MuseScore guitar (with tab) musicxml import to Dorico

Dorico
1

I have a lot of Musecore files of guitar with tablature (just 1 solo instrument).
Can someone point me to any info on the proper way to bring this into Dorico?

I tried just exporting and importing and it seems to “work” but while it shows treble clef (ok) and TAB but there are “music notes” (not numbers) in the TAB after Dorico imports them.

Do I delete the TAB in musecore, export, then recreate the TAB in Dorico?

tab

2

Assuming one has already tried importing with most or all of the importing (MIDI or XML?) preferences set to let Dorico “do its thing,” my first thought would be to create a new guitar part and drag just the music notes onto the music staff and let Dorico realize the TAB equivalents.

3

Can you zip up and attach one of your MuseScore-created MusicXML files here, so I can take a look and see how the tab is represented? In general MuseScore’s MusicXML is very good, so it’s possible that Dorico is misinterpreting the information in there.

4

ms4 to dorico.zip (1.5 MB)

Ok I tried two ways:
04 - Moonlight In Vermont (open directly in dorico).dorico
Open the Musecore xml file directly at the Dorico Hub or whatever the first screen is called. “Open or Import File”
When I do that BOTH STAFFs are in TAB (numbers)

04 - Moonlight In Vermont import after creating solo guitar).dorico
Import the Musecore xml file directly in Dorico after creating a solo guitar layout. File + Import …
When I do that BOTH STAFFs are in NOTATION (not treble/TAB)

This is in Dorico SE.
I may be doing something completely stupid but frankly it’s not obvious. :wink:

5

04 - Moonlight In Vermont.zip (46.0 KB)

Sorry - this is the Musescore file that goes with the Dorico files

6

Thanks for attaching the projects. There’s certainly something here that we need to investigate further, but in the meantime there’s a reasonably easy solution.

After importing your MusicXML file, go to the Layout Options dialog, then the Players page, and under Fretted Instruments set the instrument to show Notation and tablature. When you apply the changes, you’ll see four staves: notation, tab, notation, tab.

What’s happening here is that Dorico has interpreted the MusicXML file as if the instrument has two staves, and each staff then shows its own tablature.

So to get to the result that you want, select the first note on the lower notation staff and choose Edit > Select to End of Flow, then hit Delete. Then select the bar rest in the first bar of the lower notation staff, right-click, and choose Staff > Remove Staff.

Now you’ll be left with just one notation staff, and the tablature below.

7

Thanks - works up to “remove staff”.

I’m using SE so it doesn’t seem to be available to remove staff even with
Edit > Notations > Staff > Remove Staff

What I’ll probably do is just remove the TAB in Musescore, then import notation and create the TAB ii n Dorico. The TAB has to be adjusted anyway since it looks like it regenerates the string selections (which are notoriously wrong for chord melody in every notation program).

8

Here. It didn’t take a moment in Pro.

04 - Moonlight In Vermont (open directly in dorico).dorico (943.2 KB)

9

Thanks - I just deleted the TAB in Musescore, imported the xml to Dorico and then changed player to Notation+TAB. So I have a pretty quick work around.

It does look like a glitch though. The Musescore is setup (correctly) as linked staff (notation and tab) so this will happen to pretty much everyone importing guitar notation and tab unless you delete the tab.

But like I said - easy work around.

I suppose it’s a limitation of either Musescore and/or musicxml and/or Dorico or ? that the tab choice for strings will get “reset” from user changes. Which means re-doing the tab string selections but oh well.

Edit> this was actually interesting. Fixing the tab in Dorico was much easier. Dorico seems to chose the “correct” (desired) strings for the TAB better than Musecore.

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