Notating

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Notating

I'm working today on an education piece and I want to notate the fingering, pitch, fret location and phrasing. I'm trying to make it look clear, so I'm putting the phrasing on the staff with the pitches, tab underneath, and below that is the fingering. For any specific picking things I put that in as a when it's needed.

Is it clear? Do you think there's a clearer way to notate all that?

What do you think?
- 11 November 2010
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over 1 year ago Steve Lawson responded:

uhm, I think you'll find it's called 'notatorating' - and what's with the quavers? Surely there should be a few more lines across those, and a tempo marking of minim=a billion?

over 1 year ago Rob Michael responded:

This is about as clear/ thorough as I think you can get.
I think it's most educational to write the line and leave it to the student to arrive at a fingering. More info may come in the form of analysis: Notice the Emaj7 line starts on the 6th of the chord and moves to the 3rd etc...
I totally get your intention here--but I find fingerings a distraction from the music.
That's my $.02

over 1 year ago suomela (Twitter) responded:

It depends on what you want the attention to flow. If it's notation, you could try to stretch the whitespace between tab and notation and put fingerings in there.
To me the example seems otherwise extremely clear, especially if you provide chord diagrams somewhere in the sheet. It follows the conventions I know of fine, hammers and pull-offs are clearly indicated in the notation.

over 1 year ago guitartim (Twitter) responded:

Looks very clear to me. In practice, the fingerings will be the least used (use them to learn the intented LH approach, then ignore), so putting them at the bottom makes lots of sense.
My personal preference for fingering (unless it's crucial that some unusual fingering is required) is just to note where on the neck I'm playing - I just put a roman numeral to indicate what position I'm in (=what fret my first finger is at) and note when this changes - is an approach I learned when I learned violin as a child. I find this a useful help as it tells me when I need to do something (shift my LH) and can still be read at full speed.
Also - minor point - most tab I've seen (not that I look at a lot of it) would notate the legato phrases there as well, rather than just relying on what's on the stave.

over 1 year ago Mike Outram responded:

Thanks, Steve. You're right on all counts :)
Rob, yep, that'd be good to leave it for the student to discover, but the thing I'm writing is about the fingering/phrasing etc., so I need it to be specifically detailed.
Mikael, thanks for your input too. Much appreciated :)

over 1 year ago Mike Outram responded:

Tim, thanks. The thing with positions has never worked for me as I tend to shift over the neck quite a lot with odd fingerings, maybe that's because I've never used that 'one finger per fret' approach either. I don't know :) I did violin for a while when I was a kid, too. Still haven't recovered from Mrs. White's three white stripes and the *truly awful* din I made ;)
Yep, not sure about whether notating the slurs on both staves would be a pain. But the piece is meant to be studied closely and not sight-read, so I guess simplicity wins for me there.
Appreciate your comments.
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