Thoughts on “whiting out” the staff for elements

[LSL2026]

The triplets thing brought up numerals in the staff - which can sometimes work, but some numbers are kind of tricky depending on where a staff line falls.

Attached is some guitar notation I did, and for the string numbers - which are an Arabic numeral in a circle, I felt I needed to place them in the staff, so I made them “filled” with white, so the staff lines don’t show through.

Is this frowned upon? I mean I would never want to do it in such a way that it made the staff lines hard to follow, but for a few instances like this… no harm no foul?

Screenshot 2026-07-25 at 12.56.03 AM.png (141.13 KiB) Viewed 661 times

Thoughts?

If you’re not familiar with guitar music, here’s a typical piece:

https://allstyleguitar.com/wp-content/u ... 8x1086.jpg

Note that the string numbers often have to go after the notes as they do here.

The question becomes, for me, if I like doing it this way, how will it fly on a piece like this, where there are a lot more of them necessary (in the piece I posted, there are only these in the first two systems, and maybe one more at the end). Will they start to make the staff lines “too disconnected”?

[Magnus Johansson]

Hello! I prefer such things as fingerings, sticking, string numbers and others above or below the stave, and above or below the notes they belong to.

[sugarfree]

You have smaller 2s without whiteouts and circled larger 2s with whiteouts. Traditionally, a whiteout around a numeral would be just a small break in a staff line. Whiting out the whole circle seems excessive, as a circle doesn’t need it itself.

fingerings outside the staff as a rule looks detached from the notes.

[dircknagy]

...

Publishers aren't always very consistent or careful with guitar music. Things change within the same piece, sometimes even within the same measure. See the string numbering in this example from Eschig:

Eschig screenshot.png (399.95 KiB) Viewed 611 times

I think it best to avoid masking off the staff lines as this makes finding the actual pitch more difficult to read. The pitch is generally more important than the fingering, etc.



BTW, there is a real problem with overly edited and fingered guitar scores.

As an example from your own score: Your first measure harmonic is triply redundant. You specify the fingering, the fret, and the string number. None of these are really necessary; all that is needed is the sounding pitch and the "harmonic" indication.

Likewise, unless you have a very good reason for the specific RH fingerings in m.1, its best to leave them out. The first 2 notes in the upper voice could just as easily be fingered 1, 2, with the 3rd finger on the harmonic, then moving to fingers 3 and 4 where the string change occurs.

If you do insist on fingers 1 and 3 for the descending passage in m.1, its not necessary to include them on beat 2. Including them on beat 3 as well not only adds clutter, but starts to become a little insulting to the guitarist.

Except for instructional purposes, its usually best to treat it like piano music, leaving the majority of fingerings up to the performer, unless you are Julian Bream and are asked to supply your own fingerings so the publisher can sell it. Here is a Universal Editions / Julian Bream example:

Screen Shot 2026-07-25 at 12.11.51 PM.png (179.96 KiB) Viewed 611 times

[LSL2026]

You have smaller 2s without whiteouts and circled larger 2s with whiteouts. Traditionally, a whiteout around a numeral would be just a small break in a staff line. Whiting out the whole circle seems excessive, as a circle doesn’t need it itself.

fingerings outside the staff as a rule looks detached from the notes.

Maybe both you and @Magnus Johansson didn’t see the example I provided?

This is all pretty typical placement of symbols in guitar notation. And yours and Magnus’s preference for fingerings are opposite

The small 2s in the staff are fingerings (where they need to be in the staff). The larger ones are string numbers, in the circles, with the white out.

The question here, all other things aside is, if the whiteouts in the circle are problematic or not. As the example I linked shows, the string numbers in circles, when on the staff and not whited out, are a bit hard to read because trying to get the circle itself, and the numeral, to avoid staff lines in practical ways is kind of a darned if you do darned if you don’t situation. There’s no way to place it without the numeral being hard to read, or the circle crossing the line in an odd way.

Hence the thought of whiting them out (the fingerings, without the circle, are less problematic because they can be positioned more freely).

Whiting them out solves the placement issues, but it creates its own with obscuring the staff lines.

So which is the lesser of 2 evils?

It’s far less common to white out, but what I was hoping for was other examples that uses these, or similar things, or a general feeling of if there’s any significant use of these kinds of things elsewhere.

I feel like breaking the line is common enough, but for the circles, it would mean either breaking it for the circle and the number - which will look really bad, or they’ll be broken to the point where it’s the same as whited out, so...

[sugarfree]

There may be a misunderstanding. I don’t oppose the placement of your fingerings. As you said, this is standard for the guitar.
IMO, since the position of a circle doesn’t affect readability, the circle itself shouldn’t use a white-out. The only consideration for in-staff placement is the numeral, for which a white-out is an option. Whether to use it or not would depend on the final print medium. If the print quality is expected to be inferior, then white-out can help.

Ravel, Published by Leduc

LD - Ravel - 6.5mm 3908to72dpi 01.png (5.69 MiB) Viewed 573 times

[Magnus Johansson]

You have smaller 2s without whiteouts and circled larger 2s with whiteouts. Traditionally, a whiteout around a numeral would be just a small break in a staff line. Whiting out the whole circle seems excessive, as a circle doesn’t need it itself.

fingerings outside the staff as a rule looks detached from the notes.

Maybe both you and @Magnus Johansson didn’t see the example I provided?

This is all pretty typical placement of symbols in guitar notation. And yours and Magnus’s preference for fingerings are opposite

Ha, ha! It is not unusual that we here on Notatio are of different meanings sometimes, but we agree on many things also.

Attaching my suggestion for the opening of ¡Adelita!:

Screenshot_20260726_083027.png (7.59 KiB) Viewed 534 times

[LSL2026]

The only consideration for in-staff placement is the numeral,

I’ve found out I can actually make the interior of the circle semi-transparent in MuseScore - so the line can show through, but just not as darkly as it would originally. I’m going to experiment with that to get the right level of transparency and I think that will be a nice balance.