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Tablature (or tab for short) is a form of
musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...
indicating instrument fingering or the location of the played notes rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...
ted stringed instruments such as the
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
,
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...
or
vihuela The vihuela () is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of t ...
, as well as many
free reed A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows. In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, it is number 412.13 (a member of ...
aerophone An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrume ...
s such as the
harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...
. Tablature was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and is commonly used today in notating many forms of music. Three types of
organ tablature Organ tablature is a form of musical notation used by the north German Baroque organ school, although there are also forms of organ tablature from other countries such as Italy, Spain, Poland, and England. Portions of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orgel ...
were used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian. To distinguish standard musical notation from tablature, the former is usually called "
staff Staff may refer to: Pole * Walking staff, an instrument used for balance when walking * Staff, a weapon used in stick-fighting ** Quarterstaff, a European pole weapon * Staff of office, a pole that indicates a position * Staff (railway signalling) ...
notation" or just "notation".


Etymology

The word ''tablature'' originates from the Latin word ''tabulatura''. ''Tabula'' is a table or slate, in Latin. To tabulate something means to put it into a table or chart.


History

Organ tablature Organ tablature is a form of musical notation used by the north German Baroque organ school, although there are also forms of organ tablature from other countries such as Italy, Spain, Poland, and England. Portions of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orgel ...
is the first known tablature in Europe, used for notating music for the
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...
around 1300.


Concepts

While standard notation represents the rhythm and duration of each note and its pitch relative to the scale based on a twelve tone division of the octave, tablature is instead operationally based, indicating where and when a finger should be placed to generate a note, so pitch is denoted implicitly rather than explicitly. Tablature for plucked strings is based upon a diagrammatic representation of the strings and
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...
s of the instrument, keyboard tablature represents the keys of the instrument, and woodwind tablature shows whether each of the fingerholes is to be closed or left open.


Types of tablature


Guitar and bass tablature

Guitar tablature is used for acoustic and electric guitar (typically with 6 strings). A modified guitar tablature with four strings is used for bass guitar. Guitar and bass tab is used in pop, rock, folk, and country music lead sheets, fake books, and songbooks, and it also appears in instructional books and websites. Tab may be given as the only notation (as with chord tab in songbooks that only include lyrics and chords), or, as with guitar solo transcriptions, tab and standard notation may be provided. Sheet music consisting of tablature is sometimes referred to as "tabs." The same style of tablature is also used for other fretted instruments such as the
banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...
,
mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
, and
ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...
. The following examples are labelled with letters on the left denoting the string names, with a lowercase ''e'' for the high E string. Tab lines may be numbered 1 through 6 instead, representing standard string numbering, where "1" is the high E string, "2" is the B string, etc. Also, the order of lines is not standardized. Some tablature is written in pitch order, with the high "e" string on top, and descending in pitch order to the low "E" string on the bottom. Other tablature is written the other way, with the string closest to the ceiling (the low "E") on top and the one closest to the floor (the high "e") on the bottom. To avoid confusion, tablature writers will often write the pitches to the left of the tablature so the reader knows the convention being used. The numbers that are written on the lines represent the fret used to obtain the desired pitch. For example, the number 3 written on the top line of the staff indicates that the player should press down at the third fret on the high E (first string). Number 0 denotes the
nut Nut often refers to: * Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed * Nut (food), a dry and edible fruit or seed, including but not limited to true nuts * Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt Nut, NUT or Nuts may also refer to: A ...
 — that is, an open string. If music is to be played using a capo, the numbers always indicate the number of frets from the capo, and not from the nut (thus, it is
transposed In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal; that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations). The tra ...
into the capoed key). For
chords Chord or chords may refer to: Art and music * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord, a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * The Chords (British band), 1970s British mod ...
, a letter above or below the tablature staff denotes the
root note In the music theory of harmony, the root is a specific note that names and typifies a given chord. Chords are often spoken about in terms of their root, their quality, and their extensions. When a chord is named without reference to quality, it ...
of the chord, chord notation is also usually relative to a capo, so chords played with a capo are transposed. Chords may also be notated with chord diagrams. Examples of guitar tablature notation: The chords E, F, and G as an ASCII tab:
e, ---0---1---3---
B, ---0---1---0---
G, ---1---2---0---
D, ---2---3---0---
A, ---2---3---2---
E, ---0---1---3---
     E   F   G
Tablature can use various lines, arrows, and other symbols to denote various
legato In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French ''lié''; German ''gebunden'') indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly, such that the transition from note to note is made with no intervening si ...
techniques, such as bends,
hammer-on A hammer-on is a playing technique performed on a stringed instrument (especially on a fretted string instrument, such as a guitar) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on to the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound. Thi ...
s, trills,
pull-off A pull-off is a stringed instrument playing and articulation technique performed by plucking or "pulling" the finger that is grasping the sounding part of a string off the fingerboard of either a fretted or unfretted instrument. This intermediate ...
s, slides, and so on. Common tablature symbols represent various techniques, though these may vary, include: Further symbols to indicate note lengths may be used along the top of the tablature, examples include: Guitar tablature is not standardized and different sheet-music publishers adopt different conventions. Songbooks and guitar magazines usually include a legend setting out the convention in use. The most common form of lute tablature uses the same concept but differs in the details (e.g., it uses letters rather than numbers for frets). See
above Above may refer to: *Above (artist) Tavar Zawacki (b. 1981, California) is a Polish, Portuguese - American abstract artist and internationally recognized visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. From 1996 to 2016, he created work under the ...
. When circles are used to indicate fingering, sounded notes are white, an assumed root is grey, and a sounded root is black.


