Finding guitar voicings

[synchronizer]

Are there any recommended tools/live MIDI plugins to help non-guitarists/non theorists find guitar voicings, optionally given a keyboard chord played live? Specifically without the bass note so I can arrange for a band track.
I’m going for more jazz-centric and funk sounds. I know Pat Metheny often sticks with triads as an exception.

In any case, it’d be great to have some kind of real-time tool I could use alongside guitar sample plugins. I use Cubase and its chord track always seems to include the bass.

[Ah_Dziz]

Real guitar (a sample library) has a very decent chord recognition system and it will output midi to better libraries. It also has options for how the bass notes are handled if I remember correctly.

[Ah_Dziz]

Buy a cheap guitar and learn what's doable and not doable by trail and error. It helped me a ton and I'm still a terrible player. You can get a totally fine guitar for 100 bucks to learn on. Tabs and such are all over the internet and you'll be able to learn from those for free.

[I_Am_Become_KVR]

With stringed instruments, the only practical way to write idiosyncratic parts for the instruments, is to pick one up and fool around. It's not necessary to be good, but getting the fingers on there and learning how, when and why to use which notes on which strings in which octaves, is the only path forward here.

Many, many things that look easy on paper or in a piano roll are completely impracticable on a stringed instrument. Likewise, many things that are impossible on a keyboard are braindead easy on a stringed instrument.

It's especially important to learn the difference between a hand formation that is easy on it's own, vs how possible it is to transition to the preceding and following formations. It's not straightforward or intuitive, and even the greatest guitarists on earth pick up the guitar to iron out the details, even if they have something generally in mind ahead of time.

As Dziz notes, decent guitars are dirt cheap these days. If you're going to do a lot of arranging for both electric and acoustic, grab one of each, as the nature of the music assigned to them is wildly different.

[donkey tugger]

With stringed instruments, the only practical way to write idiosyncratic parts for the instruments, is to pick one up and fool around. It's not necessary to be good, but getting the fingers on there and learning how, when and why to use which notes on which strings in which octaves, is the only path forward here.

Many, many things that look easy on paper or in a piano roll are completely impracticable on a stringed instrument. Likewise, many things that are impossible on a keyboard are braindead easy on a stringed instrument.

It's especially important to learn the difference between a hand formation that is easy on it's own, vs how possible it is to transition to the preceding and following formations. It's not straightforward or intuitive, and even the greatest guitarists on earth pick up the guitar to iron out the details, even if they have something generally in mind ahead of time.

As Dziz notes, decent guitars are dirt cheap these days. If you're going to do a lot of arranging for both electric and acoustic, grab one of each, as the nature of the music assigned to them is wildly different.

Indeed, try playing exactly the same note twice at the same time on a keyboard...

Anyway, don't know where the poster is from but just seen that Gear4Music in the UK are selling their 'LA' (strat copy) for the ludicrous price of £49 currently. Not got one, but have a few of their other cheapy things and they're always nicely playable, and set up well from the factory.

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-B ... ic-Black/2

[synchronizer]

My goal is to find tools to arrive at a demo sooner for someone else to play, but I appreciate the thought. I am personally not dextrous enough to play guitar, so it's unrealistic to ask that I go in that direction, and I apologize. I'd like to translate sounds I hear from years of listening into something passable to telegraph to a real musician what I want later.

So far, I've found Scarbee Funk Guitarist to be useful enough to get me started for the funk style.

Maybe what I'm looking for is a trusted online reading material that could show me how to turn hand positions into MIDI notes easily? An online visual interface that shows guitar voicings for specific chords that fit in different styles (jazz, funk rhythm)? I know of terms like shell voicings, but now how best to use them.

[I_Am_Become_KVR]

good luck

[synchronizer]

I'm not sure why not being able to play guitar leads to being dismissive but okay. I was asking about learning resources and tools. That's not mutually-exclusive with playing anyway.

[I_Am_Become_KVR]

I'm not sure why not being able to play guitar leads to being dismissive but okay. I was asking about learning resources and tools. That's not mutually-exclusive with playing anyway.

You've gotten good advice: to write effectively and characteristically for a guitar, you have to learn how it works.

In the case of the guitar, that's virtually impossible to do in the abstract. You can learn to write for a clarinet in the abstract, but not a guitar.

The most efficient way to get what you want, is to pick the thing up, and gain direct knowledge about how it works.

At the very least, make a cardboard cutout of a guitar or something. You can't just assign any ol' notes from a piano roll to a guitar... only by chance will that work out and be playable.

If you just need "background filler" guitar, the best plan is to write the chords down and let your guitarist handle the rest--there's no way you're going to be able to sensibly write out specific fingers, strings, voicings, positions etc, if you haven't learned how the instrument works, on an intimate level.

It's up to you to do what you want with that advice. Good luck.

[synchronizer]

I asked for tools and resources recommended for the second-best thing: styles of chords to look for and how voicings are constructed. I do want to learn it in some level of theory so perhaps I could hand-off demos to a real guitarist.
If anything, it'd be nice to be pointed to good learning resources.

[BertKoor]

Most of us started with things like this:

(from https://lessons.com/guitar-chords/easy-guitar-chords ]0

Then realise all can be shifted to the right chromatically.