Read piano tablature

Video: How To Read Notes (Beginner Piano Lesson)

Content

To step
Part 1 of 2: Playing a piano tab
Part 2 of 2: Reading special characters
Tips
Necessities

Tablature (usually shortened to tab or tabs) is a form of musical notation that uses common letters and numbers to indicate the progression of notes and chords in a piece of music. Because tabs are easy to read and simple to share digitally, they have become a popular alternative to sheet music in the online age, especially among amateur musicians. The different types of tabs use different ways of notating music - for example, piano tabs indicate the notes the musician should play by naming a note and the octave on the keyboard where the note is located. To learn how to read piano tabs, see step 1 below.

To step

Part 1 of 2: Playing a piano tab

Divide the keyboard into octaves that correspond to lines on the tab. Piano tabs look like a series of horizontal lines, each labeled with a number on the far left, like this:

5|------------------------------
4|------------------------------
3|------------------------------
2|------------------------------

While this arrangement may at first appear to bear no resemblance to the black and white keys of a keyboard, piano tabs reproduce the different parts of the keyboard using an ingenious shorthand. The number to the left of the line refers to it octave where the notes referred to on the line are located. Piano tabs define their octaves by the scale of C - from left to right on the keyboard, the first octave starts at the first C note, the second C note starts the second octave, and so on up to the highest C note.
- For example, in the example tab above, from top to bottom, the lines represent the fifth, fourth, third, and second octaves, respectively, from the left-most C. It is not necessary for piano tabs to create lines for each octave on the keyboard - only the octaves in which notes are played.
Locate the notes in the tab, in the octave of the line they appear on. The letters A to G should be scattered along the lines of the piano tab, like this:

5 | -a-d-f ------------------------
4 | -a-d-f ------------------------
3 | ------- c-D-e-f-G --------------
2 | ----------------- f-e-d-c ------

You probably guessed that each letter corresponds to a note of the scale! Lower case letters natural (no sharp or flat) indicate the white keys of the keyboard. Capital letters indicate crosses, the black keys. For instance: C. is the black key to the right of the c, which is a white key. Notes on the lines of the tab are meant to be played in the octave corresponding to the line. For example, notes on Line 4 in the example tab above are played within the fourth octave on the keyboard.
- To simplify writing and avoid confusion between the mole symbol, which is indicated by a small one b, and the nut b, there are no moles in piano tabs. Instead, all flats are written as the corresponding cross (for example: Des (Db) is written as Cis (C.)).
Read tabs from left to right, noting any barlines (marked with I's). As with sheet music, tabs are read from left to right. The notes on the far left of the tab are played first, followed by the notes on the right. If the tab is longer than the screen or page, you can be turned over at the bottom, every time it reaches the bottom - just like sheet music. Often, but not always, piano tabs contain vertical lines that mark the separation of a measure - usually this is done with a capital letter I. or with vertical line characters, like this:

5 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
4 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
3 | ------- c-D-e-f- | G --------------
2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c ------ If so, treat the space between any two vertical lines as a measure.
- In other words, in 4/4 music there are four quarter notes between each set of lines, in 6/8 music there are six eighth notes, and so on.
Play notes in the order you read them from left to right. Start by reading a piano tab on the far left and play the notes in sequence from left to right as you come across them. If there are two or more notes directly above each other, play them simultaneously as a chord.
- In the tab of our example:
  
  5 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
  4 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
  3 | ------- c-D-e-f- | G --------------
  2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c ------
  
  ... we would first play the A in the fifth octave and the A in the fourth octave, then the D in the fifth octave and the D in the fourth octave, then the F in the fifth octave and the F in the fourth octave , then the notes C, Dis, E, and F in sequence, and on.

Part 2 of 2: Reading special characters

Read repeating songs above or below the tab as rhythms. A weakness of tabs in general is that it is difficult to indicate rhythm through basic tablature notation. This can become problematic when dealing with hold, rest, syncopes etc. To work around that, some writers actually count the measure of the song below or above the tab. Such a tab might look like this:

5 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
4 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
3 | ------- c-D-e-f- | G --------------
2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c ------
||1---2---3---4--|1---2---3---4--

In this case, the notes roughly above the 1 are roughly on the first beat, those roughly above the 2 roughly on the second beat, and so on. This is hardly a perfect system, but it makes the most of the tablature formatting limitations.
- Some piano tabs also include off-beat markers. Often these are in the form of a sign (&) to mimic the common method of off-beat counting, such as in one and two and three and four and ... Such a tab might look like this:
  
  5 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
  4 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
  3 | ------- c-D-e-f- | G --------------
  2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c ------
  ||1-&-2-&-3-&-4-&|1-&-2-&-3-&-4-&
Learn how rests and detentions are expressed in tabs. Another weakness of the tab layout is that with tablatures it is difficult to express how long to hold a particular note or how long to rest between notes. Some tabs mark rests and detentions altogether not - after a held note, for example, there will be only the series of stripes that make up the line. Other tabs will be a series > use signs after notes to show that they should be held. See below:

5 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
4 | -a-d-f --------- | ---------------
3 | ------- c-D-e-f- | G --------------
2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c
|| 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & | 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & In this case we would hold the last C note from beat 3 to the end of the size.
Play notes marked with a dot as staccato. Staccato notes are the opposite of sustained notes - they are short, sharp and foreshortened. Many piano tabs use dots to designate certain notes as staccato. See below:

5 | -a.-d.-f .------ | ---------------
4 | -a.-d.-f .------ | ---------------
3 | -------- c-D-e-f | G --------------
2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c
|| 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & | 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & In this case we play the first three octave chords as staccato.
watch the R. and L. on the left side of the tab to indicate which hand to use. Usually, but not always, the higher notes in a piano piece are played with the right hand, while the lower notes are played with the left, so it is usually safe to assume that the highest notes in a tab are played with the right hand and that the lowest notes are played with the left hand. However, some tabs specify exactly which notes should be played with which hand. In those cases, lines with a R. leftmost of the tab played with the right hand and lines with a L. far left of the tab played with the left hand. See below:

R 5 | -a.-d.-f .------ | ---------------
R 4 | -a.-d.-f .------ | ---------------
L 3 | -------- c-D-e-f | G --------------
L 2 | --------------- | --f-e-d-c
O || 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & | 1 - & - 2 - & - 3 - & - 4- & In this case, the fourth and fifth octaves are played with the right hand, while the second and third octaves are played with the left.
- Note that the O the far left of the rhythm marker at the bottom of the tab is used to fill space and is unrelated to the tab itself.

Tips

When learning a piece of music for two hands, learn one hand first. The right hand usually plays the more complex part of the music.
First play slowly. As you remember the tab better, you can increase the speed of the notes.
Learn to read sheet music. It can give you a more rounded perspective on a piece of music. Piano tabs cannot replace sheet music when it comes to quality.