My wife bought me 50 Great Classical Solos for Guitar for Fathers Day, and they have some great pieces in there, so I've got two questions:
1. I've found a few pieces immediately that I really enjoy, but I don't know if I have the tempo right. I play what I think is right and sounds good, which I guess is okay, because it's all interpretation anyway, but how do you know when it says "Lively" what tempo and such? I guess a better understanding of time signatures would be good.
2. The book is sheet music/tab, is there any software out there that's free that I can use to put this into strictly sheet music? It would also help to put it to one or two sheets of paper rather than 3-4.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
I play what I think is right and sounds good, which I guess is okay, because it's all interpretation anyway, but how do you know when it says "Lively" what tempo and such?
As you say, it's all a question of interpretation. We have a whole series of terms around tempo which date from before the invention of the metronome, and Bach famously gave us no tempo instructions at all.
You need to take it all at face value
Lively? - not a funeral dirge then
Adagio? - not dance music then
Presto? - pretty darn quick
and so on.
And, if you play it and it sounds good, then that is the correct tempo for that piece when you play it.
A :-)
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk
Cool, thanks for the info Alan, I appreciate it!!
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
Joe, sorry, I don't know if I understand. Do you want to rewrite the music sheet?
If so, I use LilyPond ( http://lilypond.org/ ). At the beginning it could seem hard to use but it a very good software and it is quicker than wysiwyg programs. It also generates midi which can be very useful (at least for me). I can send to you some of my source files as example.
Musescore is a workable score writing program - the latest version is 0.9.6 and it's a freebie. A few quirks, but nothing you can't work with.
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk
Cool thanks for the links! Do any of them allow export to PDF? I couldn't find that in the documentation anywhere.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
Lilypond outputs in pdf.
Musescore prints straight from the screen - I use it to print stuff for my under 11s to play when I arrange things for school concerts.
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk
Musescore is amazing - i've used it a lot to get a playback of pieces in books with no recording on CD.
All so used it for my son to study his Recorder practice.
I've been thinking of a few ways to remove the tab as well. You could layout the work in Musescore...but if you have a scanner, it might be easier to scan the page, block erase the tab and then move the scores up.
Which is going to be quicker than resetting it, although Musescore could let you do other things like adding drum/metronome tracks, etc
Cool thanks! I think I'll use Lillypond then, because I have to transfer files to another computer to print them out..
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
Joe, I only have LilyPond files in bass clef... I can send them to you or prepare some examples in treble clef. There is a tutorial and also examples in the website but some examples are hard.
Musescore has plenty of export formats including pdf and even lilypond!
heres one I did for my son - its for recorder. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1607068/Volte%20from%20Terpischore.pdf
Musescore can play the score back too. With control over the tempo, repeats etc. Its not perfect but it can help enormously to to get the feel of a piece. Standard midi is supported, all modern soundcards have some midi support, the quality depends on the card.
I also think most people will be more comfortable using it than Lilypond - which I have used, but felt the time spent learning how was misspent!
I also think most people will be more comfortable using it than Lilypond - which I have used, but felt the time spent learning how was misspent!
I agree, Musescore can be easier than LilyPond. I am much more comfortable with software as LilyPond but as I said it could be hard. I also prefer the output, it seems more "professional" to me.
Joe, perhaps you can try both and decide.
Musescore is the way I went....very cool!
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
Any particular reason you are avoiding Guitar Pro? I know you have used it a lot in the past. You can turn off the tab view on the screen and when printing.
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Yeah I want to add the full note values, when doing it with guitar pro, it's kind of awkward to do, and the notes are kind of hard to see.
This one is easy in the way it works because I can add any note to the staff line when note values are different.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
