The guitar tools |
Principles of fretted instruments [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] There are numerous instruments that are
based on frets, like the guitar, the banjo, the electric bass
guitar, the mandoline,... They all use the same principle: the
vibration speed of a tighten string may be changed by shortening
the length of that string so that they can produce a scale of
notes. These instruments have a series of strings
(usually 4 to 6), each tuned on a specific note. By pinching a
string, it starts to vibrate and to produce the corresponding
musical note. These vibrations are amplified by the body of the
instrument or by microphones (as in electric guitars). By shortening the length with which the
string can vibrate, the frequency (speed of vibration) increases,
so the corresponding note sounds higher. So there is a series of
bars, called frets, against which a string can be pushed with a
finger, so that its free vibrating length is shortened and the
corresponding note higher. The series of notes produced when all
strings are not pushed against a fret (this is called an open
string), is called the open tuning of the instrument. For the
standard guitar, the notes are respectively E, A, D, G, B and E.
These are the notes produced when pinching one of the open
strings. If you push your finger so that the string
is pressed against the first fret and if you pinch the same
string with the other hand, the note produced is one half step
(semi-tone) higher. The second fret will produce a note two half
steps higher than the open string, and so on. For each string,
you have a full chromatic scale that covers ordinarily one to two
octaves. As the open string notes are based on different notes
from different octaves, the full set of notes that can be played
is ordinarily 2 to 4 octaves. Often, one given note can be
produced by two or more strings pushed on different frets. According to the physical distances of the
frets, to the open tuning of the strings and to your ability, you
can produce a chord by various combinations of strings and frets
played together. The guitar fretboard window [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] To illustrate these principles, you can
start Pizzicato and open the Guitar fretboard... item of
the Windows menu. The following window appears: The strings are represented horizontally. The
lowest string is the lower note. When you click on a string in
the left black part, you hear the open string note and the name
of the note appears as follows: Clicking a string in the next column of the
window will produce the note of a string pushed on the first
fret. And so on for the second fret, the third fret,... Take some
time and play on various strings and frets to see and hear which
notes are produced. This window acts exactly like the piano
keyboard window but for a guitarist. Here are some tips that you
can use with this fretboard: You can click and hold down the mouse
button while moving it around on the various strings and
frets. The notes are played as you move on them. You can hold the CTRL key while playing
on the fretboard so that the notes are held when you
release the mouse button. It acts in a similar way as the
piano sustain pedal, except that only one note of a given
string can be held at a given time (so a maximum of six
notes can be heard here). You can use this to test and
try various chords. To release the playing notes, use the
ESC key on the computer keyboard. You can use this window to enter the
notes step by step on a staff, exactly as explained for
the keyboard window. You can reach an
option dialog by using the right mouse click (ALT+click
on the Mac) inside the window. The following dialog box
appears: You can modify the graphic width of
the frets by changing the first two numbers. The
first one specifies the width of the first fret, in
pixels (smallest graphic point on a screen). By
increasing the second number, you shorten the
following frets. The Instrument menu is used
to select the fretted instrument you want the
fretboard to simulate. By default it is the standard
guitar, but you have a selection of about 240
instruments. Checking the Display note names will
display the names of every note on the full
fretboard. It can be useful to explore the fretboard
if you are a beginner. Checking the Display equivalent
notes will display all equivalent notes of the
notes you play on the fretboard. If you play one
note, this will help you to locate the other ways you
can play that same note on other strings. Tablatures [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] The way notes are written on a 5 lines staff is quite alien to
the physical position of the fingers on the guitar strings. So a
more convenient way to write music for the guitar has been
developed: the tablature. Basically, we use one line of the staff
for each guitar string. For the standard guitar, we get a 6 lines
staff. The bottom line is the lowest note. There is no sense
using a G or F clef, so we use a special (TAB) symbol, showing
that the staff should be interpreted as a tablature. Often, the
lines of a tablature are more spaced than for a normal staff. The
vertical bar lines can be used to separate measures, as in a
normal staff. Here is an example: You should notice that in this representation, the left to
right direction represents time going on, as in a normal staff.
