Hello, I am not a guitarist and yet I am attempting a Guitar and voice piece. I have a question. As the piece has a low E flat note… in fact many of them as the piece is in E flat… I wrote a note on the score that the guitar is in "Dropped Eflat Tuning. Now in setting up the piece I made the guitar standard tuning. Ai, which I consulted told me that I should just write the piece normally. So are all the guitar chords…really the fingerings… when doing it automatically in Dorico going to be correct? Not playing an instrument and writing for it is a major hindrance… LOL Under the Guitar diagrams in setup on the guitar it is in standard tuning. I see no drop Eflat just dropped D.
You can create your own custom tuned guitar
But I can’t find a way to have Chord Diagrams use that custom tuning, Tablature however does.
Having edited the tuning, you will find that tuning listed in the long list of possible tunings for chord diagrams…
Select it and the Chord Diagrams will use it.
1 Like
I’m not sure of the expertise of the player you are writing this for, but a piece in Eb on the guitar is basically a constant barre. The more appropriate strategy would be to use drop-D tuning with a capo on the 1st fret or simply transpose the piece 1/2 step down to D (again, with drop D tuning).
Advice from a guitarist …
1 Like
It may be necessary to re-open the Edit Tunings dialog in order for the tuning to register on the list…
Closing the file, and reopening did not work
The new tuning is available if I create a new instrument with that tuning instead of altering a standard guitar
Well, I just changed the tuning… and there it is.
Then I must have done something wrong, or in another order
Thanks for showing, didn’t know it was possible, learned something today
Everybody thanks for the info… very much appreciated. I think I will do what the guitarist suggested and make it for drop D tuning. So I am assuming it would still be in Eflat and they put a capo thing on the neck? That’s what I am understanding.
Never mind I just repeated exactly what the poster told me. Thanks much for everyones help on this!
Hello, I am going to take your advice. So I am going to keep the score in E flat. And write in the score use a drop D tuning. And then I tell them to use a capo on the first fret… or do they just know this automatically. And it they are using a capo… do I in Dorico change the guitar tuning to dropped D or does the Capo cancel that? Can you help just a tad more. I know its common sense for you…
Beware that drop D tuning and open D tuning aren’t the same - just saying because one of the screen shots had open D tuning selected.
Drop is mildly different for someone used to standard tuning only. Open D is significantly different - but also pretty .
Anyway, Dorico will let you specify a capo on the first fret with the tuning. Which I’d personally prefer if I where using a capo - I’d be thinking in terms of the chord shape that I’m actually using as for example I ‘d be thinking about playing a D, not the actual transposed pitch of Eb.
But players who are used to playing with horns and such do keys like Eb or Bb all the time, and would prefer you just tell them the chords without the tuning and capo and leave it at that.
As far as the tab, it’s not likely to be very useful until you have a player work through and revise it IMO. There’ll be 4 different ways (or more) on the neck to get the same note, and unless you actually play it out, you are more likely to tab out something that resembles a twister game. :). There are chords that just don’t sound that great on a guitar as originally written- odds are there will be substitutions or inversions a player knows that will work better, places where a different fingering is better because a note can be left to drone/ring, or it will sound clearer a different way…
I guess what I’m really saying is don’t worry too much and the player will figure it out? And don’t expect them to play exactly what you wrote note for note? There are far better players than me, but I have played a fair bit. We tend to get what we get, unless it’s written for guitar by a guitarist. So it’s nothing unusual. 
Yeah I have been thinking of just leaving the fingering charts off as I can’t read them and have no idea if they are using inversions… I have kind of understood that just getting the notes in the chord on a guitar are what is important not the emphasis on note order and inversions… well except for probably the bass notes. I think unless people tell me different and that fingering charts are a must I will just use the chord symbols/bass note and let them figure it out. Thanks so much everyone and particularly gdball. Thanks much. I hope I interpreted what you told me correctly.
I have figured out the neck and reading the diagrams. I was making assumptions about how it worked and ignoring things… like fr6… hideously stupid and also using my own printouts that had a problem and this caused me frustration and utter silliness. I am happy you don’t know my real name so I can hide my shame. Thanks again everyone.
Sure, but we don’t know the genre. Aside from jazz charts, there are generally two types of song scores (assuming key=Eb):
- Piano/Vocal/Chords: This typically has the piano and voice written in Eb with the guitar chords in the key of D with capo 1 or C (depending on range) with capo 3.
- Art song: This usually has the guitar part written out in D with a note for capo 1 or in C (again, depending on range) with capo 3. The voice is written in Eb (obviously).
I’m sure there are other, more esoteric types but the 2 above are standard ways of notating songs with guitar and voice.
As @gdball notes above, any guitarist with rudimentary skills can figure chords out: D7, G, Am etc… but whether you write the part out, use fingering charts or just chord symbols really does depend on the genre.
That may be common in some circumstances and I’m not minimizing it.
I wouldn’t call it esoteric though to get “whatever” dropped on your stand. I remember playing for a regional Miss Missouri pageant and getting talent pieces dropped off to play, the director shrugging and here we go. Playing in the pit for a musical (which I think is a blast) and there are volumes of hymns, fight songs, theme songs, movie songs, dance songs, anthems…
I agree genre is a thing, but that’s part of why I wouldn’t assume a capo and common /standard chord voicing is necessarily the right go.
I confess to a pet peeve of having a guitar player stamp a sound on something that was painfully not what was intended - I sympathize. But I sympathize with the poor singer more. I’m not saying anyone here does that, but there are some legendary examples in my memory.
These two pieces are what I would reference as folk Christian original works. Just a vocalist girl or guy and a guitar. I am probably making too much of a fuss. Everyone has been very generous so I am going to ask one more quick question. Unlike piano music, it is my understanding that guitarists will break up chords into arpeggios and such. I have written some arpeggios in but I really want the guitarist to feel free. Is there a common instruction on guitar music that makes it clear not to be rigid in interpretation? Improvise at will - but keep chord structures intact LOL? Should I write all arpeggios in?
Not sure you are making a fuss about it, it is quite important you know … and the guitarist knows what to do.
I think the simplest is:
however this presupposes they have a capo with them.
Otherwise completely detune a half-step (fret, semitone) and have chords based in E (assuming the piece is in Eb, have you said?)
Or just have normal guitar tuning and forget about the low Eb, and set it in Eb if that is the key.
Depends on the guitarist, doesn’t it? If they can read well, are a classical guitarist, only read notation, or just read off the chords (or tab).
I would probably notate/tab one bar so it shows the style (meaning not strummed etc.) and write “simile”. Have the guitar chords. Saves a lot of work and if you do not know guitar, it will be difficult to easily notate all the arpeggios?