Tablature

Creating a tab staff and adding fret numbers.

Tablature (tab) staves for guitar and bass are available from the Setup Wizard. After you have added tablature staves, there are a couple ways to enter the fret numbers.

In this lesson you’ll learn how to:

1. Add tab staves to your document
2. Copy music into a tab staff
3. Enter notes directly into a tab staff
4. Customizing your tab staff

Note. To begin at this point, open "Tutorial 10.MUS."

Adding a tab staff

The example you have already created includes a standard notation guitar staff, so the first thing to do is to add a standard notation tablature staff to go with it.

To add a tab staff:

1. If you haven’t already, return to Scroll View (View > Scroll View).
2. From the Window menu select ScoreManager.
3. Click the icon to the left of the Guitar row to select it.
4. Click Add Instrument.
5. Click on Tablature.
6. Double-click on Guitar [TAB].

To prepare for the following steps, we'll remove the slash notation Alternate Notation we added earlier and view the score with staff transpositions (to view the transposed guitar notes properly - up one octave). Also, we'll copy the left hand piano music to the guitar staff as our guitar part, and resize the page again to fit two systems on a page.

To prepare our tutorial musical example for tab entry:

1. Choose the Staff tool .
2. Click to the left of the (standard) Guitar staff to select the whole staff.
3. Choose Staff > Clear Alternate Notation.
4. Choose Document > Display in Concert Pitch to turn off Display in Concert Pitch.
5. Click the Selection tool .
6. Click to select measure 1 of the piano bass clef Piano staff.
7. Press SHIFT+END to highlight to the end of the score. (Or, SHIFT-click the last measure).
8. Press COMMAND+C, then click the first measure of the (standard) Guitar staff and press COMMAND+V.
9. Choose the Resize tool .
10. Click the upper left corner of the page.
11. For Reset Size To, enter "70" and click OK. You music is resized so two systems appear on each page.

Copying music to a tab staff

There are a few ways to enter into a tab staff. We’ll start with the most basic, copying music directly from a standard staff into tablature.

To copy music to a tab staff:

1. Select measures 1-4 in the Guitar staff and drag-copy them down to the tab staff.
2. Click OK on the Lowest Fret window. The fret numbers appear in the tab staff.

Lowest Fret - What it does:

In order to correctly place the notes on the strings, SongWriter needs to know what fret to use as the lowest. If you wish for a particular passage to be played further up the neck, you can specify the lowest fret for SongWriter to use.

SongWriter now displays the fret numbers representing the pitch as played on the lowest possible fret in standard guitar tuning. Look at the first beat of measure two and notice that this number displays in yellow. This is how SongWriter displays a note that cannot be played with the current lowest fret or tuning. In order to play this passage, this pitch will need to be changed. We'll do that next.

Changing the string and fret number

You can edit tab numbers and move them between strings manually with the Simple Entry tool. This method gives more control over the movement of single and non-contiguous fingerings.

To change the string and fret number:

Note. When using Simple Entry on TAB staves, the keyboard commands are slightly different than with standard notation staves and will use both the number pad numbers and the QWERTY numbers on your keyboard to accomplish various tasks. For the purposes of this exercise, QWERTY numbers will be specified as such. All other numbers will be from the number pad.

1. Click the Simple Entry tool .
2. OPTION+click the first fret number in measure 2 (the "2") to activate it. Let's move this up an octave so the performer plays the note on the open D string.
3. Press the UP ARROW twice to move it up to the third (D) string. You will see that this fingering has moved to the new string and fret, and the number has changed accordingly (to "-12" indicating the pitch is 12 chromatic steps, or one octave, too low for the open string).
4. Type 0 on the number pad. Laptop users, press the + key until the fret number reads "0." Since we've changed the pitch of the tab, we also need to modify the notation in the staff above. Fortunately for us guitarists, no thinking is required. Just copy the tab up to the standard notation staff...
5. Choose the Selection tool .
6. Click measure 2 in the tab staff and drag to the staff above. The music updates automatically.

You could also press the + (plus) or - (minus) key to raise or lower the fret number by one (chromatically). Remember that when you change the fret number, you are effectively changing its pitch. If there were notation in the accompanying staff, you would need to be sure to adjust the notation accordingly.

Watch video "Copying music to a tab staff and changing the fret number."

7. Now, copy using the Selection tool and edit with the Simple Entry tool to add the tablature from measure 5-8.

Note. Press the TAB key to enter rests. Since rests are generally not displayed on tab staves, the rest is hidden. It will display as a shaded rest in the score, and will not appear in the printout. To see a list of Simple Entry keyboard shortcuts from the Simple menu, choose TAB Specific Commands.

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