Guitar Pro: Trying to enter "1-2-&-3, 1-2-&-3" in 6/8 time

[agfsteve]

I'm trying to input a song into GP 7.5.

The song is Norwegian Wood, from the book, Fingerpicking Beatles, from Hal Leonard, which is for solo guitar (no vocals; guitar plays harmony and melody)

Alright, so the song is in 6/8 time, and I managed to set everything so that when I enter the TAB numbers, GP records each bar as a "1-2-3, 1-2-3" feel, as in "once-had-a Girl, [2]-[3] | or-should-I say, [2]-[3] | ...".

The bridge continues like the verse, with "asked-me-to-stay-and-she-told-me-to-sit-a-ny" all falling nicely on the "1-2-3, 1-2-3 | 1-2-3, 1-2-3" (2 bars), but then the next bar (the "where..." of the melody) is written out as 8 notes in one bar (so non-melody notes added for effect / filler), which I believe is supposed to have a "1-2-&-3, 1-2-&-3" feel, and I can't get GP to recognize that feel. It's strange, because I somehow managed to get the first part of the bar correct, so that when I play it back it has the "1-2-&-3" feel, so I simply copy-pasted that part to repeat it, but it doesn't come out like that when I paste it in!

Here's what the TAB for the bridge looks like in the book:

|-5-5-5-5-3-3-|-3-1-1-1-3-1-|-3---------------|
|-6-6-6-6-5-5-|-5-3-3-3-----|-----------------|
|-------------|-------------|-----0-------0---|
|-------------|-------------|---0---0---0---0-|
|-------------|-------------|---------0-------|
|-0-----0-----|-0-----0-----|-5---------------|

So the first bar above is the "asked me to stay and she", the second bar is the "told me to sit a ny", and the third bar is the "where...", which is the bar I can't enter properly in GP.

(The tuning for this composition is dropped D (D-A-D-G-B-E), in case anyone tries to play the above).

I've tried all sorts of different things, like changing note values, clicking on the "triplet feel" button (looks like "--3--"), tying notes, tying beats, etc., but nothing is working.

This is driving me crazy, and is showing me just how little I know about actual music notation (the little crotchety-quavery things that magically appear when I input TAB numbers).

So does anyone know how I can enter 8 notes into a bar in 6/8 time and make GP play it as "1-2-&-3, 1-2-&-3"?

Thanks, and thanks for reading this far. It's difficult trying to describe something like this with enough detail to be clear, without making the reader fall asleep or skip to something more interesting. I guess the "tl;dr" is: Music notation is tricky ,and Guitar Pro is a fickle beast.

[stanron]

It looks to me that you might have two too many notes in the last bar. In the first two bars you have six separate note groups. In the third bar you have eight.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by stanron

It looks to me that you might have two too many notes in the last bar. In the first two bars you have six separate note groups. In the third bar you have eight.

Yes, but that is the actual problem: how to enter 8 notes in a bar in 6/8 time. Square peg; round hole, LOL, but it's right there in the book. Of course, there's no real limit on how many notes can be in a bar, it's just a question of how many beats or parts of a beat each note occupies.

So the first two bars of the TAB that I included are "1-2-3, 1-2-3", totaling 6 notes, and the third bar is "1-2-&-3, 1-2-&-3", totaling 8 notes, but fitted into one 6/8 bar.

[stanron]

OK I've got it. The '&' and '2' before it are half the length of the other notes. All the other notes are 1/8th notes or quavers. The '&' and the preceding '2' are 1/16th notes or semi-quavers. I don't use Guitar Pro so I don't know how you enter 16th notes but it should be fairly obvious.

[rick-slo]

Opening measure note durations for 6/8:

a eighth note followed the six sixteenth notes, followed by two eighth notes.

[stanron]

Looking at this again my previous answer wont work. It would work if the count for the last bar was

"1-2-3, 1-2-&-3-&"

or

"1-2-3, 1-&-2-&-3"

or

"1-2-3, 1-&-2-3-&-"

In terms of 16th notes each bar has this structure;


1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 +

In the first two bars you play on the numbers only.

In the last bar you play on two of the '+' signs as well.

My best guess is

|-5-5-5-5-3-3-|-3-1-1-1-3-1-|-3------------|
|-6-6-6-6-5-5-|-5-3-3-3-----|--------------|
|-------------|-------------|-----0-----0--|
|-------------|-------------|---0---0--0-0-|
|-------------|-------------|---------0----|
|-0-----0-----|-0-----0-----|-5------------|

  1+2+3+1+2+3+  1+2+3+1+2+3+  1+2+3+1+2+3+

or if you miss out the unplayed '+' bits

  1 2 3 1 2 3   1 2 3 1 2 3   1 2 3 1 2+3+

There are two other possibilities for the last half bar. Perhaps you can work those out for yourself.

