisboa-tablature">
<trackName>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) [Tablature]</trackName>
<init>portuguese-guitar-lisboa</init>
<description>Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) (Tablature)</description>
<musicXMLid>"pluck.guitar"</musicXMLid>
<stafftype staffTypePreset="tab6StrSimple">tablature</stafftype>
 <!--  <clef>TAB</clef>  -->
<genre>world</genre>
</Instrument>
<xml>

Reply

• May 19, 2019 - 17:02

Hello,

I am not a programmer, so I didn't really know what you meant by your previous message. At this point, as can be seen in the picture above, both versions of Portuguese Guitar show up in Musescore, but TAB doesn't show a TAB staff, only a standard notation stave; with no option to change it. Perhaps you can edit my instruments file to make it work?

Cordially,

Marcelo Damon

Reply

• May 19, 2019 - 17:14

Thank you very much Mr. Schmitz,

I realized those quotations were incorrect, and removed them and re-uploaded the instruments.xml file. I thank you for your continued patience as well as amicable assistance. I went ahead and used your edited info and it seems to have worked.

I greatly appreciate it. Now I can begin the labor of love of transcribing Carlos Paredes.

Cordially,

Marcelo Damon

Reply

• May 19, 2019 - 16:36

I noticed that you have different string data and ranges for the tablature and the instrument...Looking closer I see you have the instrument as the Coimbra tuning and the tablature as Lisboa tuning.

To make the code display correctly you can type < xml > at the start and < /xml > (with no spaces) at the end of it to make it format correctly.

You can put in an official request for the instruments at https://musescore.org/en/node/add/project_issue?pid=1236 with a severity of suggestion. You can use note names (E2 for example) to name the strings and ranges. Make sure to include the names of all of the strings and the number of frets on the instruments so the info will be correct. It will likely be included in the next official release.

Reply

• May 19, 2019 - 17:01

Thank you for your assistance, but what you suggested is not so. There are 4 entries here for new instruments:

  1. Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) - Standard Notation
  2. Portuguese Guitar (Coimbra) - TAB
  3. Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) - Standard Notation
  4. Portuguese Guitar (Lisboa) - TAB

While 1 and 3 work, 2 and 4 do not; whether I add xml as you suggested or not.

I'm not a programmer, so this is all new to me.

Cordially,

Marcelo Damon

Attached is my instruments.xml file

Attachment Size
instruments.xml 473.18 KB

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