Grilles

Duozona · June 2006

Does anybody have a template in microsoft word, or anything at all really, for the style of grilles that is commonly used, Im thinking Romance books, manoucheries website (formerly gadjodrom). I am trying to make up some charts and want them to look like the rest I encounter and I suck at word processing programs etc..

Any ideas?

Chuck

Jack · June 2006

Hi Chuck,

I made a basic one a ways back; I think you can get it here:
download.php?id=96
If that doesn't work, it's in this post:
viewtopic.php?t=1033

I made a few different versions, some longer, some with two 32 bar sections (for key changes), some longer, etc...but you should be able to work with that one.

Best,
Jack.

Duozona · June 2006

Jack

Your rock! Just saved me an evening of screwin with microsoft word.

Thank you.

Chuck

Duozona · June 2006

Jack,

What did you do with split bars, or worse yet, Bas with four chords (Im thinking end of B section of Douce Ambience or something).

Chuck

Jack · June 2006

Hey Chuck,

I just sent a PM, but in case you don't see it: I use a pen.

Once I'd made the blank I just made a bunch of copies; I fill those in by hand when the need arises. You can do it in Word (or similar programs) but unless you're publishing a book it hardly seems worth the effort. If I really need to have something on my computer (to email someone, for instance) I might take the time, but if it's a really complex chart it's just as quick to write it out by hand then scan it...

Best,
Jack.

klaatu · June 2006

Here's a Word template that I set up. The template centers the entries in the cells, and there are a couple of symbols below the table that you can copy for diminished or half-diminished chords. For split bars, I just put a hyphen in between chords.

Also here's one that's filled in (Dinah).

Duozona · June 2006

Excellent, thanks. Im going to make it mymission to firgure out those nasty four chord to a bar spilt boxes that you see in the Romane books and other published grilles, when I wrestle microsoft word to my liking, I will post the result.

Chuck

klaatu · June 2006

Chuck -

The split box is actually pretty easy. Just click on a cell in the table, then the command is:
Table - Split Cells

You can then specify how many columns and/or rows you want to split the cell into. 2 columns & 2 rows will give you the four-way split box. 2 of 1 and 1 of the other will give you a 2-way split, either horizontally or vertically depending on what you select.

What I haven't figured out yet is how to split a cell with a slash, like they do in Nuages de Swing. Those are graphics and not MS Word tables. You could do it by drawing a slanted line, but that doesn't fit well into the table and is messy to work with.

Unfortunately, I probably have better skills with MS Office than I do as a GJ guitarist. But I'm working on the latter.

Jack · June 2006

If it helps, I seem to remember reading that the gadjodrom grilles were created with something called Microsoft Publisher...

Craig Bumgarner · June 2006

It would be great if someone could write something just for grilles, but for now, this how I do it.

In Excel, to subdivide measure, use the Draw Line tool in the Draw toolbar. (Use View, Toolbars to activate the Drawing toolbard). Use the Alt key when you click to snap the end of the line to the cell corner. You can use two lines to divide the cell into four sections. To put chords into the subdivisions, use the Text Box tool, again in the Draw toolbar. Click and drag a text box, type the chord name in, size the box and drag it to the subdivided area. Though the results are too varied to outline here, experiment with cut and paste to do muliple cells. In my template, I keep a couple text boxes handy so I don't have to deal with size and fonts each time. You can duplicate text boxes by clicking on their boarder and type Ctrl-D.

To get the Excel chart to a jpeg like below, I use (in Windows XP) Alt-PrintScreen. This copies the open window to the clipboard. I go into a graphics program like the Paint program that comes with Windows and paste the window in. I crop the page to get just the chart, save it a jpeg.

This all works fairly quickly once you get the hang of it. I can do a chart from scratch to jpeg in about ten minutes. Here is an example.

Craig