When I imported a MusicXML file into Dorico Pro, all looked fine except the chords on a tablature staff. The chord symbols and chord diagrams are correct, but tab numbers are incorrect or missing. How do I add the needed numbers or fix the wrong ones? Do I have to change each chord, or can all the F chords, say, be fixed at once? Each chord is supposed to have 4 tab numbers. Here’s a sample.
Would you be able to attach a short MusicXML file that imports incorrectly, so we can take a look?
Here’s a screenshot from the source file, in Sibelius:
Here’s a screenshot from the MusicXML file, which is in MuseScore:
I’m afraid that to diagnose the problem I really need a MusicXML file rather than a screenshot. There could be some kind of bug either in Sibelius’ export or Dorico’s import or both, but without the file it’s impossible to say. It doesn’t have to contain all your music - a file that’s just a couple of bars long would still be good enough for me to get a feel for what’s going on.
Here are two MusicXML files from a truncated Sibelius file, compressed & uncompressed. Thank you for taking an interest in the Chords part not importing into Dorico as written in Sibelius. — Nancy
(Attachment Muslin Rag Compressed.mxl is missing)
(Attachment Muslin Rag Uncompressed.musicxml is missing)
You may have sent your post before the files had finished uploading.
Hello, Richard Lanyon. Let’s see if this third send attempt works…. The compressed file has a title page; the music is exactly the same in both files.
Thanks, Nancy
(attachments)
Muslin Rag Compressed.xml (976 KB)
Muslin Rag Uncompressed.xml (326 KB)
The problem here is that many of the chords on the “Chords” staff contain duplicate notes. Dorico is trying to allocate each note in a chord to a different string, but it can’t always do it because of the extra notes. Just to give you a specific example, in bar 7 on the “Chords” staff, each chord in the MusicXML contains B3, D4, F4 and G4, but there are two of the B3 notes. Obviously you can’t play a 5-note chord on a 4-string instrument, and that is why Dorico gives the odd results you see here.
You wrote: "The problem here is that many of the chords on the “Chords” staff contain duplicate notes. "
Yes, duplicate notes are not uncommon on an ukulele, and Dorico handles them just fine when input directly with the low G tuning. I expected that the MusicXML file would faithfully absorb Sibelius’s correctly written tab numbers; the problem seems to be there, not in Dorico. Because I’m gradually porting Sibelius ukulele ensemble files into Dorico, I need the imported tab to be correct. Should I write to MuseScore?
Dorico sometimes puts fretted notes in unplayable places (like the 12th fret in the example above (G7: 12, 2, 1, 2 instead of 0, 2, 1, 2 and C7: 12, 0, 0, 1 instead of 0,0,0,1), but that’s perhaps a topic for another post.
I don’t mean that the problem is simply having two notes of the same pitch - I’m aware that doubled pitches is common for ukulele. Instead I think that there’s an extra note in the export that isn’t there in the original notated music. For example, you can see that the chord in b.7 of your score does not have any doubled pitches, but it does in the XML. If you want to post the Sibelius file here I could try looking at it to see if I can see what’s wrong, but I only have access to Sibelius 7 (the last one I worked on!) so if you’re using a later version you’ll need to do Export > Previous Version. My guess is that the extra notes are in the Sibelius file itself but I’m not sure why they’re there - hidden notes perhaps, or notes in a different voice?
Thank you for your patience pursuing the topic, Richard. Here are several different formats for the chords player—after all, including both chord diagrams and tab chord numbers is a belt and suspenders approach. I like the clean look of a regular notation staff with chord diagrams and slash notation. (I know that stemmed noteheads would be more correct for 2/4 time)
For my current project with the misimported chords, I think I’ll switch from the tab staff to a notation staff and slash notation (the project is in cut time). By the way, I wish that a slash region could allow occasional rhythmic changes.
Here are other layouts I’ve used. For a part needing chords and single notes:
And here’s one in 6/8 time with the chord diagrams at the top of page one:
If you have other layout suggestions, or corrections, I’m happy to hear them, as arranging for ukulele ensembles is my specialty, and some players prefer chords to single notes.