4. Techniques

Articulations

An articulation says how a note is played: palm muted, let ring, accented, short, as a harmonic. Each is a mark on the note, drawn in the tab, written in the Score and, for most, heard when the song plays. A note can carry several at once.

Articulations

Available on every platform.

Mark a note

Select the notes, or put the caret on one, and type the mark’s key. Typing it again takes it off. With several notes selected, a key puts the mark on all of them, unless all of them have it already; then it takes it off all of them. Each key is one undo step.

The same marks are in the note’s menu: right-click a note and open Articulation. Each item has its key after it, and a tick when every selected note has it. The menu is the same on a note in the Score, with the techniques (strums, bends, fingering and the rest) and Text over the Note…; there it’s the way to a Harmonic, since N is note input’s in a Score pane.

The note inspector and the Inspector pane have a chip for each mark that suits the notes selected.

The marks

• Palm Mute (P): shorter and muted. Drawn PM over the note.
• Let Ring (R): the note rings on until its string is played again. Drawn LR.
• Dead Note (X): a muted scratch with no pitch. Drawn x in place of the fret.
• Ghost Note (G): played softer. The fret is drawn in brackets, (5).
• Accent (A): played louder. Drawn >.
• Marcato (M): a stronger accent, louder still. Drawn ^.
• Staccato (O): sounds for half its written length. Drawn •.
• Tenuto (W): held for its full value. Drawn –; it doesn’t change the playback.
• Fermata (F): held longer than written. Drawn ⌢; the playback keeps the written length.
• Harmonic (N): a natural harmonic. The fret is drawn in angle brackets, <12>, and it sounds the harmonic’s pitch at the frets that have one (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 17, 19 and 24).
• Pinch Harmonic (Q): the squeal of a pinch harmonic, an octave and a fifth above the note. Drawn PH.
• Artificial Harmonic: the note fretted and the string touched 12 frets above it as it’s picked, sounding an octave up. Drawn AH, and written A.H. 17 in the Score (the fret touched). One imported from Guitar Pro keeps where it’s touched: 7 frets above sounds an octave and a fifth up, 5 frets two octaves.
• Tapped Harmonic: the same, tapped 12 frets above the fretted note instead of picked. Drawn TH, written T.H. 17.
• Semi-Harmonic: half a pinch harmonic, the note itself with its harmonic ringing over it. Drawn SH, written S.H..
• Tap (I): tapped with the picking hand. Drawn T.

Slap and pop

A bass line, or a guitar’s, can be slapped and popped: Slap is the thumb striking the string over the end of the neck like a hammer: a percussive knock, the string rattling on the frets, a bright, metallic attack that settles quickly into the note; Pop is the string pulled away and let snap back against the frets, a sharp, bright click. Press K on the notes selected (or the note at the caret): the first press slaps them, the next pops them, the next takes it off. The note’s menu has them under Technique (Slap, Pop, None), and the note inspector and the Inspector pane have a Slap and a Pop chip.

The tab draws S or P by the note. In the Score, the staff has T (the thumb) or P over the note and the TAB staff S or P under it, as bass parts write them. Stab Strings plays both. A SoundFont plays a slapped or popped note on a finger, pick or fretless bass through its slap bass sound, and any other sound a little harder. Slap and pop come in from Guitar Pro 3–8 and go out to Guitar Pro 5 and 7; MusicXML has no element for them, so Stab writes them as slap and pop technical marks and reads them back.

The same menu also holds vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and slides: see Vibrato, trills and tremolo picking and Slides, hammer-ons and slurs. Pick direction (D and U) is in Pick direction.

Hide the marks

Show Articulations (⌥⌘A)Show Articulations (Ctrl+Alt+A)Show Articulations (Ctrl+Alt+A (⌥⌘A on a Mac)), in the View menu or the pane’s ⚙ menu, hides the marks in that pane to keep the tab clean. A note with a hidden mark (an articulation, a trill or tremolo, a strum or rasgueado, a modifier, its fingering) keeps a small dot on its corner, so nothing is lost. The marks stay on the notes and still play.

In the Score

A Score pane writes them as notation does: the signs for accent, marcato, staccato, tenuto and fermata; diamond noteheads for harmonics; P.M. and let ring with a dashed line over the run of notes; T over a tap or a slap, P over a pop, P.H. over a pinch harmonic, and A.H., T.H. or S.H. over the other harmonics. The keys work in a Score pane too, on the notes selected there, except N, which is note input in a Score pane: set a harmonic from an Editor pane or the note inspector.

On drums

A drum hit takes Accent, Marcato, Fermata and Ghost Note; the note menu’s Articulation lists only those on a drum track. On a lane whose piece has its own technique on M or F (a hand drum’s mute, a snare’s flam), the letter plays that technique instead. See Drum lanes.