I. General options.

Properties:

• Name: The instrument's name
• Family: The instrument's family - with additional categories for lutes
• Close systems: Whether to draw a verticla line at the beginning and end of each staff
• Show barlines: whether to draw barlines or not
• Slanted note beams: Slant note beams on notation gruppettoes or use a strictly horizontal set of lines. No longer very useful.
• Short time signature: Display only the numerator paret of the time signature by default.
• Hide ornaments: Allow but do not print ornaments
• Long note stems: use a higher length for chord groups
• Fingerings above stems: print fingerings above note stems rather than by their note

Actions:

• View database: open the current instrument database
• Add to database: adds this current instrument definition to the current instrument database
• Set as default instrument
• Customize ornaments: opens the ornaments definition dialog
• Add to current section: Add the currently displayed instrument to the section

 

II. Staves properties

Select preset: Load a stave definition from a drop down, You have a choice of:

• Tablature (tablature with a single active voice stream)
• Guitar (G8 clef with two active voices)
• Single voice G clef: class="row"for a treble instrument
• Single voice F clef: for a bass instrument
• Single voice C clef: for a median instrument
• Grand staff: piano style
• Tablature + grand staff (not recommended)
• Tablature + guitar staff
• Theorbo grand staff: G8 "treble" clef staff + bass clef staff

 

Once the basic definition has been loaded, you can modify some of its elements:

• Notation mode: switch between notation and tablature
• Show the two voice streams: Fandango uses two "streams" for each instrument that correspond to the treble clef and the bass clef in grand staff notation.
• Clef: Select one of the 4 available clef types: G, G8, F and C
• Raise clef by: this value allows you to raise or lower the position of a clef on a staff. This is particularly useful with C clefs, but also in early music notation, to raise or lower the G or F clef positions. You can raise or lower the position of the clef within the range of 12 half-steps
• Transpose by: this value allows you to display notation in transposed mode. For instance to display music for the lute one third down for guitar players. It is also useful for instruments like the clarinet, that are not notated at pitch.
• Clef style: You have three options: Renaissance, Baroque and Modern
• Note style: You have three options: square notes, handwritten notes, or modern notes
• Bottom note sets flag direction. This is used by the automated notation flag formatting feature, in case of chords. If not set, the program will determine the direction of the flag - upward or downward - based on the highest note in a chord.
• Spacing below staff: this is the number of intervals between the staff and the following. This value can reset directly from the editor window by using the appropriate buttons on the top toolbar : converging and diverging blue arrow icons.
• Don't show metaevents. Meta-events can be redundant if they appear on both treble and bass staves.
• Bottom note sets stem direction. A mostly deprecated feature

 

III. Tablature properties

A. Tuning & Style:

• Edit alfabeto. Open the alfabeto editor with automated features to calculate chord shape based on the tuning.
• Change Tuning. Click on the button on the right to access the instrument's tuning properties
• Tablature styles. Use this to choose between French, Italian and Modern tablature modes
• Tablature flags. This value modifies the glyphs used to represent tablature rhythm flags. Note that the two English styles add an extra flag line, so that a quarter note is represented by two flag lines instead of one.
• Flag groups: Tablature mode flag groups vary from no groups to modern guitar tab with groups under the staff.
• Flag styles:
  • Individual flags:Flags are only shown when there is a change in the value of the flag
  • Lute beams: Flag groups are displayed abover the staff
  • Guitar beams: Flag groups are displayed under the staff
  • Hide all flags: Don't show any flag
  • Beamed group mode: like individual flags except in ternary where groups are used as in lute beams
  • Baroque group mode: like individual flags except in ternary where groups are indicated by a curved line  over the group
  • English beams: Breaks groups when there is a change of value
• Fret scale: A place holder for instruments that use a diatonic or pentatonic fretting system. I never really implemented that feature. For the time being Fandango supports only chromatic fretting.

 

B. Formatting:

• Vertical spacing: this value determines the spacing between tablature lines
• Time signature size: default value for time signatures
• Time signature font: font to use in time signature events
• Flags distance from staff: this value depends on the vertical spacing one.
• Diapasons distance from staff: this value depends on the vertical spacing one.
• Diapasons styles: various ways of drawing the slash on a diapason
• Tablature glyph a class="row"djustment: this modifies the base line value of a glyph so it sits better in tablature. Fandango can accept any font for tablature, but very few are actually truly adapted for tablature.
  Note : you can set different adjustment values for letter style or number style tablature.

C. Options:

1. Print tuning on staff. Allow you to have the tuning displayed by each tablature staff
2. Draw on lines: If this box is checked, tablature notes are displayed on the tablature staff's line rather than in-between two tablature lines.
3. Draw opaque. This option hides the portion of the line under the tablture letter or number
4. Colored ornaments: Check this option to display ornaments in color. (mostly deprecated)
5. Colored flags: Capirola style, i.e. each flag value has its own color.
6. No flag group numbers: suppresses the display of numbers over triplet, sextoles, etc.
7. Rests on tablature staff: draw rests in the middle of the staff instead of above or below
8. Crotchet = two flags: Tablature was sometimes written with halved normal notation values. This allows you to transcribe early 17th cent. English music for lute and other instruments, for instance, the way it was originally notated.
9. Show first flag of bar: if no flag groups are selected, tablature flags are only shown when a rhythm change occurs. If you check this option, the program will display the current value of the flag whenever a bar change occurs as well.
10. Show all flags. This forces the display of a tablature flag for each chord (early 16th cent. Italian style)
11. Baroque guitar strumming. Changes the style of strumming glyphs. Currently only useful for Baroque guitar in Italian tablature mode.
12. Baroque rests: Display a rest above the staff instead of a flag.
13. Show alfabeto symbols. Unless this is checked, alfabeto chords will be displayed in tablature format.

