Percussion and Guitar

Notepad divides percussion into two categories: pitched and non-pitched. Pitched percussion staves (xylophones, timpani, bells, etc.) behave like any other pitched instrument in terms of how they are notated. Non-pitched percussion, however, requires different treatment. A single percussion staff is often used to write for multiple instruments with each line or space representing a different instrument rather than a different pitch for the same instrument. Additionally, some percussion instruments may share a line or space with another instrument, each indicated with its own notehead symbol.

For guitar music, NotePad offers a variety of features for notation of guitar, bass, and other fretted instruments, including powerful TAB staves.

In this tutorial we'll explore the available options for creating percussion, as well as standard guitar and tablature notation. First, we need to add percussion, guitar, and guitar TAB staves to our document. While NotePad doesn't allow you to add or remove staves directly, we can create a new document with the additional staves, then copy the music we have entered from our existing document to the new document with additional staves. (In so doing, you also experience some distinct benefits of reading the documentation).

To introduce percussion and guitar staves

1. If you have completed the tutorials up to this point, choose File > Save As, name the file "Tutorial 6b" and click Save. If you are starting with this tutorial, choose File > Open, navigate to the Tutorials, and open "Tutorial 6b."
2. Choose File > New.
3. Type the Title and Composer ("Scarborough Fair" and "England") and click Next.
4. Add Voice, Piano, Guitar, and Guitar TAB, and Drum Set staves. You can find both Guitar and Guitar Tab in the "Fretted Instruments" category. Drum Set is in the "Drums" category. Use the arrows to the right to order them as listed here.

5. Click Next.
6. Set the Time Signature to 3/4 and the key to C minor.
7. For Number of Measures, replace 31 with 16.

8. Click Finish. The new document opens.
9. Choose File > Save As, name the document "Tutorial 7" and click Save. Now, we'll copy the music we've already entered into this document.
10. Choose Window > Tutorial 6b.
11. Choose the Selection tool .
12. Press CRTL+A to Select All.
13. Press CRTL+C to Copy.
14. Choose Window > Tutorial 7.
15. Click the first measure of the Voice staff, then press CRTL+V. The music appears in the Voice and Piano staves, along with the dynamics, tempo marking, and articulations.

Previous

Next

User Manual Home