Re: Alternative note inserting for guitar tabs

[Federico Bruni]

Il 04/09/2011 14:09, Lilyjoe ha scritto:
> I've to write a very basic guitar tab, no need to add tempo and other infos,
> just number of frets and the way to play notes (hammer on, pull off, bendings,
> slides and so on).
> I like lilypond outputs, but I don't know music. It's hard for me to write a tab
> by insert notes as a b c... I'd like to write by insert notes in the form
> fret/string, I find it very usefull.
> Looking around on the net I found a tool called Vexflow, In my view it has the
> best syntax to quickly insert notes in the tab. Unfortunately Vexflow output is
> a png image and I think it's not made to be well printed on a pdf document.
>
> So, I'd like to know if there was a way to insert notes in the fret/string
> format in lilypond too, or if it just supports the a b c format.
> Sorry for my bad english, if something isn't clear enough, let me know... I've
> not found an italian specific forum so I've decided to ask there.
> Thanks in advance.
> Bye!
You can use some GUI applications wich can export to LilyPond.
If the music you write is easy, it should work quite well. Some tweaks 
will be necessary afterwards, but at least you can avoid inserting notes 
as text. And then you can use editors which support point-and-click 
(that means: you don't need to know music, just click on tab numbers).

You have basically two options:

1) Tuxguitar, which exports to a .ly file.
2) MuseScore, which should have a "tablature interface":
http://musescore.org/en/node/7845

You must install a nightly build:
http://musescore.org/en/handbook/comparison-stable-prerelease-and-nightly-builds

<rant>
Not that easy on Linux: the file downloaded was probably corrupted. I 
had to download the SVN repository, which is 500 MB (!). Compiling takes 
a lot of time and at 75% the program realized that a dependency was 
still missing. Of course, you can't run make again, you must first clean 
and start compiling from scratch.
I'll let you know how it works if I manage to compile it. I'm at 40%, 
fingers crossed...
</rant>

I know that Denemo developers would like to add tablature support, but I 
have no idea of what's going on.

Hammer on, pull off and slides are supported by LilyPond.
Bendings are not supported yet. There is a bounty offer:
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1196

In the meanwhile you can include the attached bend.ly file.
You can find some information about its usage in the tablature list:
http://lists.lilynet.net/tablatures/

There's not an italian mailing list of LilyPond user, but I'd like to 
start one soon or later.

Ciao,
Federico

bend.ly
Description: Text Data