ISPOG

ISPOG — Is it Playable on Guitar?

ISPOG checks whether a score can be played on the guitar. It reads a MusicXML file, finds string and fret positions for every note, fingers simultaneous and held notes together, and returns the score with each notehead colored:

Each note gets a string, a fret and a finger of the fretting hand; held notes keep theirs. The fingering is chosen over the whole part, not chord by chord.

Unisons across voices: two voices writing the same pitch at the same time are read as one note written twice, unless the score marks them as two (different string numbers, different spelling such as E4/F♭4, or different fingerings on both). Hidden notes are ignored.

Three ways to use it, with the same analysis: the desktop app (Windows, macOS), the web version and, from version 1.0, a plugin for MuseScore Studio.

• Author: Stefano Mancuso
• Input: MusicXML (.musicxml, .xml) and compressed MusicXML (.mxl) from any notation program (MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Dorico, Guitar Pro); multi-part scores
• Output: the colored MusicXML score (full score or one file per part) and a playability report (<name>_report.txt)
• Source code, changelog, bug tracker: https://github.com/StefanoMancuso/ISPOG

Download

The first public alpha, 0.9.1, is ISPOG_0.9.1.zip in the main folder; it moves to archive/0.9.1/ with the next stable release. The version is in every file name. What changed in each version: CHANGELOG.

No installation and no Python needed: on Windows run the .exe; on macOS unzip and move ISPOG.app to Applications.

First launch

The executables are not digitally signed, so the system asks for one extra confirmation the first time:

• Windows (SmartScreen, "Windows protected your PC"): "More info" → "Run anyway".
• macOS ("ISPOG can't be opened" or "Apple could not verify…"): close the message, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, "Open Anyway", then confirm.

Security scan warning

Hugging Face may mark the macOS .zip files as "unsafe" (scanner: Protect AI). This is a false positive (under review with Hugging Face): PyInstaller bundles pack the Python libraries, including pickle-related modules, and the scanner flags them inside the archive. The files are built from the GitHub repository by its release workflow, and each executable passes ISPOG --self-test before publishing. To verify a download, compare its SHA-256 with the one shown on the file's page.

Quick usage

Desktop app, 1.0.0

1. Launch ISPOG.
2. Open a score with Browse…, or drop it on the window or on the ISPOG icon.
3. Parts: guitar parts are ticked automatically; each part has its own instrument. Choose a preset (Standard, Drop D, Open G, From score when the MusicXML gives the tuning, Custom) or type the tuning, string 1 first (e.g. E4 B3 G3 D3 A2 E2), and set the number of frets. Other parts can be ticked and analyzed with the tuning you give.
4. Choose the output (Full score or Separate parts) and whether to Add labels to score.
5. Click Analyze Playability. The Problems tab lists the difficult, unplayable and not-as-written points in score order; click one for its reason and the closest fingering. The full report is in the Report tab.
6. Save colored score… saves the score (or the parts) and the report.

MuseScore plugin

The analysis inside MuseScore Studio 4.6 or later, on the open score: no export needed.

1. Unzip ISPOG-<version>-musescore.zip into Documents/MuseScore4/Plugins.
2. Restart MuseScore, then Home → Plugins → enable ISPOG.
3. Open a score, then Plugins → Color notes → ISPOG.
4. Set tuning and frets per part, then Analyze (whole score) or Selected measures (faster, on a large score). Click a problem to select its notes in the score; Clear colors removes the colors. Every coloring can be undone (Edit → Undo).

Not read from the score by the plugin: string numbers and fingerings written on the notes, capo. Details: plugin README.

Online version

No download needed: https://ispog.onrender.com. On the free server the first analysis after a pause can take up to a minute.

License

© 2026 Stefano Mancuso — GNU GPL v3.0 or later. Third-party components: THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Version 0.9.1 remains under the terms it was released with.

Citation

If you use ISPOG in research, please cite the paper:

Crecchi, Niccolò, and Stefano Mancuso. "Dealing with a Guitar's Historical Limit through Computer-Assisted Composition." In Sounding the Posthuman: Proceedings of the 25th Colloquium on Music Informatics. L'Aquila, Italy, 13–16 October 2026. Forthcoming.

and the software, with the version you used (shown in the window title and at the bottom of every analyzed score):

Mancuso, Stefano. ISPOG — Is it Playable on Guitar? Version <version>, 2026. https://github.com/StefanoMancuso/ISPOG

Machine-readable citation: CITATION.cff.