Transcription to tabs

[HardcoreMandolinist]

I'm new her and I've been playing mandolin for a few years. I have a fair understanding of theory and I generally play improve or original pieces. I can read sheet music but it takes a serious amount of effort and I need it so rarely for what I want to do that it doesn't seem like it's worth the effort for me to become proficient in it.

I'd imagine this has been asked before but I couldn't find anything when I did a search. I'm wondering whether there's any tools to easily take violin sheet music and transcribe into tablature. I just came across sheet music for a song I would really like to learn but it's very new, written for guitar, and complex so I don't imagine I would find mandolin tabs for it any time soon if ever. On top of that, it is not the style of music I would expect many mandolinists to want to play. I did however find someone who transcribed it for violin but as I mentioned above I'm not proficient in reading sheet music so it will take me alot more effort than I would like.

If anyone is interested in the particular song, it is Polyphia's "Playing God," and the sheet music can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dFC...PLAvo24Go/view

[Simon DS]

You could try Musescore.com I'm sure someone has already posted this tune.
You then just export it as a mandolin tab.

You have to REALLY be careful though because at the moment MuseScore are doing Christmas offers that appear to be a good deal but often have something quite important missing. Some little detail that you actually really needed.
(this happened to me and after two days they would only refund 7 euros, saying that I should have read the small print (!) )

It's a great app though, and maybe something that would be useful to you with classical pieces.
Good luck.

[poul hansen]

You could try Musescore.com I'm sure someone has already posted this tune.
You then just export it as a mandolin tab.

I just browsed but didn't see that option anywhere. I didn't even see any mention of mandolins at all.

Link?

[RobH]

I use Musescore to create mandolin tab. The caveat is it has a steep learning curve, but once you are comfortable it's great. I use the playback feature all the time to play along and it will play the chords too if you enter them. No need to buy the extras, the program itself is freeware.
Look at this Musescore discussion- its to a linked mandolin template: [URL="https://musescore.org/en/node/42901"] download Mando linked staff and tab.mscz and it also points you to instructions on how to put it into your Musescore Template folder. Download the .mscz and put it in your templates folder. Then when you create a new score choose Custom Template. That will give you a linked mandolin tab below the staff. You can also change the strings on the tab without changing the notation.

[Simon DS]

Need a computer rather than laptop to be able to edit TAB and I’m not sure if the free computer version will ingest .abc files, whereas the paid subscription will.

Paste your .abc file into http://mandolintab.net
or try mando, ukey and guitar tabs also https://folktab.com/edit/abc
It gets you the notation and TAB PDF for a tune in about 15 seconds. Print.
Then you paste the .abc file into an .abc player and you can hear the tune once through, just to confirm that you aren’t making any reading, nor .abc writing errors.

About a minute later you’re picking up your mandolin and playing the first measure.

[vonbiber]

Look at this Musescore discussion- its to a linked mandolin template: [URL="https://musescore.org/en/node/42901"] download Mando linked staff.

to get a 'clickable' link:
https://musescore.org/en/node/42901

(the web address should be bracketed between an opening 'url' and a closing '/url'

[Mandolin Deep Cuts]

I’ll upload it to the paid MuseScore PDF upload feature and give you the output. Once the kids go to sleep! I can’t imagine this is gonna sound half as dope as it does in guitar but I’m excited to try as well! Those harmonics look brutal at tempo.

[John Kelly]

Like RobH I too use Musescore for all my notation needs. It has a steep learning curve but equally for the sort of scores I am creating (usually a melody stave and one or two harmony parts) it is fairly straightforward to use. For a while Musescore lost its link for importing abc files and converting them but the folk at Musescore have again got the abc import working as a plug-in.

Not only can you play the chords along with the melody but you can edit how the chords will sound and which instrument will play them and even regulate the volume of the chords. Chord playing is turned on by default and can cause stuttering on slower computers but I generally switch my chords to three-note and clean guitar and this seems to work well in my own setup, both PC and laptop.

TAB can be created easily from the standard notation and there are various TAB formats available, from simple to ones showing note values. I only ever create TAB if someone asks me for it - most of my regular playing colleagues are users of standard notation or play mainly by ear.

[ralph johansson]

I’ll upload it to the paid MuseScore PDF upload feature and give you the output. Once the kids go to sleep! I can’t imagine this is gonna sound half as dope as it does in guitar but I’m excited to try as well! Those harmonics look brutal at tempo.

Checking a transcription for guitar (at Soundslice), and listening, my impresssion is that ALL the harmonics are natural, at frets 12 (octave) , 7 (octave+ fifth) , and 5 (two octaves). It's a very guitaristic piece, playing out of chord formations in e minor and exploting the fact that the open strings 1,2,3 form an e minor triad, strings 2, 3, 4 a G major one. If I understand the notation correctly the rising sequence of triplets in bar 32 form a six string sweep, not that easily executed on mandolin.

ALso, note that the violin version linked to is for TWO violins.