Guitar Tab & Chord suggestions

Dorico
1

I am a BRAND new user of Dorico (only 1 day so far) so I am eagerly learning more about it. From a quick search I found that there is currently not Guitar Tab function but that it is in the works. I would like to make some suggestions for that.
First off I definitely think Guitar Tab functionality is a MUST because I write for show choirs and worship music and typically guitar players always want/need tabs for their parts.
I am a 16-year Sibelius user. I have also used Finale and Noteflight. I am using a trial of Dorico. I am ALWAYS looking for the best Notation program.
I LOVE that Dorico listens to suggestions so here are mine for Guitar Tabs:

  1. You should be able to see notation in the full score and tab on the individual guitar part. This is helpful because a lot of musicians want to write out their guitar parts, but they do not really know how to write tab correctly so it would be nice to just write it as notation in the full score and Dorico make the individual guitar part be a tab for those not so familiar with guitar tab fingering.
  2. Also, for the individual “tab part” there should be a quick fix to make it the closest frets possible so that you don’t have the player going all over the place. This should be like a tool that does it for the entire part so that you don’t have to adjust each fingering.
  3. The tab should show rhythm not just the tab number.
  4. It would be nice if maybe there was a quick way to switch in the individual part from tab to notation in case you had a player that wanted notation.
  5. Finally…no Music Notation app is doing this and I believe it would be AWESOME if Dorico did. You should be able to take a lead vocal line that has lyrics and chords attached to it and create an individual part in the style of a chord chart with only lyrics and chords. MANY guitar players want these especially for worship. Basically like a word file with just lyrics and chords. After looking at the frames section I think Dorico can do this. You have lyrics connected to notes and you have chords connected to notes so you should be able to have lyrics with the correct chords above the write lyrics in the right places. Many musicians (like myself) spend time getting the music right with the chords placed in the right locations and then they have to create a chord chart and do the same thing all over again in Word. I think Dorico would stand out among the others if they could do this.

Thank you to Daniel and the team for working so hard to make the best Music Notation software out there.

2

Welcome to the forum, mrechuck. We are working on guitar notation at the moment, which will certainly include tab, and in fact the notation and tab will be linked together, so that editing the notation will edit the tab, and vice versa, though it will also of course be possible to show only the tab or only the notation if necessary.

We have tossed around the idea of creating a lyrics/chord layout automatically, and although that’s not something you should expect imminently, it’s definitely something we’re interested in doing in the longer term.

3

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but I think it would be very helpful if guitar chord diagrams could mirror notated chords (on a notation staff). In other words, if a staff shows a stack of 4 notes from bottom up, G (below middle C), B, D, F#, the chord diagram would display (from 6th string to 1st):
X-X-5-4-3-2
with additional available fingerings available by toggling through all the “playable” options:
X-10-9-7-7-X
15-14-12-11-X-X
X-17-16-0-0-X
etc…
Additionally, if we could do the reverse, and reflect the pitches in a manually created chord diagram on a notation staff that would be very useful.
Hopefully this functionality would work for alternate tunings, 7-string guitar, and other stringed instruments.

I’m really excited about the possibilities for teaching, as well as arranging music for fretted string ensembles.