Piano <> Guitar fingerings

[MRT]

Hello I am a confessed hacker with no formal music background. I play guitar keyboards for the most part by ear.
If I write a song on piano or guitar (if I deviate from the basic major/minor) I have a hell of a time figuring out the chord fingering for the other.
What I am looking for is an application that would allow me to enter chord notes on either a fretboard or keyboard and then show correct the fingering on the other.
The only thing close I've ever found is an app called Nut Chord.
Being able to show inversions and save chord tab a plus. I could probbably work with an android app.
Thanks, any suggestions welcome.

[tapper mike]

Not all chords are transferrable from the keyboard to the fretboard due to the nature of a guitars design. As well the middle C for a guitar set to standard tuning can be played in 5 positions. Each repeated note on the fretboard will have a slightly different character (timbre) due to the string guage, tension and the fretted position. And then there is that final thing harmonic range. A piano has a wider range of notes then a guitar. Some notes just wont fit on the fretboard because they are too high or too low.

[jumpercable]

A key to understanding guitar positions and voicings is 'drop 2' and 'drop 3' positions.

Basically for most guitar chords (and this will apply to all inversions) - If you imagine a triad with a 7th on the stave, and take the 2nd note up (in root position this would be the 3rd), then flip that an octave above - that's how guitar is most commonly voiced. So (in root position) - the voicing would be - root, fifth, seventh, third. *But remember these combinations will change depending on what inversion you want initially).

Maybe this is over your head, but if you look up 'drop 2' and 'drop 3' youll find it highly rewarding and be able to find some chords alot easier.

Best of luck finding your app, sorry I cant help with that. Smartchord on Android might be of some use though.

[MadBrain]

Yeah... piano chord fingering is also very different and depends on if you're playing the bassline on the lefthand or not, and if you're playing the melody on the right hand or not. All inversions and note rearrangements and are always possible so it doesn't really makes sense to enumerate them. It makes much more sense to simply write down your chord symbols (E7 Am7 Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 etc) and simply play them completely differently on guitar vs on piano.

[tapper mike]

Yeah... piano chord fingering is also very different and depends on if you're playing the bassline on the lefthand or not, and if you're playing the melody on the right hand or not. All inversions and note rearrangements and are always possible so it doesn't really makes sense to enumerate them. It makes much more sense to simply write down your chord symbols (E7 Am7 Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 etc) and simply play them completely differently on guitar vs on piano.

All inversions and note rearrangements and are always possible
[/qupte]
Um no. Ever tried a Major7add9 without ommitting a note on the guitar and including the root in the octave

Voice this on the guitar and try to get all the notes to play at the same time C-E-G-B-C-D

[Hink]

that's where alternate tunings come in handy

[MadBrain]

Yeah... piano chord fingering is also very different and depends on if you're playing the bassline on the lefthand or not, and if you're playing the melody on the right hand or not. All inversions and note rearrangements and are always possible so it doesn't really makes sense to enumerate them. It makes much more sense to simply write down your chord symbols (E7 Am7 Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 etc) and simply play them completely differently on guitar vs on piano.

All inversions and note rearrangements and are always possible
[/qupte]
Um no. Ever tried a Major7add9 without ommitting a note on the guitar and including the root in the octave

Voice this on the guitar and try to get all the notes to play at the same time C-E-G-B-C-D

Sorry, I meant on piano. And to be more precise, I mean "as long as you don't break a few following rough rules":

- No too-low intervals (most intervals start sounding muddy below about an octave below middle C except the 5th which can go much lower, and the octave of course)
- No changing the bassline (ie C/E with the bass playing E isn't the same as C with the bass playing C).
- No minor 9th, except between the root note and the b9 in b9 chords. So C7#9 can be voiced as C E Bb Eb or C Bb Eb E, but not as C Eb Bb E.
- Has to be physically playable. This means that each hand can't play more than a bit over an octave (9ths are playable, 10ths are generally really hard and some are impossible).

Admittedly, guitar has totally different limitations. For instance, cluster chords, such as Dm11 played as C E F G A all on the same octave and D on the bass, are going to be more or less impossible (and guitar really isn't the instrument for these anyways).

[jancivil]

You got people telling you about a lot of cute things about this but not much of why there's a difference. You may not be interested in it really, as you want the computer to sort it for you.

But the reason, eg., a bunch of straight thirds past a certain point [as indicated in one instance above] in a harmony doesn't happen on a guitar is because it isn't tuned for that. We could get into a big koffee klatsch about what special tunings do what... and why not. You have found people that must be more interested in this than you have shown to be. In fact your only real question was 'suggest an app'. BTW that isn't a music theory question, there are other boards.

But you for some reason want a guitar part in a track to seem like a guitar part off of the piano roll or the piano paradigm. You may have already found that some things just don't sound right with piano voicings.

You would obtain a richer experience and probably more convincing music if you learn about guitar, how it is laid out, and do some work yourself. A number of the virtual guitars, vstis or whatever, lay out the fingerboard in the GUI and with some work a sense of what is and isn't possible can be had. The people that make convincing guitar tracks happen understand the thing, it's like anything else. Guitar is idiomatic, guitarist's choices are out of a certain determinism. People, I, seek to escape from a lot of it, but in terms of chords, guitar chords are voiced according to what's feasible.
Sure you can maybe use an 'app' but until you understand the thing you're liable to slap together a kludge and run into a certain frustration not very unlike what you have now.

You want it to show you 'the correct' notes? What's correct here may not be correct there. Of course you're having a terrible time, it's hard. People work hard to know things well.

[MRT]

I want to thank everone who took the time to reply. I take it the simple answer is no.

[arkmabat]

Tux guitar is free and will probably help a lot with that.

[arkmabat]

you write piano notes and it'll show the fingering on the guitar and viceversa

[jancivil]

What does it do with things that are essentially impossible? There are definitely things where you won't even have the strings to even try it. I think that could be useful, but in the abstract and knowing 'this is just not possible' for real aren't the same thing.

Some things are probably going to seem quite reasonable to someone that has not tried to get their hand to do it. Long story short, close voicings that are terrifically difficult or impossible don't happen and the idiom reflects what people do.

So if the app has this kind of information, great. I'm a little skeptical about this sort of contextual thing myself. You can learn to 'score' for guitar never being a guitarist, but you want to study guitar music some.

[trimph1]

I'd just learn guitar just like one does piano, or any other instrument for that matter.

Myself, I find that it easier with a music teacher. You can sort of catch some youtube vids but....