8

In ABC notation, is there a way to notate a long held note with multiple guitar chords?

The naive approach 

"F" "D7" "F#dim" C8- |

produces this, which isn't right

enter image description here

The obvious approach of splitting up the long note

"F" C4- "D7" C2- "F#dim" C2- |

produces this, which is ok, but I thought I'd ask to see if there's anything closer to printed sheet music, which would just show a whole note, and the chords space out to suggest the second two are on the last two beats of the measure.

enter image description here

Kevin G.
  • 417
  • 2
  • 6
  • The use of dashes is common. F - D7F#o for a full bar. Problem with that is some use '-' (dash) as a sign meaning minor: G- means Gm. Or a slash (/) meaning play the same cchord again. F/D7F#o. But that's confusing too... By the way, the blue areas are - simply blue! – Tim May 16 '20 at 16:12

2 Answers2

8

ABC allows for chord symbols to be attached to "extra space" in the score.

6.1.2 Typesetting extra space

y can be used to add extra space between the surrounding notes; moreover, chord symbols and decorations can be attached to it, to separate them from notes.
...
Note that the y symbol does not create rests in the music. (ABC 2.2 spec)

The code looks like this:

"F" (C8 y "D7" yy "Fdim7" y | C)

And generates this output:

X:
K:
L: 1/8
T:Multiple chords against single note
"F" (C8 y "D7" yy "Fdim7" y | C)
RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket
  • 125
  • 7
Aaron
  • 70,616
  • 10
  • 97
  • 243
0

You can separate the chord from the rhythm of the melody with different voices. Whether you should use completely separate voices or a voice overlay will depend on the complexity of the parts.

With separate voices:

(see the Manual: 3.1.1 Voices and Systems, 3.1.2 Positioning Voices)

X: 1
M: 4/4
K: C
L: 1/4
%%score (1 2)
[V:1]
%%MIDI gchord c2cc 
"F"x2 "D7"x "F#dim"x | \
%%MIDI gchord z 
x4 :|]
[V:2]
[L: 1/4] 
C4- | C/ z/ z z2 :|]

With a voice overlay:

(see 3.1.4 Voice Overlay)

X: 1
M: 4/4
K: C
L: 1/4
C4- & \
%%MIDI gchord c2cc 
"F"x2 "D7"x "F#dim"x | \
C/ z/ z z2 & \
%%MIDI gchord z
x4 :|]
tripleee
  • 125
  • 1
  • 7
Elements in Space
  • 10,785
  • 2
  • 23
  • 67
  • I tried these at https://www.abcjs.net/abcjs-editor.html and get strange-looking results. The former places the rests at the bottom of the staff (to accommodate the invisible second voice), and the latter aligns the chords a bit off and the tie goes to the end of the (second) measure rather than the second C. – Aaron Jul 20 '22 at 11:48
  • @Aaron Yeah, I don't know what is going on with ABC. Your example threw an error on my editor and didn't compile at all, and my examples apparently don't work with ABCjs. Something problem with the versioning I guess ... Agh. My examples seem to follow the manual I've been looking at, and work fine on my machine. – Elements in Space Jul 20 '22 at 12:30
  • When you tried my code, did you add in the various tags I omitted? (X, M, ...) – Aaron Jul 20 '22 at 14:32
  • @Aaron Oh, ha ha. I was copy-pasting the code that was rendering above, i.e. with `X:`,`K:` blank. When I fill these in i.e. `X: 1`,`K: C`, it does compile without error, and looks right, But the chord changes don't make it to the midi file (even when I add `%%MIDI gchord c2cc`). – Elements in Space Jul 20 '22 at 15:11
  • One mystery solved. :-) I don't know about the MIDI part, though. – Aaron Jul 20 '22 at 15:34