Guitar Capo Notation_Sib 4

Added 27 Apr 2007 (last updated 07 Aug 2016)

For use with Sibelius 4.1 and Sibelius 5

This is a set of resources for notating guitar music that uses a capo, especially in TAB staves. TAB staves do not support transposition changes, so if you want a staff that plays back at the correct pitch, you must define a staff type whose pitches are the pitches at the capoed fret.

  1. Capo Notation plug-in. This plug-in takes an initial key and guitar tuning and calculates the tunings at various capo positions. It also calculates the transposition interval, final key, and transposition change setting for notation staves.
  2. Special capo clef house styles. This is a series of house styles, each of which redefines the symbol \"Tall 4 string tab clef\", which is used for a clef style in Create > Clef. The house style name explains the kind of clef available (such as \"Tab Capo Clef Full 1.lib\", which has a marking for a full capo on fret 1, or \"Tab Capo Clef E Sus 2.lib\", which has a marker for a partial capo on strings 3, 4, and 5 on fret 2). Import the symbols from the desired house style into the document containing the TAB staff, and then use Create > Clef.
  3. Capoed TAB staff definition house style, \"Capoed Staff Types\". This contains staff type definitions for tunings capoed from 1 to 12 frets, with both sharp and flat variants for these tunings:
    • Standard, no rhythms
    • Standard, with rhythms
    • DADGAD
    • Dropped D
    • Double D
    • D minor
    • Open A
    • Open C
    • Open D
    • Open G
    • Open A
  4. A set of scores, suitable for saving as manuscript paper, set up for standard tuning guitar (with rhythms) capoed from frets 1 to 12. A sample score that demonstrates how to set up a score for standard tuning capoed at fret 2 is also included.

To use these, you can make a copy of one of the included scores if applicable, or make up you own scores from the included parts.

Run the plug-in to determine which type of TAB staff you will need, or guess from the house style names after importing the staff types in house style \"Capoed Staff Types\". Then if you want a graphic marker, import the Tab� house styles appropriate to your TAB staff (only import symbols, noteheads, and text styles from these House Styles). If you have a standard tuning staff capoed with a complete capo on the 3rd fret, you should import \"Tab Capo Clef Full 3.lib\". Then Create > Clef, and pick the last TAB clef, the one with the line and number next to the word TAB.

The resulting TAB staves will play back at the capoed pitch and look nice too!

CapoNotation.plg updated 9 August 2011 to Sib 7 dialog control fixes.

Updated and renamed 8 August 2016 to reflect the fact the the scores and House Styles were built for Sibelius 4 and do not work in Sibelius 6 and later. A new plugin suite Guitar Capo Notation has been added with files that work in current versions of Sibelius

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

Fix TAB Collisions

Version 01.13.00
Added 29 Apr 2008 (last updated 13 Jul 2017)

For use with Sibelius 5, Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

Looks on a TAB staff for places where there are 2 or more notes on the same string and the same starting position in a bar, and it tries to move notes to different strings.

It can trace the location of any notes it moves.

It won\'t try if there are more notes than strings. It tries to correct notes that have no string assignment. It will skip grace notes and unison notes with the same duration (though the location of skipped unison notes will be traced).

Updated 10 July 2017. Support added for magnetic glisses in Sib 8.6 and later

Updated 13 July 2017. Remove unused code.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

Circle TAB Half and Whole Notes

Version 01.34.00
Added 17 Sep 2009 (last updated 06 Sep 2020)

For use with Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

Circle TAB for Half & Whole Notes will find half and whole notes in a guitar (guitar only) TAB staff, and add circle or ellipse symbols to cover these notes or chords, so as to indicate their duration. This is not as good as having Sibelius support this as a feature, but it really beats doing the same thing by hand.

The symbols will be in a drawing layer on top of the notes, so to access the notes you will have to pull the symbols out of the way. However, the plugin has an option to delete all the added symbols, and another to delete existing symbols and add new ones, which works well if you are still editing the score.

The zip file includes a House Style library that must be installed in the user House Style folder. The plugin will load symbols from this House Style.

The symbols and their placement are customizable, (if tediously) using the Options� button. You can choose different symbols and specify their X and Y offsets in the dialog, and these values are preserved over Sibelius sessions. The plugin author can provide more details if you actually want to try this.

Updated 22March2015 to make it work with 5 line and 4 line TAB staves as well as 6 line guitar tab.It will not work with TAB staves greater than 6 lines, and probably never will.

Updated 22April2017 Added new set of SVG graphics symbols for Sib 7+. Also added ability to set draw order in front of or behind TAB numbers.

