A Tablature (tabs) or Guitar tab, or sometimes tabulature
, is a form of musical notation for guitar and other fretted stringed instruments, which shows fingeringing, rather than notes (staff notation of ordinary sheet music) - i.e. guitar tabs tells players where to place their fingers on the fretboard rather than what pitches to play.
One difference between tabs and sheets is that tabs are easy to learn - because tabs basicly are written as intuitively readable diagrams on how a tune should be fingered on the fretboard, and not in the and common musical language with the abstract symbols of sheet music. Another difference is that while tabs shows fingering in an unambigous manner, timing and phrasing are clearer in sheet music.
Tabs are commonly used in notating rock and pop music, and is often seen in folk music. During the Renaissance and Baroque eras tabs was common.
(In the context of guitar tab, standard (5-line) musical notation is usually called 'staff notation' - even though tab is also written on a staff - or just 'notation').
Example: "Naima" by John Coltrane
A chord-melody arragement of the classic Coltrane ballad from his album “Giant Steps”, as harmonized by Bo Parker (bo_parker AT fbpmac.msfc.nasa.gov):
Bbm9 Ebm9 B13b9 A13b9 Abmaj7 E--8----6----11----------------------------------------------| B--6---------------6-------9------7------4-----7-----4-------| G--6---------------6-------8------6------------------5-------| D--6---------------4-------7------5------------------5-------| A------------------6-----------------------------------------| E--6--------------(6)------8------6------------------4-------|
repeat, then
Bmaj7/Bb Bb13 Bmaj7/Bb Bb13 E--6----6----6--------------------6----6----6----------------| B--7---------------8----6---------7--------------8----6------| G--8---------------7---------8----8--------------7---------8-| D--8---------------6--------------8--------------6-----------| A------------------------------------------------------------| E--6---------------6--------------6--------------6-----------| Bb pedal...................................................
E13 (#11) Bmaj7 Fm9 Gb13 E--9----6----9-----6---------6-----------------------------| B--7---------------7--------------8---------8----4---------| G--7---------------8----8---------8----8---------3---------| D--6---------------8--------------6--------------2---------| A--------------------------------(8)-----------------------| E--0--6------------6--------------6--------------2---------| Bb pedal..............................
Bbm9 Fm9 B13b9 A13b9 Abmaj7 E--8----6----11--------------------------------------------| B--6---------------6-------9------7----4----7----4---------| G--6---------------6-------8------6--------------5---------| D--6---------------4-------7------5--------------5---------| A------------------6---------------------------------------| E--6--------------(6)------8------6--------------4---------|
See also
Other instruments
Other instruments that uses tabs: bass guitar, lute, archlute, theorbo, mandora, gallichon, vihuela, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, viola da gamba.
External links
Guitar Tab Software
- Guitar-Pro 5 - Commercial guitar tablature software. A large portion of software tabs (i.e. not ascii text tabs) on the internet, seems to be in the Guitar-Pro file format (*.gp; *.gp3; *.gp4; *.gp5). But there is a lot of other resources too. Imports several other formats including MIDI-files.
- Finale Notepad for Windows® and Macintosh® OS X, is free introductory version of the professional music notation program Finale. It supports guitar tabulature.
- Finale ShowcaseTM Don't miss out on the collection of user added Finale notation files (*.MUS) at the Finale Showcase resource site. A place where composers, arrangers, educators, and students can post their files - that is, their music files, from Finale, Finale Guitar, Allegro, PrintMusic, Finale Songwriter, or Finale NotePad. The <tt>*.mus</tt> files are freely available for shared viewing, playing, transposing, and printing. File generated with all theese programs can be played and edited with Finale Notepad. Anyone can browse through the showcase, downloaded an view all files using the FREE Finale NotePad. For guitar there's lots of educational stuff too. Quite a resource!
- Fronimo - Lute tablature editor - Yahoo! discussion group is reserved to people interested in Fronimo.
How to read Guitar Tabs
- How to Read Guitar Tabs Step by Step Instructions on how to read Guitar Tablature.
- Howard Wright's Guide to Tablature Notation
- The Guide To Tab Notation from the http://www.classtab.org/ site.
Guitarists tabs
- Steve Morse Sheet Music Some of Steve Morse songs that are transcribed and also a lot of instructional material by Steve Morse, that has appeared in guitar magazines.
Sites hosting guitar tabs
- Audio-Tabs.com Guitar tabs including audio clips with the format mp3
- Ultimate-Guitar 200,000+ Tabs Archive - text-based guitar tablature
- Guitar Tabs Huge searchable guitar tabs archive.
- Guitar-Pro Tabs guitar tablature software tabs
- CountryTabs.com Guitar tablature website specializing in country music.
- Tabalorium.com A popular guitar tablature database for contemporary music.
- Tablaunch.com An extensive database of guitar, bass, drum, tablature.
- Kitaar My Kruis A website serving guitar tabs of Afrikaans music artists.
- OnLine Guitar Archive The internet's first (1992) and purportedly best (no duplicate files) archive for guitar tab (tablature) and crd (chord) files. (OLGA is currently offline pending legal issues with the archive).
- Absolute Tabs Tablature and chords for many South African artists. (Broken link?)
- Wiki Guitar Wiki-Based tablature archive.
- Tablature & Notation Editor Various instruments : guitar, button accordion, bass, banjo, pedal steel guitar, dulcimer…
- Christian Guitar Resources A large database of guitar and bass tablature for Contemporary Christian and praise music.
- Music Student and Teacher Organization An organization that supports the fair use of Internet guitar tablature in education.
- Video Game Tablature A young site dedicated to video game tabs.
- http://terrydownsmusic.com/Roy_Video/RoyVideo.html The Guitar Styles of Roy Nichols]] Guitar video and tablature based on the styles of Roy Nichols.