You should not confuse the bar lines with frets (as these are
also vertical lines). On a tablature, notes can only be placed on a line, not
between lines. Indeed, we have to keep in mind this unique
association of each line staff with a guitar string. If we
specify a string by placing a note on the staff, there is still
one information missing: on what fret should we press a finger to
get that note? This is solved by placing the fret number in place
of a standard note head. Here is an example: The "0" number means that the string is played open
(with the string not pushed against a fret). Number "1"
means that the string is pushed on fret 1 and so on. You can
notice that rhythmic notation may also be used, as in a normal
score. We can use rests and others symbols specific to the guitar
or not. Using tablatures [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] Let us open a tablature template. Go in the File menu,
Open template... and select a template with a guitar
tablature. Here is one example: Open the Notes and rests palette in the Tools
menu and select the quarter note tool The same principle may be applied with the other rhythmic
values as well as with rests. The main difference with a normal
staff is that the note head is always a number, so there may be
in some case some confusion whether a note head is a quarter note
or an half note, but most of the time the layout of the measure
will solve this confusion. There are three ways to change the fret number assigned to a
note: You can move a note on the tablature and you will observe that
Pizzicato will try to adapt the fret number so as to keep the
same note pitch. For instance, if you move the note from line 1
to line 2, Pizzicato will keep the same fret number, as it is not
possible to play the lower note on a higher string. But if you
move it back on the first line, Pizzicato will change the fret
number to 5, which is how to play the same note as the second
open string but by using the first string. Most of the graphic symbols may be placed on a tablature in
the same way as with a normal staff (dynamics, tempo change,
accents, tuplets, chords,...). Using these principles, fill in
the tablature to display: By using the note contextual menu (right click on the
notehead), you can also check the two following options: They will respectively give the following results: The Fingering menu lets you specify which finger is
used for that note. Presently, this information is not displayed
automatically on the tablature but may be used to color the notes
according to the fingering. You can of course play the tablature as any other staff. You
can change the assigned sound, volume, reverb and all other
effects by using the instruments window (in the Windows
menu). In the Tools menu, you will find a tool palette with
several symbols that can be used specifically for the guitar. You
can use them as explained in the lesson about graphic and MIDI symbols. Tablature parameters [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] You can modify some tablature features or you can change a
normal staff to a tablature and vice versa. With the first popup menu, you can select the type of
instrument you want. The first available choice when you
click it is the standard guitar with 6 strings, tuned on
E1,A1,D2,G2,B2 and E3. In the guitar world, you will often find scores that have
both normal and tablature notations. The score has two
staves, one is a tablature and the other a normal staff. The
melody or chords are written in both staves so that guitar
players and other instrument players alike can read the
score. With Pizzicato, this can be created very easily as
follows. In the above dialog; the menu entitled Associate with:
provides a way to associate a normal staff to a tablature
staff. By default, no association is done. The other choices
are Upper staff or Lower staff. This can help you to write a melody or some chords in
normal music notation and have it automatically translated
into tablature notation. Or, if you do not know normal
notation very well and can use a tablature, you get the
normal notation automatically when you write the notes in the
tablature. As there may be more than one way to play a given note
with a guitar, the normal to tablature translation only
suggests one possibility. You can then move the note to
another string if you want. But when you add a note on the
tablature, there is only one note corresponding to the normal
notation, so in that direction, the translation is always
correct. The only trouble can be the transcription of
accidentals, but the problem is the same as with a keyboard
(is it a F# or a Gb ?). You should be aware that when you ask Pizzicato to play
the score, both staves will be played, so you may want to
mute one of them by unchecking the P (for Play)
check box of the Instruments window. Using tablatures, you can also copy/paste measures from/to
a normal staff and the conversion will also be executed by
Pizzicato. Notice that when you specify a tablature instrument in
this dialog, Pizzicato automatically sets the staff size to
150% so as to have a standard tablature size. You may change
that number if you want to (in Pizzicato Professional only).
