Making rhythm notation in tablature staves look like it does in normal staves

• Feb 7, 2024 - 21:49

Hi, I'm having trouble getting rhythm notation to appear correctly in tablature staves (i.e. the way it does in normal staves).

Can anyone please let me know how to get it to appear the same, or as similar as possible?

Please see screenshots of a normal staff compared to the tablature staff which has notes of the same value. In both cases I selected "Toggle rhythm notation" in the Tools menu. To try to at least get it to appear more similar, I dragged diamond noteheads from the Noteheads palette onto the half note and whole note, but they didn't change - they're still showing as small slashes.

In tablature, the only difference between how quarter and half note rhythmic notes are displayed is the length of the stems (half notes have the upper part of the stem removed leaving a gap). Whole notes are just a small slash with no stem.

Thanks for any help!

Attachment Size
Screen Shot 2024-02-07 at 4.29.21 PM.png 27.2 KB
Screen Shot 2024-02-07 at 4.25.30 PM.png 172.5 KB

Comments

• Feb 7, 2024 - 23:37

As far as I know, the "Rhythm slash notation" feature is not intented for TABs. You simply won't get the same result as in standart notation. By the way, why would you want to use TAB staff if all you're talking about is rhythmic notation? It has no added value. Use a standard staff, as in your first image, add the chord diagrams, and it will be perfectly clear and as expected for the guitarist.

Reply

• Feb 8, 2024 - 01:54

Thanks for your reply. That's good to know about the limitations of rhythm notation in tablature staves. This is a guitar part where some measures have tablature notes and others have strummed chords where rhythm notation is needed. Sometimes within the same bar it's divided between notes and strummed chords. Will be adding the chord diagrams above the rhythm notation shortly.

I'm trying to get the guitarist's part all on one staff instead of two (standard notation duplicated in tab) because the guitar student who's reading it only needs tab. They can't read notes at this stage. Also there's a vocal line in each system because the guitar student also sings, so I'm trying to get it more compact with as few lines as possible to get it down to fewer pages. Maybe I'll need to go with the 2-staff approach and notate the strumming in the standard line and notes in both.

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.