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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → Music notation and format
We usually see music in chord sheet format, just words and chords. Our worship team mostly don't read standard notation, so I don't want to go to lead sheets with melody. What I'd like is something I can use to show words, chords, time signature, and she rhythmic notation. I use a program called "Songbook" that does nice chords and words, and reads chordpro. I just want more.
More would be standard notation.
Shoot, if you're getting rhythmic notation, you're a step ahead of most programs. Time signature means two steps.
Seems to me like you've got a choice to make.
Nope, no rthymic notation. Just words and chords. I'd like to have a place to put Rhythmic notation, Time Signature, and tempo. But the Chordpro format seems pretty restrictive and all I get is a title and subtitle, then chords over the words.
That's because by the time you have words, chords, rhythmic notation, time signature, and tempo - you're one step from standard notation. As I said, you've got a choice to make. Either learn standard notation and have all your band learn it to, or use chord charts the way that groups have been doing it since the Ogg decided to beat on a rock next to Oog who was beating on a hollow log.
True. One would think there had been some innovation in this. And I was just really looking to see if there was something out there other than SMN, Tabs, Lead Sheets, and Chord Charts. But, I can keep doing old school (chord charts and a pencil to write in the Tempo, Time Signature, and some rudimentary rhythmic notation).
I've never seen songs written out in the way you describe, but I can sure see how useful it would be. Having those additional notations would really help in a group scenario, so that everyone's traveling the same speed. Does your group have a drummer / percussionist? I guess the burden for tempo falls on his / her shoulders.
Tempo and Feel are really subjective and can vary from time to time and group if you let them. Assuming everyone knows every song cold, then it's not a problem. But when you have less experienced players and singers, sometimes that "clock in their head" isn't well tuned yet. And with around 200 songs in rotation, it's a lot to remember. And, we try to add a new song every couple of weeks to keep the mix fresh. For all those reasons, I'd like to write this stuff down somewhere. so at rehearsal i can get out the dreaded metronome and make sure we're where we want to be. And for example, yesterday at warm up the rhythm player started playing a new song in 4/4. But it was in 6/8 beat like 2 triplets. So I could just say ("hey, it's in 6/8 beat like triplets) and immediately he knew what to do.
For now, I'm just fudging my chordpro charts by adding a line of test below the title like this:
Key: G Time Sig: 6/8 Tempo: 48, in a slow 2-beat triplet feel
I keep threatening to move to lead sheets with SMN melodies, but it would likely freak out a lot of folks! playing is fine, but when you venture closer to "reading music" it gets some people nervous.
Steve
You might try Guitar Pro 6. Think I paid around $50 for a boxed CD. It does notes, tabs, guitar fingerings and technique markings, and a lot of other stuff. Haven't given it a full workout yet, but I think it will print seperate musician's parts, and for stummers - selective chord fingering charts for each chord that appears in the song, though unfortunately in group format at the end of the song. Also, Chordie has a larger chord display base, but, using it, the fingerings in the Guitar Pro 6 program can be altered to suit the individual's desire. Hard copy can be managed, but video display not really applicable. Separate sheets would be good for a band, provided basic reading capability is there. SongBook -IS- a good program. I use it for my hard book copies. Another program is MuseScore. All of the tablature programs out there have great features, but none of the that I have found have everything for everyone, sad to say. Hoping you find your mix...
Thanks Kevin. I had forgotten about Guitar Pro. I'll check it out.
Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → Music notation and format