[Pine]

Hi Steve,

If that book is the Fred Solokow one, it has both TAB and notation. If you enter the TAB as you have been, but look at the notation that GP displays above. Make sure the notation symbol matches the symbol in the book.

Guitar Pro checks to make sure each measure adds up to the time signature. In 6/8 time, all has to add up to six 8th notes. So if you have five 8th notes, and two 16th notes, you are OK for that measure. If they don't add up, the measure shows 'red' when you move out of that measure.

There's a lot to learn, but the end result is worth it.

Best of luck...
Craig

P.S. If you don't see both the TAB and the notation displayed, you can turn them on and off in the inspector on the right hand side of your screen. Look for the 3 icons under the 'Musical Notation' heading. The first icon is TAB, the second is Notation, the third icon is for slash notation

[agfsteve]

Here's a shot of the book. I hope the copyright allows me to do this, just for educational purposes

The photo is of the same three bars of TAB that I showed in my previous post, so you can now see the accompanying notation.

You can see that the notation in the third bar is different from that of the first two bars.

As I said earlier, I believe that the "feel" of the third bar is supposed to be a "1-2-&-3, 1-2-&-3".

The way that I'm playing the third bar is that the thumb of the picking hand plays the "1" beats (both of them), and the fingers play the "2-&-3" beats. So the thumb plays the 5 (fret 5) on the sixth string, on the "1" of the first "1-2-&-3", and the thumb plays the 0 (open string) on the fifth string on the "1" of the second "1-2-&-3". It didn't look like that at first, to me, because my mind is usually thinking that the thumb always plays the bottom three strings, but in this case (for the third bar) the thumb is only playing the bottom two strings.

Another way to describe the feel of the 8 notes in third bar, using the Latin finger "pima" notation is "pa i m i pa i m i" (the "pa" is my way of saying thumb and ring finger together, i.e., a pinch).

[Pine]

That third measure will definitely have a 6/8 feel as it is written. In GP, select the first note in the measure, and select the 8th note symbol on the left hand side of the screen. It's the note symbol with one 'flag' on the stem. If you leave your cursor hovering over the symbol for a couple of seconds, a little box appears with the text 'eighth note' in it. Select the next note, and set it to be a sixteenth note. That's the one with two flags on the stem. Here is what the eight notes in this measure should be set to:

8th - 16th - 16th - 8th - 8th - 16th - 16th - 8th

Note that two 16th notes add up to be an 8th note in duration, so this measure adds up to six 8th notes, as it should.

Now if you press the play button at the top of the GP7 window, this should sound out properly.

I hope this helps!

Craig

[Pine]

Steve, I forgot to mention that since you are in an altered tuning, this will not sound right when played in GP until you set the GP tuning to match your guitar.

In the Inspector on the right hand side of the screen, select the "Track" tab, (as opposed to the 'Song' tab). Under the "Musical Notation" heading is the tuning area. Select the "gear" icon in the 'Tuning' box. You will see a box with the text 'standard' in it. Press that and select the altered tuning for Drop D.

Now GP will sound this out properly.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by Pine

That third measure will definitely have a 6/8 feel as it is written. In GP, select the first note in the measure, and select the 8th note symbol on the left hand side of the screen. It's the note symbol with one 'flag' on the stem. If you leave your cursor hovering over the symbol for a couple of seconds, a little box appears with the text 'eighth note' in it. Select the next note, and set it to be a sixteenth note. That's the one with two flags on the stem. Here is what the eight notes in this measure should be set to:

8th - 16th - 16th - 8th - 8th - 16th - 16th - 8th

Note that two 16th notes add up to be an 8th note in duration, so this measure adds up to six 8th notes, as it should.

Now if you press the play button at the top of the GP7 window, this should sound out properly.

I hope this helps!

Craig

Yessss! Thank you so much!

I erased the bar and put in the TAB for the bar all over again, and then I clicked on each note and selected 8th or 16th, and it worked.

Actually that's the short version; what I actually did was misread your message and incorrectly do 8th - 16th - 16th - 16th [wrong] - 8th - 16th - 16th - 16th [wrong], and then GP got all upset, and then I clicked on "Bar arranger", and it added in a rest at the end of the bar, which then made me realise I didn't have enough time added, so I sounded it out with the "one-two-and-three" and realised that the "three"s needed to sound a bit longer, so I changed them from 16th notes to 8th notes and voila!

Regarding the tuning (from your post #10), I managed to set that correctly (Dropped D) when I created the file, so the notes sound right.

Thanks again, and thanks to everyone else who contributed on this thread.