391: Producing correct notation and appearance when writing for guitar with a capo

Problem

How do you approach notating a song written for a guitar in notation along with a tab line underneath barred with a capo at the 2nd fret (for example), and you want the notation & tab to read from the capo fret? In other words, the song may be in the key of A major (three sharps), but should read in G major (one sharp), and the tabs second fret capo should read as open strings.

Solution

Write the notes in the notation staff, playing back as normal, then create two tab staves, one of which will be hidden and be used for playback, the other will be shown but not play back.

The tab staff on the screen will look right (but will not play back right), and the hidden tab staff will look wrong but play back right.

How do you do this?

• Create the notation staff and create two tab staves
• Copy the notes into the first tab staff
• Transpose the notation staff up/down two half steps (G to A or A to G in your case I believe)
• Copy those notes into the second tab staff (you'll then have two tab staves playing music that is separated in pitch by two half-steps)
• Go to the Mixer and mute the tab staff you want to see on the screen
• Highlight both the notation staff and the tab staff with the correct notation, then switch on Layout > Focus on Staves. This will hide the tab staff that is used for playback.
• Now when you play back your score, you'll hear the staff you do want to hear but see the one with the tab that's notated correctly.

Further information

Bob Zawalich has produced a rather useful Guitar Capo Notation plug-in for Sibelius 4 and above.