alphaTab.json.NotationSettingsJson

The notation settings control how various music notation elements are shown and behaving

 interface NotationSettingsJson

Properties

displayTranspositionPitches

The transposition pitch offsets for the individual tracks used for rendering only. For some instruments the pitch shown on the standard notation has an additional transposition. One example is the Guitar. Notes are shown 1 octave higher than they are on the piano. The following image shows a C4 for a piano and a guitar, and a C5 for the piano as comparison:

The DisplayTranspositionPitch setting allows defining an additional pitch offset per track, that is then considered when displaying the music sheet. This setting does not affect the playback of the instrument in any way. Despite the 2 different standard notations in the above example, they both play the same note height. The transposition is defined as number of semitones and one value per track of the song can be defined.

displayTranspositionPitches?: number[];

elements

Whether music notation elements are visible or not. AlphaTab has quite a set of notation elements that are usually shown by default or only shown when using the SongBook notation mode. This setting allows showing/hiding individual notation elements like the song information or the track names.

For each element you can configure whether it is visible or not. The setting is a Map/Dictionary where the key is the element to configure and the value is a boolean value whether it should be visible or not.

elements?: Map<NotationElement | keyof typeof NotationElement | Lowercase<keyof typeof NotationElement>, boolean>;

extendBendArrowsOnTiedNotes

If set to true bend arrows expand to the end of the last tied note of the string. Otherwise they end on the next beat. By default the arrows and lines on bend effects are extended to the space of tied notes. This behavior is the Guitar Pro default but some applications and songbooks practice it different. There the bend only is drawn to the next beat.

Enabled	Disabled

extendBendArrowsOnTiedNotes?: boolean;

extendLineEffectsToBeatEnd

If set to true, line effects like w/bar and let-ring are drawn until the end of the beat instead of the start By default effect annotations that render a line above the staff, stop on the beat. This is the typical display of Guitar Pro. In songbooks and some other tools these effects are drawn to the end of this beat.

Enabled	Disabled

extendLineEffectsToBeatEnd?: boolean;

fingeringMode

The fingering mode to use. AlphaTab supports multiple modes on how to display fingering information in the music sheet. This setting controls how they should be displayed. The default behavior is to show the finger information directly in the score along the notes. For some use cases of training courses and for beginners this notation might be hard to read. The effect band mode allows to show a single finger information above the staff.

Score	Effect Band

fingeringMode?: FingeringMode | keyof typeof FingeringMode | Lowercase<keyof typeof FingeringMode>;

notationMode

The mode to use for display and play music notation elements. AlphaTab provides 2 main music notation display modes GuitarPro and SongBook. As the names indicate they adjust the overall music notation rendering either to be more in line how Arobas Guitar Pro displays it, or more like the common practice in paper song books practices the display.

The main differences in the Songbook display mode are:

1. Bends For bends additional grace beats are introduced. Bends are categorized into gradual and fast bends.

   • Gradual bends are indicated by beat text "grad" or "grad.". Bend will sound along the beat duration.
   • Fast bends are done right before the next note. If the next note is tied even on-beat of the next note.

2. Whammy Bars Dips are shown as simple annotation over the beats. Whammy Bars are categorized into gradual and fast.

   • Gradual whammys are indicated by beat text "grad" or "grad.". Whammys will sound along the beat duration.
   • Fast whammys are done right the beat.

3. Let Ring Tied notes with let ring are not shown in standard notation. Let ring does not cause a longer playback, duration is defined via tied notes.

4. Settings Following default setting values are applied:

{
    notation: {
        smallGraceTabNotes: false,
        fingeringMode: alphaTab.FingeringMode.SingleNoteEffectBandm
        extendBendArrowsOnTiedNotes: false
    },
    elements: {
        parenthesisOnTiedBends: false,
        tabNotesOnTiedBends: false,
        zerosOnDiveWhammys: true
    }
}

notationMode?: NotationMode | keyof typeof NotationMode | Lowercase<keyof typeof NotationMode>;

rhythmHeight

Controls how high the ryhthm notation is rendered below the tab staff This setting can be used in combination with the rhythmMode setting to control how high the rhythm notation should be rendered below the tab staff.

rhythmHeight?: number;

rhythmMode

Controls how the rhythm notation is rendered for tab staves. This setting enables the display of rhythm notation on tab staffs. Demo since 1.4.0 its automatically detected whether rhythm notation should be shown on tabs (based on the visibility of other staves).

rhythmMode?: TabRhythmMode | keyof typeof TabRhythmMode | Lowercase<keyof typeof TabRhythmMode>;

slurHeight

The height scale factor for slurs Slurs and ties currently calculate their height based on the distance they have from start to end note. Most music notation software do some complex collision detection to avoid a slur to overlap with other elements, alphaTab only has a simplified version of the slur positioning as of today. This setting allows adjusting the slur height to avoid collisions. The factor defined by this setting, is multiplied with the logarithmic distance between start and end.

Slur Height Default	Slur Height 14

slurHeight?: number;

smallGraceTabNotes

If set to true the guitar tabs on grace beats are rendered smaller. By default, grace notes are drawn smaller on the guitar tabs than the other numbers. With this setting alphaTab can be configured to show grace tab notes with normal text size.

Enabled	Disabled

smallGraceTabNotes?: boolean;

transpositionPitches

The transposition pitch offsets for the individual tracks used for rendering and playback. This setting allows transposing of tracks for display and playback. The transpositionPitches setting allows defining an additional pitch offset per track, that is then considered when displaying the music sheet.

transpositionPitches?: number[];