 

IV. Fonts and colors

• Tablature: font and color for tablature glyphs
• Flags and ornaments: font and color for tablature flags and ornaments. Note: The only font used now is the FandangoFlags.ttf font.
• Notation font: font and color for regular notes. Note: The only font used now is the DjangoNotation.ttf font.
• Alfabeto: Font and color used for Alfabeto symbols

 

Elements colors:

You can assign colors to various groups of elements in both notation and tablature style. This can be used to make notation generally more readable or to disambiguate between slurs and tied notes for instance.

1. Ornaments:
2. Fingerings
3. Legatoes/Slurs
4. Meta-events
5. Tied notes
6. Melody notes

 

V. MIDI

A. Values:

• Patch: the MIDI patch number i.e. Piano, Guitar, Harmonica, etc.
• Volume: basic channel volume for that instrument
• Pan position
• Pressure
• Expression
• Dynamic variance:  a value used by the algorithm that calculates variations of velocity based on the beat.
• Bass/Treble balance: used by the same algorithm to alter velocity based on the height of a note
• Vibrato: Sets a default MOD Wheel value of the instrument
• Portamento: Not currently used
• Reverb: used by the TiMidity player but not necessarily by other MIDI renderers
• Chorus: used by the TiMidity player but not necessarily by other MIDI renderers
• Brightness: used by the TiMidity player but not necessarily by other MIDI renderers

 

B. Actions

• Transpose by half-steps: Transpose MIDI output by this number of half-steps
• Mute: Mute this instrument
• Monophonic: mostly deprecated. This forces a note off before every note on event.
• Play ornaments: render ornaments or not, i.e. trills, mordents, etc.
• Merge voices to same channel: if an instrument uses both voice streams, use a single channel
• Soft pedal: not used
• Hold pedal: not used
• Portamento: not used

Echo and Octave:

• Octaves: play an octave with each note on a "diapason". Octaves are only played if they correspond to notes played on certain strings.
• Echo: Play a note on a different channel using a different path possibly with an optional delay

 

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Ornaments tables

For historical reasons, Fandango allows for the customization of ornament glyphs, both in notation mode and in tablature mode. You can access the ornaments edit from various places: the instrument definition dialog or the ornaments side panel palette.

The editor consists of two section: one for notation and one for tablature. Each section consists of the same number and set of ornaments: appoggiatura, trill, mordent, accents, etc. You use the editor essentially to pick a different glyph for an ornament, but you can also modify its placement, and its speed of execution. Most of the time you only have to deal with a small number of changes, but beyond that you may want to design your own instrument and save them in your own database adn templates.

To modify an ornament, open the ornaments editor and select the notation or tablature tab. Click on the image of the glyph you want to modify. This will open a properties dialog for that specific ornament. If you need to just modify its placement or playing speed, you can do it from there. If you want a different glyph, you need to click on the Modify button to call up a table of available glyphs to chose from. These are contained in the two main font files: DjangoNotation and.ttf FandangoFlags.ttf. Next select the desired glyph and click OK. Review the placement of the glyph and close the ornament properties dialog.

Once defined, an ornaments table will show its glyphs in the ornaments palette, and a tooltip will indicate their meaning: trill, mordent etc. Notice also that if you switch from tablature to notation, the appropriate ornaments table appears on that palette.

Floating ornaments

A floating ornament is not part of an instrument's definition and it has no musical value assigned to it. Another big difference with regular ornaments is that it only belongs to either tablature or notation, but not both. It can however be useful because unlike regular ornaments, it floats: that is to say you can place it with the mouse where you want it. It might also make some extra glyphs available.

Grace notes

There is a lot of overlap between ornaments and grace notes and in fact the same set of ornaments almost is available with grace notes as is with ornaments. Some major differences exist though:

• Grace notes are not instrument specific and they are generated not with special glyphs but with a smaller size notation or tablature font.
• Some advantages of being spelled out ornaments: you have some added flexibility in the positioning and realisation of ornamental functions. While the ornament set provides an appoggiatura glyph for instance, that ornament can only start from one interval above or one ornament below the main note. The grace note editor gives you the possibility of starting your appoggiatura up to either 7 steps above or 7 steps below the main note. The same applies to mordents, coulés, etc. Grace notes are more work for the editor, but they expand the range of options available.
• Another expansion of grace notes comes from the possibility of altering the signature for a specific ornament. You can start an appoggiatura from a half-step up for instance where the key signature would normally require a full step.
• You can set the base flag value for the grace group: 8th note, 16th, etc.
• Grace notes are rendered in MIDI ouput, as are ornaments, unless you uncheck the Play ornaments box in that instrument's MIDI setup.
• Grace note specific elements include:
  • Whether to draw a ligature over or under the grace notes
  • Whether to draw that ligature as a straight or curved line
  • Whether to use triple or binary time
  • Whether the stems are up or down
• You can drag a grace note group with the mouse horizontally - but not vertically

VI. Pedals definitions:

This features provides support for slide pedal guitar. It provides definitions for up to 14 pedals per instrument. See the Nashville steel-string template definition for more detail. Each pedal can alter the basic tuning by an octave up or down. Pedal actions are entered via the pedal toolbar. (see Editing palette)