Updated 22April2017. Modified the graphics to be big enough to avoid the whited out blocks so the symbols can be drawn behind the numbers. You will need the updated plugin and updated house style TabHalfWholeSib7Plus.lib, which the installer should provide.

Updated 25 April 2017. Made the symbols opaque and forces them always to be behind the TAB numbers but in front of the staff lines and note stems. There are now 3 House styles that are installed (for Sib 7+, the opaque one is actually used. Fixed problems with Sib 7.1.3 being unable to read the house styles, and rearranged the dialog a bit.

Updated 9 August 2018. Version 01.33.00. Removed unwanted trace and fixed draw order in Sib 6.

Updated 4 August 2020. Version 01.33.01. Rebuilt the graphics files used to make the house style TabHalfWholeSib7PlusOpaque.lib so they would display correctly in Sib Ultimate. Thanks to Robin Walker. Users should reinstall. If you had run the plugin before and gotten bad symbols, you will need to go into Notations Edit Symbols and delete all the user defined symbols from 1Line1Digit through 6Lines2Digits and then rerun the plugin.

Updated 4 August 2020. Version 01.33.02. Recreated TabHalfWholeSib7PlusOpaque.lib from a Sibelius 7 format file so it cam be imported into scores from Sib 7.1.3 or later.

Updated 5 September 2020. Version 01.34.00. In Sib 7.5 or later, the plugin can now recognize if the main fonts in your score differ from those in the House Style that is imported to get symbols, and warns you how to deal with that. There is now a Help button that describes what you can do.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

Alternate Picking

Version 01.12.00
Added 27 Mar 2011 (last updated 07 Mar 2014)

For use with Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

This plugin will add downbow and upbow articulations to selected notes,based on Alternate Picking, which is often used for flatpicking fiddle tunes on guitar.

There are several options, and the rules used are explained in the main dialog.

A House Style that defines a smaller upbow symbol is included in the zip file, as is a PDF document explaining how the plugin can be used.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

Trace TAB Collisions

Version 01.15.00
Added 18 Nov 2011 (last updated 07 Mar 2014)

For use with Sibelius 5, Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

Looks on a TAB staff for places where there are 2 or more notes on the same string and the same starting position in a bar, and writes the location of any such notes to the Plugin Trace window.

Such collided notes are typically not visible, and can be a surprise in playback or when you copy to a notation staff, so it is useful to know if you have any.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

Guitar Capo Notation

Version 01.50.00
Added 07 Aug 2016 (last updated )

For use with Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

This is a set of resources for notating guitar music that uses a capo, when you want to be able to see the music in the �played� key and hear it in the key that would result from using a capo. If you wanted to have a capo on the 2nd fret and sound in D major, you could write the music as if it were in C major.

THis suite replaces an earlier suite which was written in Sibelius 4 and whose definitions no longer worked for Sibelius 6 and later.

A simple approach, if you don�t mind playing back in the played key, is just to write the music in the played key (C major in the example), and add text instructing the player to put a capo on fret 2. If you want to see the music in the played key but hear it is the sounding key you need to make changes to both the notation and tab staves, and they are different changes.

In either case you create new instruments based on guitar staves. For notation staves, you change the transposition for where middle C sounds. For TAB staves you need to change the notes assigned to each string in Edit Instrument Edit Staff Type. If you have a notation instrument transposed in this way, you will likely want to enter notes in the Transposing Scores rather than the Concert score. Tab scores with different notes will not care if you are in a transposed or concert score.

This package provides some tools to help in the process.

1. The Acoustic Guitar Capo house style includes instrument definitions for guitar notation staves capoed from fret 1 to 12, which some sharp and flat variations when there is a choice of keys at a given fret.

2. It also contains definitions for TAB staves capoed from frets 1 to 12 for these tunings:

a. � Standard, no rhythms

b. � Standard, with rhythms

c. � DADGAD with rhythms

d. � Dropped D with rhythms

3. To use the house style, import it into your score. When you add instruments you will see several groups of instrument definitions under the Acoustic Guitar group, and you can choose the notation and tab staves from these groups.

Note that a notation instrument has an associated TAB staff which lets it know the fingering to use when copying from the notation staff to the tab staff. The notation instruments are set to use the standard tuning tab with rhythm, but you can change that setting in Edit Instruments to be your desired TAB staff.

4. The Capo Notation plugin takes an initial key and guitar tuning and calculates the tunings at various capo positions. It also calculates the transposition interval, final key, and transposition change setting for notation staves. This can be useful if you have to create more of these by hand.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

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