French lute tablature

F____________________
D____________________
A____________________
F____________________
D____________________
A____________________
Lowercase letters or "glyphs" are placed on each of these lines to represent notes. If it is required to play an open D course, for instance, a small ''a'' will be placed on the appropriate line. For a note with the finger on the first fret a ''b'', a note on the second fret a ''c'', etc. However, as mentioned above, ''j'' was not used since it was not considered a separate letter from ''i'', and ''c'' often looked more like ''r'' or the third letter of the Greek alphabet, Γ (gamma). Thus:
F_____c___
D_____a___
A_____b___
F_____c___
D_____a___
A_____b___
G - a
would represent a G-minor chord (on a Renaissance lute in G-tuning), All open strings would represent a D-minor chord:
F______a________
D______a________
A______a________
F______a________
D______a________
A______a________
D- ///a
The strings below the sixth course are notated with additional short
ledger line A ledger line or leger line is used in Western musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff. A line slightly longer than the note head is drawn parallel to the staff, above or below, spaced ...
s: glyphs are placed below the staff. These courses are tuned in accordance with the key of each piece played:
G- a
F- /a
E- //a
D- ///a
C- 4
B- 5
A- 6


German lute tablature

The origins of German lute tablature can be traced back well into the 15th century. Blind organist
Conrad Paumann Conrad Paumann (c. 1410January 24, 1473) was a German organist, lutenist and composer of the early Renaissance. Born blind, he became one of the most talented musicians of the 15th century, and his performances created a sensation wherever he went ...
is said to have invented it. It was used in German-speaking countries until the end of the 16th century.


Computer programs for writing tablatures

Various computer programs are available for writing tablature; some also write lyrics, guitar chord diagrams, chord symbols, and/or staff notation.
ASCII tab ASCII tab is a text file format used for writing guitar, bass guitar and drum tabulatures (a form of musical notation) that uses plain ASCII numbers, letters and symbols. It is the only widespread file format for representing tabulature, and is e ...
files can be written (somewhat laboriously) with any ordinary word processor or text editor, using a
monospaced A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with Typeface#Proportion, variable-width fonts, where t ...
font such as 'Courier New' so that characters maintain vertical alignment across all strings.


Legal issues

By early 2006, an unprecedented legal move was taken by the
Music Publishers Association The Music Publishers Association of the United States (MPA) is a non-profit music publishing organization based in New York City. Founded in 1895, the MPA is the oldest music trade organization in the United States which addresses issues pert ...
(MPA), initiating the removal of unlicensed guitar tablature from websites. The MPA had been pushing for websites offering free tablature to license or be shut down. MPA president Lauren Keiser said that their goal is for owners of free tablature services to face fines and even imprisonment. Several websites that offered free tablature have taken their tablature off-line until a solution or compromise is found. One of the proposed solutions is an
alternative compensation system Various copyright alternatives in an alternative compensation systems (ACS) have been proposed as ways to allow the widespread reproduction of digital copyrighted works while still paying the authors and copyright owners of those works. This articl ...
, which allows the widespread reproduction of digital copyrighted works while still paying
songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...
s and copyright owners. In addition, there are now a number of "legal" services offering guitar tablature that have been licensed by music publishers. One site, MetalTabs.com, contacts the bands themselves for permission to post tablature. Few bands have declined the request. The tablature debate was featured on
NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
's ''
Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...
'' in a segment entitled "Music Industry Goes after Guitar Tablature Websites" on 7 August 2006. On 10 April 2010,
Ultimate Guitar Ultimate Guitar (Ultimate Guitar USA LLC), also known as Ultimate-Guitar.com or simply UG, is an online platform for guitarists and musicians, started on October 9, 1998 by Eugeny Naidenov and based in San Francisco, US. Its website and mobile ...
(UG), a Russian free tablature website, entered a licensing agreement with
Harry Fox Agency The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) is a provider of rights management and collector and distributor of mechanical license fees on behalf of music publishers in the United States. HFA has over 48,000 music publishing clients and issues the largest number ...
. The agreement included rights for lyrics display, title search and tablature display with download and print capabilities. HFA's over 44,000 represented publishers have the opportunity to opt into the licensing arrangement with UG.


