By Wendy Foster
The first step is to get some paper with 6 lines in each staff, one line
for each string of the guitar. This can be done by buying TAB paper from your local music store, drawing
an extra line on each staff of regular music staff paper, or drawing your own master TAB
sheet with 6-line staffs. Once you have paper that will work, make lots of copies!
Lay the blank TAB lines directly beneath the music that you want
to transcribe into TAB. Then copy the measure (bar) lines from the music staff so that the
TAB measures will line up with the music notation measures. It helps to fold the top of the TAB paper down
so that the TAB lines can lie very close to the notation staff.
The chart of the guitar neck is the key to your success. It should show a complete layout of the neck with the letter names of the notes written over the proper frets of each string, and a graph of the corresponding notes written on a 5-line music staff just below the chart of the neck. You will work back and forth between the two parts of the chart to determine where the note you are seeing in your notation staff is located on the guitar neck. Once you have located that note on the chart of the guitar neck, you will be able to place the correct number on the TAB staff. There is a good chart near the beginning of Fredrick Noad's classical guitar method book, Solo Guitar Playing.
Ha! I scared you! But, it's not necessary to know how to read music in order to transcribe music into TAB. It does help, however, to know what some of the little numbers and letters in guitar notation are indicating. You can find a chart of some of them in the front of every issue of Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine. We will probably put a list of symbols here someday, but for now you can look it up in an issue of Fingerstyle Guitar.
Most of the notes on the guitar can be played in more than one position with the exception of the very highest (the number of these notes varies depending on the number of frets on the neck) and very lowest (there are 4 of these going from low E to low G# ). You can locate the correct position by paying close attention to bar chord indicators (I, II, III, etc.), circled numbers (these indicate string numbers), and left hand finger numbers (2, 3, etc.). The letters (a, p, m, i) indicate right hand fingering which you don't need to worry about while you are writing out your TAB.
For example, if you see an E note located in the 4th space of the music
staff and there is a "V" above it or an encircled 2 next to it,
that should tell you to play that E note on the 2nd string, 5th fret rather
than the first string open. If you see a finger number next to a note that
can be played on an open string, you must find that note on another place
on the chart of the guitar neck.
Now you are ready to begin! With your TAB paper lined up neatly underneath
the music that you want to put into TAB, look at the first note. Find a
note just like it on your chart of the notes on the guitar neck. Put your finger on the note you have found on the chart and look to
the left to see what string the note is on and look up at the guitar neck to
see what fret the note is on. Then go to your TAB paper, find the correct string
and write the correct fret number neatly in place under the note that you
started with!! Wow! You are off! Repeat this procedure for every note in
the piece and the piece will become a piece of cake to read!
1. Key Signature. The key signature indicates which notes are sharp or flat throughout the piece and is located at the beginning of the staff right next to the treble clef sign.
If there is one sharp it will always be "F". If two sharps, they will be "F" and "C". (The order of sharps is always F-C-G-D-A-E-B. Notice that each sharp is five steps higher than the preceding one. In other words, if the music you are transcribing has a sharp on the top line of the staff (F), then you will sharp (play one fret higher) all of the "F" notes in the piece, regardless of which line or space they are written on. For example, F can be written four ways: three lines below the staff, in the first space, on the fifth line, or in the 4th space above the staff. All of these must be sharped unless they are preceded by a natural.
2. Alternate Tuning. Another thing that can be confusing is de-tuned strings. If, for example, the 6th string has been tuned down from "E" to "D", then the TAB number will be two frets higher than the fret shown on your chart. In other words, a "G" note normally indicated by a 3 on the 6th string would now be indicated by a 5 on the 6th string.
Now that you have written out some music in tablature, try to play it. If you notice that you have difficulty reaching 6 or 8 frets to play the notes that you have put into your TAB, go back to the music and chart and see if there is any other way to get those notes on the guitar neck in a way that you can play them.
Now that you can write your own TAB, you can play any of Rick's music that you want without waiting around for us to publish it in TAB (which we are planning on doing eventually).