The same remark is valid for thelines number of the staff,
which is automatically set to the strings number of the
chosen fretted instrument. Chords diagrams [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] We have seen that Pizzicato has a specific tool to add chord
symbols above the measures of a staff. For guitarists, each chord
symbol may also be displayed as a standard fretboard diagram,
showing how the fingers should be placed on the frets to play the
chord. In Pizzicato we call this a chord diagram. Here
is an example: Here is a description of its various elements: So to play a chord, the corresponding finger (from the left
hand) must be placed according to the diagram, and the right hand
must pinch all strings except the ones with a cross sign above
it. We will now see how to place chords diagrams in a score. Do
the following. The chord specficiation parameters have been explained in
a previous lesson, so please refer to the lesson entitled The
chord tool. When Pizzicato does not find a corresponding
diagram, it displays an empty diagram or a big cross. As there are often several ways to play a given chord on
the guitar, Pizzicato suggests only the first one that is
present in its library. You can move the chord symbol by clicking on it (not on the
chord diagram; the chord diagram will always be drawn just below
the chord symbol) as explained in the chord symbol lesson. In a similar way, you can use the chords progression window to
enter and view chords and their diagrams (Windows menu). The diagrams library [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] You can customize the default library of
chord diagrams. This is done when you select a chord diagram as
explained above (and by unchecking the Locked box). But
you can also reach this dialog in the Options menu, by
selecting the Chords diagrams library... item: This library is organized by instruments, by chords and by
notes: So a set of diagrams can exist for each combination of an
instrument, a chord type and a note. The corresponding diagram(s)
are displayed in the middle part of the window. You can see up to
six diagrams together, but if there are more available, a
vertical scroll bar appears so that you can scroll down to see
the other ones. The current diagram is displayed with a thicker border, as you
can see here for the first diagram. The diagrams are numbered at
the upper left corner from one to the total number of diagrams
available for that chord. A set of five small icons are visible in each diagram. When
you click on them, you can produce the following actions: If there is no diagram in the table, you can add a first empty
diagram by clicking on the "+" button available to the
right (left to the Generate... button). When a diagram is selected (thick border), you can change the
number of frets displayed with the menu entitled Number of
displayed frets and you can define the first fret (the
number that is placed to the left of the diagram) by using the
menu entitled First fret. Both are just above the
diagram table. The Edit zoom slider helps you to zoom in and out
inside that window so that the diagram can be bigger or small to
edit it. The Display zoom is a factor that will influence the
size of the diagrams when they will be displayed in the score. A
value of 100 gives a correct size, but you can customize it as
you want. Here is how to edit a diagram: Pizzicato offers you a powerful way to
create a full library of chords diagrams automatically. Click the
Generate... button and the following dialog appears: The idea is to ask Pizzicato to automatically generate chords
diagrams by giving precise specifications. Here are the various
possible specifications. You can then easily recreate the full library by specifying
your preferences in this dialog and then by clicking Create.
If you ask to create diagrams for all notes and all chords, it
may take some time, depending of the speed of your computer and
the above selection of choices. When you click on OK in the library window, the
library is then saved. If you make changes and then click Cancel,
the changes are not saved and Pizzicato loads again the library
that was present before you opened that dialog. So you can try
generating libraries of diagrams and if you are not satisfied
with them, just click Cancel. The tablatures library [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Pro] [Guitar] There are many instruments that are based
on strings and frets. With Pizzicato, you have a library of about
240 predefined fretted instruments. You can access that library
in the Options menu, with the Tablatures library...
item. The following dialog appears: The guitar instruments are first in the list, as they will be
the most commonly used. Then, the other instruments are ordered
by name. To select an instrument in the library, click on it in
the list. The right part of the window displays the following
information about the instrument and you can modify this
information: You can add, duplicate or remove instruments with the New,
Duplicate, Delete buttons and sort them with the Up
/ Down buttons. Two other controls will influence the way Pizzicato translates
a normal staff to a tablature staff (this is global and not
specific to one instrument):
. Add four notes on the four first lines
of the tablature, in the first measure, so as to have:
in the main palette and click
above the first measure. The chord selection dialog box
appears and you can change the chord characteristics as
you want. While you change the chord specifications,
Pizzicato searches the chord diagram library to find a
matching diagram and displays it to the right: