Guitar Lessons - Tab Notation guitar tab
1.0 What is TAB
1.1 What TAB will tell you
1.2 What TAB won't tell you.
Reading Tab:
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2.0 TAB notation - The Basics
2.1 Other symbols used in TAB
2.2 Hammer ons and pull offs
2.3 Bends
2.4 Slides
2.5 Note length information
Writing Tab:
------------
3.0 Getting Started
3.1 To Tab or not to tab
3.2 Things to do when writing TAB
3.3 Things to avoid
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1.0 What Is Tab.
TAB or tablature is a method of writing down music played on guitar
or bass. Instead of using symbols like in standard musical notation,
it uses ordinary ASCII characters and numbers, making it ideal
for places like the internet where anybody with any computer
can link up, copy a TAB file, and read it.
1.1 What Tab Will Tells You.
TAB will tell you what notes to play - it will tell you which string
to hit and which fret to fret it at.
TAB will tell you where hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, slides,
harmonics and vibrato are used.
TAB will tell you what tuning the piece is in. If this isn't given
explicitly, assume normal tuning. TAB should also give you
information on use of capos etc.
TAB will give you an indication of the ryhthm of the piece - I.
e it will tell you which are the long notes and which are the short
notes. However it will not tell you exactly how long or how short
they are. This leads me on to.
1.2 What Tab Will Not Tell You.
TAB will (usually) not tell you the note lengths of the notes
- so in most cases you will have to listen to the song yourself,
with the TAB in front of you to work out the ryhthm of the notes.
TAB will not tell you which fingers you use to fret which note.
TAB will (usually) not tell you anything about picking and strumming
- you will have to decide for yourself where to use upstrokes/downstrokes
and so on.
2.0 Tab Notation - The Basics.
TAB is simple to read, and should be simple to write if you want
to submit a song you have worked out yourself. The idea is this:
you start out with 6 lines (or four for bass). These correspond
to the strings of the instrument. The top line is the highest
pitch string, and the bottom line is the lowest pitch string.
Below is a blank bit of TAB with the string names at the left.
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers are written on the lines to show you where to fret the
string with the left hand. If a zero appears, this means play
the open string. Like standard musical notation, you read from
left to right to find out what order to play the notes. The following
piece of TAB would mean play the sequence of notes (E F F# G G# A)
on the bottom E string by moving up a fret at a time, starting with
the open string.
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E---0--1--2--3--4--5---------------------------------------------
OK so far? Here we have notes being played one at a time. If two
or more notes are to be played together, they are written on top
of one another, again just like standard notation. In the next
example we have a G bar chord.
E----3------------------------------------------------------------
B----3------------------------------------------------------------
G----4------------------------------------------------------------
D----5------------------------------------------------------------
A----5------------------------------------------------------------
E----3------------------------------------------------------------
So this means play all these notes together as a chord. You might
see the same chord written like this:
E--------3--------------------------------------------------------
B-------3---------------------------------------------------------
G------4----------------------------------------------------------
D-----5-----------------------------------------------------------
A----5------------------------------------------------------------
E---3-------------------------------------------------------------
Which would mean strum the same shape starting at the bottom
string, so that each string is hit slightly later than the last
string, but all notes will ring together. Below is am example
of the same shape again, but now the gaps between the notes are
bigger - so you would probably pick the strings separately instead
of slowly strumming the shape.
E------------------3----------------------------------------------
B---------------3-----3-------------------------------------------
G------------4-----------4----------------------------------------
D---------5-----------------5-------------------------------------
A------5-----------------------5----------------------------------
E---3-----------------------------3-------------------------------
You might ask: "How do I know how fast or slow to play this? Are
all the notes supposed to be the same length?"
This is where TAB differs from standard notation. Most often
TAB will not give you any information on the note lengths. It
is usually left up to you to listen to the song to pick up the rhythm.
However don't despair. TAB should give you some indications
of timing. In the example above all the notes are evenly spaced
so you can reasonably assume that the notes are the same length
(maybe all eighth notes or quavers) but this may not always be
true - it depends on who wrote the TAB.
As a general rule, the spacing of the notes on the TAB should tell
you which notes are the long ones, and which are the short and
fast ones, but obviously it won't tell you if a note is a triplet
or anything like that. Again, this will depend strongly on the
person who wrote the TAB. As an example, here are the first few
notes of the American National Anthem in TAB. You should see
fairly clearly that the different spacing corresponds to the
different note lengths.
E-----------------------0--------4--2-0--------------------------
B---0--------------0---------------------------------0-----------
G------1------1----------------------------1----3----------------
D--------2-------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously it will be a lot easier to play the TAB for a song you
know well than for a song you've never heard of because you will
already be familiar with the ryhthms of the familiar song.
2.1 Other Symbols Used In Tab
So far I've looked at what notes to play: which string to hit,
and where to fret it. I've mentioned how to get an idea of note
lengths by looking at the spaces between notes on the TAB, but
this can only be a rough guide. You will always have to check with
the original track to work out details of the rhythm. A lot of
other imprtant information can be included in a piece of TAB.
This includes hammer-ons, pull offs, slides, bends, vibrato
and so on. The standard practice is to write extra letters or
symbols between notes to indicate how to play them. Here are
the letters/symbols most often used:
h - hammer on
p - pull off
b - bend string up
r - release bend
/ - slide up
\ - slide down
v - vibrato (sometimes written as ~)
t - right hand tap
x - play 'note' with heavy damping
That last one, the x, is used to get a choppy, percussive sound.
You usually use your fretting hand to lightly damp the strings
so that when you pick the note it sounds dead. Note that the use
of 'x' is totally different from the use of an 'x' when giving
chord shapes. For example if you wrote the chord of D, you would
see:
EADGBE
xx0232
where the 'x's mean do not play this string. In tab it is implicitly
assumed that a string is not played if it is not marked. So the
same chord in TAB would be:
E-----2---------------------------------------------------------
B-----3---------------------------------------------------------
G-----2---------------------------------------------------------
D-----0---------------------------------------------------------
A---------------------------------------------------------------
E---------------------------------------------------------------
with no 'x'. The x is is only used in TAB to represent a heavily
muted string which is picked/strummed to give a percussive sound.
There are a number of other symbols for things like whammy bar
bends, pick scrapes and so on. There seems to be no particular
standard way of writing these - details should be given in the
TAB to explain what the symbols mean. Bass TAB will probably
need a few extra symbols to cope with the different techniques
used in bass playing - for example slapping and 'popping' the
string with thumb or middle finger. You could use 's' for slap
and 'p' for pop as long as you wrote them underneath the lines
of tab to distinguish them from slide and pull off which would
be written on the lines of tab.
2.2 Hammer Ons And Pull Offs.
With hammer-ons and pull-offs you might find things like these:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A---------5h7-----------5h7--------------------------------------
E---0--0----------0--0-------------------------------------------
which would mean play the open E twice, then hit the A string at
the 5th fret and hammer on to the 7th fret. Pull offs look very
similar:
E----3p0----------------------------------------------------------
B---------3p0-----------------------------------------------------
G--------------2p0------------------------------------------------
D-------------------2---------------------------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here we have a descending blues scale using pull-offs to the
openstrings. For each pull off you only pick the first note of
the pairwith the right hand - so in this example you would pick
all thenotes on the 3rd and 2nd frets, and the open strings would
besounded by pulling off. Because you give the string an extra
bit of energy when you hammer onand pull off, you only need to
hit the first note with the picking hand. You could even have
a long string of hammer-ons and pull-offs like this:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G---2h4p2h4p2h4p2h4p2h4p2----------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
In this case you only pick the first note.
2.3 Bends.
When bends are involved you need to know how much to bend the noteup.
This is indicated by writing a number after the 'b'. For example,
if you see this:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b9-------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
it means strike the B string at the 7th fret, then bend the note
up two semitones (one whole step) so that it sounds the same pitch
asa note fretted at the 9th fret would do. (Sometimes the bend
iswritten with the second part in brackets, like this ---7b(9)---
). Something like this:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b9--9r7--------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
means play the note at the 7th fret, bend up two semi-tones, strike
the note again whilst it is stillbent, then release the bend
so that the note has it's normal pitch. You sometimes get a note
which is bent up only a quarter of a tone or so. In this case it would
look a bit strange to write:
B--------7b7. 5--------
if you have to bend it up half a fret's worth. Instead it's written
as:
bend up 1/4 tone
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b--------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
with instructions on how much to bend written above the note.
2.4 Slides.
The most common symbols used for slides are / for a slide up and
\ for a slide down. You might also see 's' used to mean slide.
You don't always need separate symbols for 'up' and 'down' slides
since a line of TAB reading:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7/9-------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
is clearly a slide up from 7th to 9th fret. However you might also
see things like these:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------/7-9-7\---------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Where the exact start or finish of a slide is not given. Here youhave
to know whether you're sliding up or down. In these cases use
your judgement to choose the starting or finishing fret. The
effect usually desired is to have a note 'swooping in' from a
lower pitch or dropping suddenly in pitch as the note fades.
You could have a whole series of slides running together, like this
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7/9/11\9\7\6\7--------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
which would mean you only strike the first note with the pick
using the sustain to produce the other notes.
2.5 Note Length Information
Occasionally you will find TAB which includes information
on all of the note lengths. There seems to be no particular 'standard'
way of doing this, but it usually involves a line of letters or
symbols above the TAB. See below (Section 3. 2 part 6) for more
details. If the explanation of the timing symbols is not given
in the TAB then you've got a problem! In this case a quick email
to the author to ask for enlightenment is the only way forward.
3.0 Writing Tab - Getting Started.
Perhaps one of the most important things to do before you starttyping
up a piece of TAB is to decide exactly how much informationto
include in it. The trick is to convey the right amount of information
in a clear, easily readable form. Questions you can ask yourself are:
- Is the song played using mostly chords?
- Are there a number of riffs which appear throughout the song?
- Is there a clear verse/chorus/middle bit structure?
By planning ahead a little you should be able to produce a clearlystructured
TAB which will not only be easier for others to read, butalso
easier for you to type in. There are also choices to be made when
deciding what package to usewhen typing the TAB in. All you really
need is a simple text editor, however a mouse-driven editor
will probably make things easier. When you start typing in it
saves time if you draw out one blank stave and then make 8 or 10
copies of these before you start typing inthe fret numbers etc.
If you use a more complicated package like Microsoft Word thenmake
sure that the characters you use are all the same length. If an
'm' character is wider than an 'I' character then your TABis
going to look very strange on another text editor. Choose a fontwhere
all charcters get the same width - Courier usually does thejob.
There are also a number of programs available by ftp which were
writtenspecifically to make TAB writing easier. Details of
these programs including ftp addresses are in the 'TABBING
MADE EASY' FAQ by John Kean, along with other useful hints for
writing TAB.
3.1 To Tab Or Not To Tab.
If a song can be described well with just chords, then it will
be a lot easier to read and write if you just use the chord shapes,
rather than tab out the chords. BUT - if you do just send in the
chords it makes things much clearer if you give the chord shapes
as well. For example, if you wanted to send in Led Zeps 'Gallows
Pole' you could write:
Intro: A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
Verse: A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A G D
A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
(You should really have the words underneath as well, but I can't
remember them at the moment! ) Now this is OK, but how many people
actually know how to play Dadd4/A off the top of their heads?
What you need to do is include some chord shapes like this:
EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE
x02020 x02010 x04035 320033 xx0232 x00000
A7 Am7 Dadd4/A G D G/A
To TAB out these chords will take a lot longer to type in, and will
probably take people a lot longer to read and understand. Where
a chord is based around chords like this, it makes things much
easier if you just give chord shapes and names, then show where
the chords go in relation to the words.
3.2 Things To Do When Writing Tabs.
One of the most important considerations when typing in TAB
is to make it clear and easily readable. There are a few simple
things you can do to make things work.
- 1. Use spaces!
It's amazing the difference it can make if you insert a few blank
lines in the right place. If you are used to writing the words
above or below the lines of TAB make sure you leave a few lines
free so that it's clear whether the words belong to the line of
TAB above or below. Space out the individual lines of TAB and
the whole thing will be a lot easier for others to understand.
- 2. Define the symbols you use.
It would make everybody's life a lot easier if everyone used
the same symbols for hammer ons, bends etc. But if you are convinced
that your particular way of writing bends and slides makes much
more sense than anyone else's, that's OK as long as you tell everybody
what system you use. It makes very good sense to start your TAB
file with a list of symbols used. The list of most commonly used
symbols is below:
h - hammer on
p - pull off
b - bend string up
r - release bend
/ - slide up
\ - slide down
v - vibrato (sometimes written as ~)
t - tap (with strumming hand)
x - muted, struck string
when you get on to harmonics, you might see a variety of symbols
used. Even in standard music notation, an accepted way of writing
natural and artificial harmonics has neverbeen agreed! However,
using brackets is the standard way of writing harmonics, so
a natural harmonic at the 12th fret would be:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E------<12>------------------------------------------------------
Normal brackets () are sometimes used for grace notes or optional
notes so 'pointy' brackets <> is the usual choice for
harmonics.
- 3. Label bits of the TAB.
It makes things a lot easier if you can see where the 'verse' and
'chorus' parts of a song are, so put a few labels in certain places
to guide people through it. Many songs will have clear 'verse'
and 'chorus' structures - so you can tab out the riffs/chords
or whatever for these just once, and then indicate where these
are repeated. Or there maybe a couple of important riffs which
are used - so TAB these out and label them 'Riff One' and 'Riff
Two' - then when they come up later in the song you can just say
'repeat Riff One four times' instead of tabbing the whole thing
again. As long as it's clear which bits of TAB go with which label,
you will save yourself time this way as well as making it easier
to read for others.
- 4. Include Artist/Album.
It's useful for others to know where to find the original song,
so at the beginning of each TAB include some information on the
artists who recorded the original, and the album on which the
song can be found.
- 5. General Comments.
It's also useful to include a few lines at the beginning of the
TAB to explain the style of the song, or to point out important
features such as alternative tunings, use of capos etc. A few
words along the lines of "use a staccato, funky kind of strumming
style for the chords, then change to a sustained feel for the
lead line" will help people to get an idea of how to approach the
playing style. Information on the type of guitar (electric/acoustic,
6 string/12 string) and effects used would be useful.
One point on the use of capos and alternative tunings: it's a
lot easier for people to understand chord names etc if they are
written as though played without a capo. For example, if you
have a D shape chord played with a capo at the 2nd fret you should
write it as D major even though you will actually be fretting
notes at the 4th and 5th frets. Also - for TAB using a capo, it's
standard practice to write the numbers of the frets relative
to the position of the capo. So again, if you had a D major chord
with a capo at the 2nd fret the TAB would be:
E----2----------------------------------------------------------
B----3----------------------------------------------------------
G----2----------------------------------------------------------
D----0----------------------------------------------------------
A---------------------------------------------------------------
E---------------------------------------------------------------
even though you actually fret the notes at the 4th and 5th frets.
It's similar with TAB for guitars tuned a semitone or tone lower
than usual. If a song should be played with the guitar tuned to
Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb, and it has this chord:
Eb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
Bb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
Gb-----1--------------------------------------------------------
Db-----2--------------------------------------------------------
Ab-----2--------------------------------------------------------
Eb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
it makes things a lot easier to understand if the you call the
chord 'E' rather than Eb. That way, if you decide to play in standard
tuning, you don't get confused.
- 6. Timing Information.
You may want to get really serious and include details giving
the precise rhythm of the piece. This will involve a lot more
typing, but it means all the information necessary to play the
piece is given explicitly. One way to approach this is to write
a line of dashes interspersed with numbers which count the beats.
So in 4-4 time, you would have:
1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4--- etc
Under this you can write a line of d's and u's to represent down
and upstrokes. Here is a simple example where the rhythm is 2
crotchets (quarter notes) followed by 4 quavers (8th notes)
1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4--- etc
d---d---d-u-d-u-d---d---d-u-d-u-
You could expand on this to use upper and lower case letters to
indicate accents and so on. If you use this method make sure that
you clearly separate the 2 lines of rhythm information from
the 6 lines of TAB. One other way of including timing information
is to use one letter/symbol for each note type. For example use
e for 8th note (quaver), s for 16th note (semi- quaver) and so
on. The letters you use may well differ depending on whether
you're used to the american system of quarter notes, 8th notes
etc or the english system of crotchets and quavers, but the method
is the same. If you're not sure of the 'translations' here they are:
whole note - semibreve
half note - minim
quarter note - crotchet
8th note - quaver
16th note - semiquaver
32nd note - demisemiquaver
64th note - hemidemisemiquaver
Simply write the letters above the corresponding note in the
TAB. (Make sure you define which letters/symbols you use).
Here's an example of what this looks like. This is the opening
riff from the Beatles' Ticket To Ride:
q e e t t t q e e t t t
E--------0-----------0--------0-----------0----------------------
B-----------2-----0--------------2-----0-------------------------
G---2----------2----------2---------2----------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Here I've used q for quarter note, e for 8th note and t for triplet
quarter note. If you want to send in a TAB with rhythm information
like this then it's essential to explain the system you use.
I've seen a lot of different systems of letters and numbers of
varying degrees of simplicity and readability. Whichever
you choose to use, you'll have to explain all your symbols to
make sure others can work out what the hell you're on about. If
you want to give a few clues as to the rhythm of the TAB, but don't
want to get too involved, use of bar lines is an effective way
of conveying timing information. Simply insert a vertical
line of |'s to indicate the end of a bar. So using the national
anthem example I had before, with bar lines it looks like this:
E--------|---------------|0--------4--2-|0--------------|--------
B---0----|----------0----|--------------|---------------|0-------
G------1-|-----1---------|--------------|-----1----3----|--------
D--------|2--------------|--------------|---------------|--------
A--------|---------------|--------------|---------------|--------
E--------|---------------|--------------|---------------|--------
- 7. Lyrics.
It's a lot easier to follow a piece of TAB when you've got at least
some of the lyrics to follow, and you can match up the notes/riffs
in the TAB to the lyrics. Try to include lyrics for at least the
first verse and chorus. If you're not sure of the words you can
ftp cs. uwp. edu - there is a large collection of song lyrics held
there. Failing that a request to the newsgroups along the lines
of "Please mail me the lyrics to such and such so that I can make
a proper job of the TAB I'm working on" will usually get a sympathetic
response.
As a final note on writing TAB I should say that whenever you post
to the newsgroups always cross post to both guitar groups, and
also mail a copy to guitar@nevada. edu so that it can be included
in OLGA. For more information on posting to the guitar newsgroups
and OLGA see the other FAQs regularly posted to the guitar newsgroups.
3.3 Things To Avoid.
- 1. Tab Wraparound.
One of the most common problems in writing TAB is text wraparound.
This makes the TAB almost impossible to read but is very easily
avoided. The problem occurs when you write a line of TAB which
is maybe 80 or 90 characters long. For a lot of people this is too
wide for their screen, so what should be a single line of tab ends
up being split onto two lines. Here is what it looks like:
E---------------------------------------0-
B---------------------------------2--4----
G------------------------1--2--4----------
D---------------1--2--4-------------------
A--------0--2-4---------------------------
E--0-2-4----------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
-4--2----------------------------------------
------4--2--1--------------------------------
---------------4--2--1-----------------------
------------------------4--2--0--------------
---------------------------------4--2--0-----
Now this will probably look pretty weird when you see it. When
I wrote it, using Windows 'Notepad', it looked fine because
I could fit the whole thing on one screen. For most newsreaders
though, it is too long and you run into problems. All you have
to do is be careful when you type in TAB so that you the maximum
width of line is say 60 characters. I've tried to do that in this
FAQ so that the maximum width is about this much. If you limit
your TABs in the same way, you should be OK. Of course, if TAB does
get wrapped around the author might not realise because it looked
fine on his/her screen when they wrote it. It might be worth letting
them know of the problem, so they can be careful in the future.
(This includes me! If parts of this FAQ are too wide for your screen,
please let me know).
- 2. Very Squashed TAB.
It's amazing how easy it is to ruin an otherwise good piece of
TAB by not spacing it out so that the end result is a mass of cramped
TAB, explanations, labels etc. When you finish typing up, go
back through the TAB and see if you can insert a few blank lines
here and there to separate verse from chorus or whatever. It
really does make it a lot easier for others to read. It might also
be worth considering if you've included too much detail in the
TAB. Usually this will not be the case, but I have seen a few TABs
which go into great details, but are extremely off-putting
to try to read because of the sheer quantity of information.
- 3. Unnecessary Repetition.
If a line of TAB or a particular riff is repeated a number of times
then save yourself the effort, TAB it once. It's also easier
to read like this. That's all I think you need to know about reading
and writing TAB. If there's anything important you think I've
left out or if there are bits of the FAQ which you can't understand
then let me know.
This is from ultimate guitar. i found it quite useful and im sure
many other people will aswell. Good luck