Rise of legal guitar tablature sites

In light of the legal questions surrounding user-created online guitar tablature, a number of companies have been formed that claim to offer consumers legal online tablature, which has been officially licensed from songwriters and/or music publishers. These companies offering legal content generally fall into three categories: * Websites that offer "professionally-created" content: These websites typically hire professional musicians to transcribe songs into guitar tablature, and generally charge anywhere from $0.99 to $6.99 for the ability to purchase legal pieces of guitar tablature. These websites also claim to have acquired the proper licenses to display this tablature online. Several websites in this first category specifically cater to guitarists. * Websites that offer "user-created" tablature, but have obtained the proper legal clearances to post these transcriptions online. There are several websites that fall into this second category, which generally do not charge consumers for using these user-created tablature pieces, and share any advertising revenue with music publishers and/or songwriters. * Websites that index other tablature resources, and offer unique formatting options.


Mxtabs.net

Mxtabs.net closed because of copyright-holder complaints. However, as of 23 February 2006, the owners of Mxtabs put the website back online with a letter explaining their position. In short, they believe that the purpose of Mxtabs is to "...aid musicians in learning their instruments." They claim that Mxtabs has accounted for as much as $3,000 a month in sheet music sales, and offers many tablatures that are not published in sheet music, so Mxtabs and similar sites are the only place that musicians can find a way to play these songs (other than figuring the songs out for themselves). The letter concludes by pointing out that nobody has shown that tablature renditions are illegal, then requesting that sheet-music companies contact Mxtabs to create a system of tablature licensing. On 29 February 2008, MXTabs.net relaunched as the first legitimately licensed site designed to provide musicians with access to free tablatures, while also compensating music publishers and songwriters for their
intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
. As with other
user generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's users to create content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testimonials, and software (e.g. video ...
sites, MXTabs.net users are encouraged to create, edit, rate, and review their own tablature interpretations of their favourite songs. However, unlike other user-generated content sites, only songs that have received explicit permission from participating copyright owners will be made available online.


Guitar Tab Universe

On 17 July 2006, Guitar Tab Universe (GTU) posted a letter on its home page that its
ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non ...
had been jointly threatened with legal action by the
National Music Publishers Association The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) is a trade association for the American Music publisher (popular music), music publishing industry. Founded in 1917, NMPA represents American music publishers and their songwriting partners. The NM ...
(NMPA) and the MPA "on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement". In response, GTU's site owner(s) immediately created a website named
Music Student and Teacher Organization Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
(MuSATO) to attempt to reposition themselves from an illegal-copyrighted-materials provider to an "education provider". MuSATO's main objective is to use
fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...
as their rationale to publish tablature
free of charge The adjective ''free'' in English is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') or "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in ...
. By claiming to be an educational provider, they do not have to obtain
publication right Publication right is a type of copyright granted to the publisher who first publishes a previously unpublished work after that work's original copyright has expired. It is in almost all respects the same as standard copyright, but excludes moral ...
s or pay royalties to the original composers. MuSATO claims to be educational by classifying users downloading tablatures as "music students" and transcribers as "music teachers". GuitarTabs.com has been contacted by the NMPA and MPA with similar copyright infringement allegations. The NMPA and MPA have also threatened Guitar Tab Universe with similar legal action. A copy of the certified letter received by the site owner, along with a brief note similar to the one posted on Mxtabs, has been posted on their website.


OLGA.net

The
On-line Guitar Archive The On-line Guitar Archive (OLGA) was the first Internet library of guitar and bass tablature, or "tabs". Born from a collection of guitarist internet-forum archives, it was a useful resource for musicians of all genres for over a decade. History ...
(OLGA) is another tablature site that has been removed after receiving letters from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA.


See also

* * * * * * * * *


References


External links


Polyphone Tabulaturen
(''in German language'') {{Authority control Musical notation