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Tablature for accordion

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I am a diatonic accordion lover, a TablEdit user, and Matthieu Leschemelle asked me to write this notice to guide you little by little to build diato scores.

I assume you have installed the TablEdit software.

Tablature configuration

Instrument configuration

Now on the screen you have something that doesn't necessarily look like a diato tablature. To have a diato tablature, you have to click on the little "1" button at the top right of your screen (you can also click on the instrument name on the left) or select Instrument from the Score menu.

Now click the Tuning tab

A new window opens, entitled "Instrument Configuration". The first time you start TablEdit, the program first prompts you to select a keyboard configuration file. Ready-to-use files can be found in the My Documents/TablEdit. These files have the extension ".dat".

In the "Definitions", pull-down menu, you will find the 8 instruments defined in the instrument configuration file you selected.

Note :If you click the "Add" button from the "Instrument" dialog box, you create a new tablature that you can set up as above; this allows you to create a multi-voice song.

Click on the "OK" button to close the window.

Configuring the workspace

You're almost ready to work on your favorite instrument.

To enter a diato score, you can either enter the notes on the staff, or enter the tablature directly.

The easiest way to enter is, I think, to display the staff and the tablature, because this display is very similar to tablatures that appear in the press or are sold in booklets. To do this:

The {File | Options} dialog has 9 tabs (General - Display - Fonts - Print - Page Setup - Multitrack - Preferences - Screen - Advanced) and 4 buttons (Preview - Apply - Close - OK).

 For the role of these options see the Advanced Options topic.

To avoid being obstructed by the palettes, place them at the bottom of the screen. You can also anchor them on the edges of the screen by moving them with the mouse to the desired area.

At this point, you should have on screen:

You can change the screen layout:

Personally, I put the palettes at the bottom of the screen and the ruler just above it; this allows me to enlarge the space between the staff and the tablature.

The note entry

We will (finally!) enter a tablature.

First of all, we need to define the time signature for this, click on the C (or both 4) to open the appropriate window and choose the time and interval.

for example:

To apply this definition to all measures, it is necessary to indicate that it goes from measure 1 to the last measure. The "From measure" field must contain the number 1 and the "To measure" field must contain the number of measures; to display it automatically, click on the small right-pointing arrow located to the right of the field.

Click the "Apply" button and then click the "Close" button.

You must then choose the tonality. To do this, click on the treble clef. The dialog that opens presents the treble clef, and just next to it, on the left, 2 small arrows: one up and one down.

The up arrow is used to add sharps () and the down arrow to add flats (). The up arrow is also used to remove flats and the down arrow to remove sharps.

For a diato in G/C, either there is no alteration (neither sharp nor flat), or there is only one sharp.

To apply this definition to all bars (parts of the staff separated by a vertical line), you must indicate that you are going from bar 1 to the last bar. The "From measure" part must contain the number 1 and the "To measure" part must contain the number of bars; to display it automatically, click on the small right-facing arrow to the right of the number field.

Click the "Apply" button and then click the "Close" button.

As I said before, you can enter a score either by entering notes or by tablature.

For diato, there are two notations for tablature:

It is almost impossible to enter a G/C tablature. This mode is only valid for display and printing.

If you don't know the CADB format: here is a brief description :

I almost forgot the view scale or display width; on the ruler, on the far left, there is a note image. If you click on this image, the display widens or narrows and the note on the ruler changes: eighth note - sixteenth note - sixteenth note - triple eighth note - fourteenth note - eighth note...

On the ruler, the space between two strokes corresponds to the duration of the displayed note.

If the shortest note in the tablature you want to enter is the quarter note or the eighth note, the eighth note must be selected. For more information on this, please refer to the View menu item.

Entering the melody

To move from one note to another, you can use either the tab key or the arrow keys.

a) Entry with the Tab key.

The Tab key [Tab] is located to the left of the key with the letter 'A'.

When you have entered each note, you will see that the tablature is created automatically. However, our wonderful instrument allows you to play certain notes in two different ways; for example the "E", the first note entered can be played in the first row by pressing the 5 key, or in the second row by pressing the 4 key.

