Guitar Capo Notation_Sib 4

Added 27 Apr 2007 (last updated 07 Aug 2016)

For use with Sibelius 4.1 and Sibelius 5

This is a set of resources for notating guitar music that uses a capo, especially in TAB staves. TAB staves do not support transposition changes, so if you want a staff that plays back at the correct pitch, you must define a staff type whose pitches are the pitches at the capoed fret.

  1. Capo Notation plug-in. This plug-in takes an initial key and guitar tuning and calculates the tunings at various capo positions. It also calculates the transposition interval, final key, and transposition change setting for notation staves.
  2. Special capo clef house styles. This is a series of house styles, each of which redefines the symbol \"Tall 4 string tab clef\", which is used for a clef style in Create > Clef. The house style name explains the kind of clef available (such as \"Tab Capo Clef Full 1.lib\", which has a marking for a full capo on fret 1, or \"Tab Capo Clef E Sus 2.lib\", which has a marker for a partial capo on strings 3, 4, and 5 on fret 2). Import the symbols from the desired house style into the document containing the TAB staff, and then use Create > Clef.
  3. Capoed TAB staff definition house style, \"Capoed Staff Types\". This contains staff type definitions for tunings capoed from 1 to 12 frets, with both sharp and flat variants for these tunings:
    • Standard, no rhythms
    • Standard, with rhythms
    • DADGAD
    • Dropped D
    • Double D
    • D minor
    • Open A
    • Open C
    • Open D
    • Open G
    • Open A
  4. A set of scores, suitable for saving as manuscript paper, set up for standard tuning guitar (with rhythms) capoed from frets 1 to 12. A sample score that demonstrates how to set up a score for standard tuning capoed at fret 2 is also included.

To use these, you can make a copy of one of the included scores if applicable, or make up you own scores from the included parts.

Run the plug-in to determine which type of TAB staff you will need, or guess from the house style names after importing the staff types in house style \"Capoed Staff Types\". Then if you want a graphic marker, import the Tab… house styles appropriate to your TAB staff (only import symbols, noteheads, and text styles from these House Styles). If you have a standard tuning staff capoed with a complete capo on the 3rd fret, you should import \"Tab Capo Clef Full 3.lib\". Then Create > Clef, and pick the last TAB clef, the one with the line and number next to the word TAB.

The resulting TAB staves will play back at the capoed pitch and look nice too!

CapoNotation.plg updated 9 August 2011 to Sib 7 dialog control fixes.

Updated and renamed 8 August 2016 to reflect the fact the the scores and House Styles were built for Sibelius 4 and do not work in Sibelius 6 and later. A new plugin suite Guitar Capo Notation has been added with files that work in current versions of Sibelius

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

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