The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Is there a software that can do music notation and tab, and show both a piano keyboard and fretboard?

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Yes, and it’s free and brilliant: Musescore. Google it. They have helpful videos to get you started, and a user forum if you get stuck.

  4. #3

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    Sibelius.

  5. #4

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    You could buy a new guitar for the price of Sibelius. I had both. Musecore is better for tab, and very good for standard notation. And did I say it is free? Free music composition and notation software | MuseScore

  6. #5

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    Guitar Pro is not free, but it’s a fantastic program for tab and notation and very affordable (and on sale right now).

    https://www.guitar-pro.com/c/13-guitar-pro-overview

  7. #6

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    I haven't used MuseScore or Sibelius, but I do a lot of transcriptions on Soundslice.

    Soundslice | Create living sheet music

    I mostly have done guitar transcriptions but I did make one piano score as well.

    Here's an example of a transcription I made:All of Me (Funky) - Fredi Gebhardt | Soundslice

  8. #7

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    I use to use Sibelius, now I use MuseScore which is great.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    You could buy a new guitar for the price of Sibelius. I had both. Musecore is better for tab, and very good for standard notation. And did I say it is free? Free music composition and notation software | MuseScore
    I bought the Sibelius First a few years ago.
    It wasn't expensive. Really.
    Several sets of TI strings

  10. #9

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    Musescore is only free for 7 days.

  11. #10

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    Not true, Jock. There is a Pro version which they charge for, and which you are unlikely to need. The regular version is free. Just download it, but don’t sign up for anything else.

  12. #11

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    Thank you, Rob. I had downloaded Musescore and proceeded to open it. A pop up window showed 7 days free then pay, so I bailed.
    I will try it again.

  13. #12

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    They ask you to pay, but you don’t have to. It will still work. That is my experience, and of a student of mine recently. Sorry you had a different experience, Jock!

  14. #13
    But do any of these programs show a piano keyboard as well as a fretboard along with the notation and tab?

  15. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by geese_com
    I haven't used MuseScore or Sibelius, but I do a lot of transcriptions on Soundslice.

    Soundslice | Create living sheet music

    I mostly have done guitar transcriptions but I did make one piano score as well.

    Here's an example of a transcription I made:All of Me (Funky) - Fredi Gebhardt | Soundslice
    that was very good

  16. #15

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    Just for the record. This is from Marc Sabatella who works for Musescore. Note there is a difference between musescore.org (free) and musescore.com (not free).

    To be clear: the MuseScore notation software that you install on your computer and is supported on this website is free. Always has been, always will. There is, separate from that, a website for sharing scores - it's called msuescore.com. It provides some features for free to all, other features require an account, and those accounts come in both free and non-free versions. This is also not new, the only thing sort of new is that downloading copyrighted scores used to be free but the copyright owners insist on getting their royalties, so now it requires a paid account.

  17. #16

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    Yes, both Musescore and Sibelius show a keyboard if you click the icon for it.

  18. #17

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    I prefer musescore to Sibelius in many ways but mostly for standard notation and chord symbols

    The tab functions are decent but far from perfect. OTOH it’s free or cheap and I can realistically expect the feature set to improve as it already has done. They have a proactive design team with a lot to prove, Sibelius is relying on its legacy user base and they don’t really do much between releases.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanslider
    But do any of these programs show a piano keyboard as well as a fretboard along with the notation and tab?
    On Soundslice you can have it show a guitar fretboard or a piano keyboard by selecting it in the options.

  20. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    Yes, both Musescore and Sibelius show a keyboard if you click the icon for it.
    Does it show also guitar fretboard possibly. And guitar tablature?

    And another thing I'm wondering can all of these mentioned be saved in a way to display what you create in YouTube videos?

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanslider
    But do any of these programs show a piano keyboard as well as a fretboard along with the notation and tab?
    Yes, Guitar Pro does all of this.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanslider
    But do any of these programs show a piano keyboard as well as a fretboard along with the notation and tab?
    Guitar Pro offers a keyboard view and a guitar fretboard view. You can use the fretboard to input notes. (You're not playing them, just indicating where you want a note to go, say A string at the 5th fret, and a circle with the note name will appear. In this case, a D. I input something this way today and found it helpful.

  23. #22

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    There's a free "clone" of Guitar Pro, TuxGuitar. It works pretty decently for simpler stuff. Both have a bit more AI in the guitar tab department where they at least seem to attempt to put added notes in an appropriate position, and you can move them between strings or change the score by changing the tab. MuseScore (in the version I have) just goes for the lowest position for each note when you enter a note and/or add a tab to your score. Subsequent changes to existing notes in either score or tab are not carried over.

  24. #23

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    I'm pretty late to the party, but still want to add my two cents. I've recently discovered ScanScore https://scan-score.c?m/en/. It is really good. It allows me to scan printed and digital sheet music, transpose it, and playback my score. Also, it is possible to export your notes to almost any music program via the MusicXML or MIDI interface and edit them further.
    Last edited by Eugle; 05-15-2022 at 03:43 AM.

  25. #24

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    I have no experience except that someone I know that is very experienced with instruction and guitar uses Finale. I don't use anything. But he does a lot. Just adding to the discussion.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eugle
    I'm pretty late to the party, but still want to add my two cents. I've recently discovered ScanScore. It is really good.
    I suppose you have a paid version? If you have time it'd be useful if you could do a quick comparison with the free Audiveris software (GitHub - Audiveris/audiveris: Latest generation of Audiveris OMR engine). That's what Musescore uses behind the scenes if you ask it to import a PDF, but I've started running my own copy because that gives you more control over what features to activate.
    It works well, but there's usually a significant amount of corrections to be applied, all of which aren't always worthwhile to do in Audiveris itself. And that's after I clean up the PDF by masking the TAB staves if there are and as many specks, scribbles or other things that could throw the software off. I do that by simple masking in Apple's Preview app, and then save the document as a (multi-page) TIFF file.

    If ScanScore really does better it could be worth a license (though the step from 39$ for a single-stave version to 99$ for one supporting up to 4 is a bit steep IMHO).