Guitar markers

2011-03-01 05:10 pm

At the risk of asking a question that`s been asked ten million times - are there any reliable guitar phrasing markers available anywhere in NWC?? Many thanks. stokots.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #1 – 2011-03-01 05:40 pm

A image link or description of what you mean by "guitar markers" might be helpful.
Not much has changed since <this>.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #2 – 2011-03-02 08:36 pm

Quote from: stokots – 2011-03-02 06:44 pm

I can`t believe you`ve never heard of phrase markers. They`re used for guitar, also piano or bass, when using chord symbols, to indicate any particular phrasing that needs to be followed.

Here is a tip: If you google: guitar phrase markers, click on Images and see nothing familiar on the first page of results, chances are that your understanding is somewhat parochial.

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 2011-03-02 08:13 pm

Never heard them called "phrase markers", have heard them called "rhythm marks".

Which might be <this> or <this>

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #3 – 2011-03-02 09:11 pm

Quote from: Rick G. – 2011-03-02 08:36 pm

Which might be <this> or <this>

Stokots description indicates the latter, which are also, and probably better, known as "comping" marks... (I know that you know this Rick, the clarification is for Stokots benefit)

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #4 – 2011-03-03 07:24 am

Quote

At the risk of asking a question that`s been asked ten million times - are there any reliable guitar phrasing markers available anywhere in NWC??

Stokots, if you mean the slashes, the workaround is to make headless notes with stem lengths set to zero. Then before each one, enter text that is simply a forward slash, with alignment set to be "at next note."

If you need stems, simply don't set the stem length to zero, but align the text a little higher so it doesn't conflict with the stem. The advantage of having a stem length greater than zero is that you can beam groups of eighth notes.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #5 – 2011-03-03 04:44 pm

Well well well! A real can of worms here! Having only been around as a pro musician/arranger since about 1958, what do I know? They were always referred to as phrasing markers back in those halcyon times. However, I suppose I must succumb to more modernistic phraseology (no pun intended!), and accept that sundry other names have evolved over time.
Lawrie Pardy`s second "this" (top staff), shows exactly what I`m referring to - literally markers showing how the guitar chords are to be phrased. It can`t come much clearer than that!
I can only assume from all this that these are not available in any form or work around in NWC?

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #6 – 2011-03-03 07:08 pm

Called "phrase markings" by whom? I'm honestly curious, since I've never heard them called that, and I started playing and teaching the guitar professionally (folk and classical) about the same time you did. And they don't have anything at all to do with what a musician would normally refer to as "phrasing," which has to do with shaping the dynamics and tempo of a phrase, not its rhythm.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #7 – 2011-03-04 02:54 pm

This could go on ad nauseam! Rhythm marks, comping marks, comping slashes, strum patterns, apart from my guitar markers, are all mentioned here, showing that there isn`t an absolute terminology for this, anyway. But at this stage, I`m sure everyone knows what I`m talking about.
At the moment, I`m wading through scripto, as William suggested, but I`m not holding my breath.
David mentioned headless notes. Being a layman where NWC is concerned, I`m assuming this means crotchets, quavers etc, with the stems, but no heads (dots). If so, in words of one syllable please - how are they created? My NWC version is 1.75.10. Thanks.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #8 – 2011-03-04 11:15 pm

G'day Stokots

Quote from: stokots – 2011-03-04 02:54 pm

David mentioned headless notes. Being a layman where NWC is concerned, I`m assuming this means crotchets, quavers etc, with the stems, but no heads (dots). If so, in words of one syllable please - how are they created? My NWC version is 1.75.10. Thanks.

Your assumption is correct, but unfortunately V1.75 can't do it as it doesn't support headless notes. An upgrade to 2.1 is pretty cheap ($15 US) and will give you access to lots of neat new features in addition to headless notes.

New features:
http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwc2/help/HELP_ONWHATSNEW.htm

Upgrading:
https://www.noteworthysoftware.com/order/buy/?formid=nwc2u

<Edit> I've attached a rough and ready example. The slashes could be a little bolder but this is not hard to achieve as it is mainly a font selection issue.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #9 – 2011-03-05 11:36 am

And g`day to you Lawrie! EUREKA! That`s the baby! It`ll be $15 well spent. My piano, guitar and bass parts can now resemble those from the bygone days when all our charts had to be hand written. Many thanks to you and all the other contributors.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #10 – 2011-03-05 08:31 pm

G'day Stokots,
you might be interested in some of my font suites that are designed for NWC. NWC2.x has the abillity to replace the system font, and I have several varieties. It occurs to me that I could replace the "X" notehead with a comping slash head in an alternative system font. This would be easier to use than the text over a headless note technique used in my example.

If you're interested, visit my web site http://zoundz.pardyline.com.au and check out the examples. None of them have the comping slash of course, but you can at least see the type face style. When I get some time I'll look into the feasibility af a new, alternative system font.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #11 – 2011-03-06 07:36 am

Lawrie, may I suggest that instead of this

Quote

It occurs to me that I could replace the "X" notehead with a comping slash head in an alternative system font. This would be easier to use than the text over a headless note technique used in my example

you replace the harmonic notehead, please? The headless note has purposes other than anchoring comping slashes - for instance, it can be used to position a grace note that is intended to be a cue note.

BW
David

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #12 – 2011-03-06 09:41 am

G'day David,
umm, I said the "X" head, not the blank, or headless, one.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #13 – 2011-03-06 04:10 pm

Lawrie, what about percussionists who need both? Seems to me that text objects might be a better way to go.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #14 – 2011-03-06 08:51 pm

Quote

I said the "X" head, not the blank, or headless, one.

I apologize, Lawrie, I misread it. I agree, though, with Bill - I need the ordinary, the X and the blank far more often than I need the harmonic notehead. However, when I'm writing out band parts, they will have rhythm guitar line that needs comping slashes, most of the horn solos need them comping slashes, and so does the piano when it's reading from chord symbols.

The harmonic and x notehead are BOTH needed in the percussion part, although I can live without the harmonic if I need to.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #15 – 2011-03-06 09:02 pm

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2011-03-06 08:51 pm

I need the ordinary, the X and the blank far more often than I need the harmonic notehead.

NWC 2.5 adds 8 noteheads (and 16 notehead glyphs to NWC2STDA.ttf). I'm sure one of them would be suitable for conversion to a 'comping' notehead.
With a bit of ingenuity, they might form a useful implementation of TAB notation.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #16 – 2011-03-06 09:18 pm

Good call, Rick. What about "mi?" Other than being filled in, it's similar to the harmonic notehead.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #17 – 2011-03-06 10:21 pm

I cannot use the harmonic nothead from 2.5 as:
a) 2.5 is not yet released
b) it uses the same open glyph as diamond and non-pitched heads

I could potentially use the solid diamond head glyph as this would then make the open head available for those times that an open head is required for comping.

For me, this is not really desireable as I use the diamond heads for cues. In addition, for the comping head to work properly the open head should be a parallelogram shape instead of a rhomboid one anyhow. That said, using an "X" instead of a slash works too, it's just a little unusual...

As suggested, changing one of the pitched head pairs might work well enough, I guess it really doesn't matter which one...

IMHO it is well beyond time that true cues were implemented in NWC, and it wouldn't hurt to have closed and open slash note heads either.

Re: Guitar markers

Reply #18 – 2011-03-07 06:41 am

Quote

it is well beyond time that true cues were implemented in NWC

Quote

and it wouldn't hurt to have closed and open slash note heads either

Yes that would be nice

Also slurs NEED to be improved.