Is there a way to edit an existing arrangement of a song?

[BiosphereDecay]

"MALAGUENA" Ukulele Tabs by Misc Traditional on UkuTabs

Ukulele chords and tabs for "Malaguena" by Misc Traditional. Free, curated and guaranteed quality with ukulele chord diagrams, transposer and auto scroller.

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I've been practicing this for a bit now, and I have some opinions about how I could improve a few parts. Is there a way to download/edit tabs like this?

I downloaded Musescore, but I don't know if there's a way to get this existing arrangement into it, so I can make those edits. I don't have a computer or printer, only an Android phone and tablet.

If I have to rewrite it from scratch, is musescore the best choice?

 

[man0a]

Musescore does not allow you to create or edit tabs from Android or Apple tablets.

Some tab editor apps do let you scan in printable tabs, but accuracy is mixed. Typing it in from scratch may be faster than trying to find and fix all the errors in the scanned tab.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

Since I don’t read music and may thus be completely missing the point, I should probably abstain from responding but:
If your proposed changes/ improvements are only for your future reference, there should be nothing wrong with just hand-writing the changes on a hard copy of the existing arrangement.

I do this with chord sheets all the time, primarily adding sketches of higher-octave chord shapes and transition phrases for my own future reference.

 

[BiosphereDecay]

Since I don’t read music and may thus be completely missing the point, I should probably abstain from responding but:
If your proposed changes/ improvements are only for your future reference, there should be nothing wrong with just hand-writing the changes on a hard copy of the existing arrangement.

I do this with chord sheets all the time, primarily adding sketches of higher-octave chord shapes and transition phrases for my own future reference.

Yeah I would do that, but again no printer. If I had more than one song to edit, maybe I could take it to a printing shop.

 

[TerryM]

I know nothing about Musescore, so this is not a direct answer to your question but maybe an alternative if you strike out trying to go digital.

I choose to do without a printer as well and try to avoid generating more paper, but when I do need it, I send a copy via email to a nearby FedEx print shop/shipping outlet. Very easy to use their self-serve kiosk and costs about 40 cents/sheet. The service address is printandgo@fedex.com. I'm sure other places have similar services.

So, if you don't get satisfaction via software, and if you don't mind marking up paper, and if you have convenient access to a FedEx (or similar) center, there's an alternative for doing your edits.

 

[BiosphereDecay]

I'm trying out Flat on android. It seems a bit more straightforward. Does anyone know how to change the tuning of a string (low G) in Flat?

 

[man0a]

Yeah I would do that, but again no printer. If I had more than one song to edit, maybe I could take it to a printing shop.

Some Android tablets let you annotate images with a high-resolution stylus. Seems to me that trying to edit a tab without a keyboard or quality stylus is going to be really tedious.

 

[BiosphereDecay]

I'm trying out Flat on android. It seems a bit more straightforward. Does anyone know how to change the tuning of a string (low G) in Flat?

Custom tuning is only on PC, and you have to buy it to unlock that feature. Guess I'll keep looking.

 

[pmorey]

Custom tuning is only on PC, and you have to buy it to unlock that feature. Guess I'll keep looking.

Am I missing something? If you are only using tab, low G (or any other tuning) won’t make a difference. Just tab to your tuning and I would think whatever software will have the ability to add tempo or expression notation - so just note your tuning there if needed.

 

[BiosphereDecay]

I've just been using an image editor very tediously. This is very much a work in progress still.

First of all, am I using the notation correctly on the final A chord? If I'm understanding it correctly, the squiggly line on the left means to arpeggiate the chord slowly, and the dots on the right mean to hold the note till the end of the bar. Is this correct?

I added a 0 then 1 on A string in bar 43, which I think flows into the following A chord a lot better.

Bars 30 and 38 have 3 of the same quarter note in a row, which I find to be the most boring part of the song. I haven't really come up with a solution yet though.

I feel like I'm really on to something with how I've changed the ending, but it doesn't flow quite right from bars 72 to 73. There needs to be something between the B flat and the following open A, but I haven't figured out what yet.

Is there a better board to discuss this?

 

[man0a]

The dots are standard musical notation to hold the note for 50% longer than usual, so a half note at 3/4 time will fill the measure. Your tab notation is confusing since quarter notes and half notes look exactly the same to me. Some tab programs will use shorter lines for half notes and longer lines for quarter notes. Others will draw a circles around the half notes and whole notes.

 

[BiosphereDecay]

Hmm, I know how to differentiate them in standard musical notation, but not really with this mixture of tabs and musical notation. Everything I added was intended to be quarter notes.

 

[man0a]

Hmm, I know how to differentiate them in standard musical notation, but not really with this mixture of tabs and musical notation. Everything I added was intended to be quarter notes.

I don't think there is a standard way to draw half and quarter notes in tab notation. I know that MuseScore will automatically use longer lines for quarter notes and shorter lines for half notes, but other programs will behave differently. Japanese tab programs will usually draw circles around bigger notes, but this is less common with USA apps. I've just gotten used to seeing slightly different tab notation from different apps.

 

[merlin666]

For tabs guitar pro is a potent editor.