How Can I learn to make my own fingerstyle tabs?

[bento]

I was wondering if there's a video, or even an online class on how to transpose songs for the ukelele? I hope I don't need to know too much music theory and stuff for me to be able to do this. I'm having trouble finding tabs for songs I wanted to play, so I wanted to try making my own.

Thanks in advance.

 

[clear]

The free Musescore program does what you want: transpose and enter your own music.

 

[clear]

I re-read your post, and I realized that I didn't completely answer it.
Musescore can automatically transpose music; but if you want to learn how to do it yourself, here's what I recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Berklee-Music-Theory-Book-1/dp/0876391102

It is more of a workbook than a textbook, but this book 1 will cover everything you need to know.

I used this book to teach my son basic theory last year; and during COVID-19 I refreshed him with it and taught him Book 2, which teaches you some basics of writing music with voice leading and chord fundamentals. I highly recommend these books.

 

[bento]

I re-read your post, and I realized that I didn't completely answer it.
Musescore can automatically transpose music; but if you want to learn how to do it yourself, here's what I recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Berklee-Music-Theory-Book-1/dp/0876391102

It is more of a workbook than a textbook, but this book 1 will cover everything you need to know.

I used this book to teach my son basic theory last year; and during COVID-19 I refreshed him with it and taught him Book 2, which teaches you some basics of writing music with voice leading and chord fundamentals. I highly recommend these books.

Thank you so Much!

 

[UkingViking]

Musescore can be so much help.

Create a staff music line, and type in the melody as you find it on your sheet music.
Transpose to the desire key, Musescore does it for you.
Create an ukulele tabs line.
Copy paste the melody from the staff music line to the tabs line, and voila - tabs for the melody.

Next fill in some additional notes for chords on select beats, like on 1 and 3 or whatever you think sounds nice.
The U-chord app for Android will help you find several in inversions of each chord, so hopefully you will find one that has the right note on top to fit the melody.

It doesnt always work out with the chord thing, but Musescore is nifty.

 

[Brad Bordessa]

IMO, the book is a bit overkill for what I think the OP is asking. If you're tabbing to paper you don't need to know ANY theory at all.

Transcribing, as pointed out, is simply listening and writing down what you hear. The only way to get better is to do it.

Start simple. Single note lead lines or melodies only at first. Download the Anytune app so you can slow down the song and hear the individual notes better. Here's a tutorial on the program.

Here's a video I did with some tips on figuring out a melody. If you can do that, all that's left is to write it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nkX0_ZqaNg

 

[Lifestion]

Really love thanks for this input! I am going to check this out.

 

[ripock]

I hope the OP will update us on his/her progress. I am morbidly curious. My advice would have been: 1. learn to read music; 2. download any sheet music for any instrument; 3. play it. However I know other people have different backgrounds and I would like to hear how other people travel down this path to attain their musical goals.

 

[Jarmo_S]

When I was something like 17 years old I used to make my own tabs to my classical guitar more advanced pieces from guitar notes. I was not then that good to read standard music and needed them to practise technique. As an afterthought I recommend any classical guitar player to read just standard notation written to it. I still have my tabs and they are precious if I should start that playing again. I feel a bit old and weary.

However with ukulele, it being re-entrant. The standard notation only works best for the melody line. Play intricacies in my opinion need those tabs. But more you need to learn also to read music, not just tabs.

To make tabs, learning a software might be more hard that to just draw 4 lines to paper etc. though.

 

[vonbiber]

A few months ago I started using lilypond, a
free open source music typesetting system.
I wrote some configs to change some defaults (type size, etc.)
and started to learn to use the abc system.
I download abc files or use standard scores to produce an abc file.
I pretty much automated the making of lilypond files from these abcs
to produce guitar, mandolin and ukulele tablatures.
http://lilypond.org/
http://abcnotation.com/