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Learn to read and write guitar tab

Short guides to the things people ask before they write their first tab: how to read it, what the symbols mean, how to write one by hand or in an editor, how to get a lesson onto paper, how transposing and capos work, the common tunings, and enough rhythm to read the stems. Each one answers the question first; the editor is there when you want to try it.

• How to read guitar tabThe six lines, the numbers, chords, rhythm, and where tab stops and notation starts.
• Guitar tab symbolsh, p, /, \, b, r, ~, x, PM, harmonics, tapping: what each one means and how to play it.
• How to write guitar tabBy hand in a text file, or with an editor that plays it back and prints it. The conventions that make a tab readable.
• Write down a song from a lessonTurn the notes and frets from a YouTube lesson into tab you can print, play back and practise from.
• Transposing and caposChange the key of a tab, with or without a capo, and a capo chart for every open chord shape.
• Guitar tuningsStandard, drop D, DADGAD, open G, D and E, half and whole step down, drop C: the notes, what they are for, how to set them.
• Note values and time signaturesWhole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes, dots, ties, triplets, rests, and what 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 mean.

Then put it to use

The editor writes notation and tab side by side, plays them back, and prints or exports what you wrote. The public scores include twenty easy arrangements of well-known tunes with full tab, from Greensleeves to Canon in D, that you can slow down, loop and copy. If you already have a file, the converters turn Guitar Pro, MusicXML and MIDI into tab, PDF or each other.