Below the first note, in the tablature, there is either a 5 or a 4.

This command is also available from the Utilities palette.

So here is the first mode for entering a tablature by typing notes on the musical staff and moving by the tab key.

Now position the cursor in the tablature part on the number corresponding to the last note entered, and press the [Tab] key.

You have just used another way to enter diato tablatures.

Warning: to enter the ['] you must be in lower case, otherwise you will enter a 4. To know if you are in lower case, check that the middle indicator light on the right side of the keyboard is off.

Note: You can see that on the "Notes" palette, the buttons with the note types (quarter-note - eighth-note ...) are labeled F4 - F5 - F6 - F7 - F8 - F9. This means that instead of selecting the note duration using this palette, you can use the function keys F4 - F5 - F6 - F7 - F8 or F9 on your keyboard.

See the list of all keyboard shortcuts in your favorite software.

b) Entry with the arrow keys.

This entry mode can be used on the musical staff as well as on the tablature; the difference with the previous method is only in the movement of the cursor.

Now you have to look at the view scale displayed on the ruler; in fact, each press of the [] key on the keyboard will move the cursor by the value of the note displayed on the ruler (eighth note - sixteenth note - sixteenth note - fourteenth note). Thus, if you want to enter a quarter note and it is an eighth note that is displayed on the ruler, you have to move the cursor by 2 clicks of the right arrow; if it is a sixteenth note, you have to move it by 4 clicks.

If you make a mistake, simply delete the note you have entered ([Ctrl]+[Z] or [Delete] keys) and click the arrow again. With a bit of practice, you will learn how to change the duration of an existing note directly with the Notes palette.

In Automatic Duration mode, it is therefore the movement and position within the bar that determines the duration of the last note entered.

Chord and bass entry

Once the melody has been entered, the corresponding chords and basses must be entered. For this, there are two lines under the tablature.

To find these positions, put your cursor on the first note of the tablature and click on [] (once if you are on the "D" line and twice if you are on the "P" line).

You are on the first chord line.

Click [] again and you are on the second chord line.

Go back to the first chord line and put your keyboard in capital letters (caps lock key under the [Tab] key).

Press the [A] key once, you have just entered an A bass.

In the "Notes" palette, select the duration of the bass (e.g. the quarter note).

Tabulate and press the [A] key twice; an 'a' is displayed - you have just entered an A chord.

If the duration of the chord is different from the bass, select its duration from the "Notes" palette.

The MIDI Playback

Once the score has been entered, it must be listened to.

To launch the playback, you can go to the "MIDI" menu then "Play" and select the desired playback. You will notice that each line of the sub-menu ends with a function key which indicates the possible shortcuts (for example [F12] for playback of the whole score).

You can also use the toolbar button or the [space] key.

Before starting playback, you can make a reading list. To start this operation :

Then choose the measure sequences you want to play and click on the Play button.

That's it, I think that's enough to start typing the scores and listening to them.

There are still a lot of options I haven't mentioned, including the ability to grab a score with flats or more than one sharp key, and then transpose them so that we can play them with our great instrument.

The Printing

First you must first give your partition a title; to do this, select the "Score" menu and then "Title Information" - you can also get the screen you want by [Ctrl]+[I]..

If you want to add more comments before this sentence, position your cursor before the text and press [Enter]; simply move your cursor up to make your text entry.

To change the characters in the different texts, go to the Options dialog box (either through the"File" menu or the button on the toolbar next to the speaker key) and choose the "Fonts" tab.

To check what the printout will look like, you can do a print preview. To do this, either use the menu "File" and "Print preview" or the button .

Attention: the print preview does not work if you have not defined a printer in Windows.

When you start the print preview, you see the whole page; to see the details, just click ... and click again to return to the general view.

If you are not satisfied with the preview, click on the button. A new screen will appear; you can see that this screen looks like {File | Options} seen above. Here are the options at your disposal :

Vary the spacing and then press the button to see the results immediately.

As soon as you are satisfied with the preview, start printing on paper or on PDF.

Now, I hope these explanations are clear, if not short.

 Bernard Loezic (bernard.loezic@laposte.net)