Tablature

If someone were to ask for tabs for a song, and all I have is chords and lyrics, I will politely tell them that I have chords but no tabs. But I dont know people who ask, so it doesnt happen so often that it tires me.

I assume that the misconception about the word "tabs" derives from the tabs/chords search pages.
They probably made the website hoping for people to upload tabs, and branded them as tab search, promising tabs.
Then the users upload chords and lyrics in stead, because that is what they have. And people googling for songs see the chords on search pages where the word tab appears all over. And hence get the wrong impression.
 
We have a kid's instructor here, a retired schoolteacher who calls playing by tablature, "tabbing" instead of fingerpicking.

She leads a very large jam session every week, but does not bother to do any research. People still seem to have loads of fun.
Ignorance I guess, is bliss. Unless you were a unicorn in Noah the shipbuilder's day...
 
What irks me when I look at music intending to buy, only to discover what is described as tablature is actually chord diagrams and lyrics. Chord diagrams are so useless when you dn’t Know the tune.
 
What irks me when I look at music intending to buy, only to discover what is described as tablature is actually chord diagrams and lyrics. Chord diagrams are so useless when you dn’t Know the tune.

That's where YouTube comes in handy.
 
What irks me when I look at music intending to buy, only to discover what is described as tablature is actually chord diagrams and lyrics. Chord diagrams are so useless when you dn’t Know the tune.

I just couldn’t agree more. A while back I even stopped buyin’ books unless they had tabs AND music notation. That way I can play the tunes with a flute or whistle or even a mouth harp.
:eek:ld:
 
What irks me when I look at music intending to buy, only to discover what is described as tablature is actually chord diagrams and lyrics. Chord diagrams are so useless when you dn’t Know the tune.

Are there different terms for the two below - "Happy Birthday" and "Tabs - Single"? I assume the one you want would be like Happy Birthday.

happy-birthday-ukulele-chords-tabs-notes-for-beginners.jpg Tabs - Single.jpg
 
Are there different terms for the two below - "Happy Birthday" and "Tabs - Single"? I assume the one you want would be like Happy Birthday.

View attachment 116168 View attachment 116169

Your second "Tabs - Single" is a sample of a partially written tab. It shows where to put your fingers to get the notes, but gives no indication of timing, making it useless to someone who doesn't know the tune. A properly written tab shows the timing.
One way of showing timing is to have two lines, one of standard notation and one of tab with no timing, like your example of Happy Birthday. Another is to put the timing on the tablature.

This tab for The Ash Grove (taken from a vocal duet that my brother and his wife performed) has timing indicated.

Uke duet of Ash Grove.jpg
 
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I know this goes against popular usage for ukulele, but historical musicologists for the past century have classified chord diagrams for guitar and ukulele as a form of tablature (often the first examples of tablature in scholarly articles and textbooks since everybody has seen them). The broad definition being notation which uses diagrams, letters, numbers or ideograms, i.e., some sort of graphic symbol, to indicate pitch in terms of playing technique for a given instrument. So which strings to stop at which frets, which finger holes to cover, which keys to press, etc., rather than universal and abstract pitch. By that definition, chord diagrams are officially the much maligned junior members of the tab family!

And, tablature has long existed not only for plucked string instruments, but keyboard, woodwinds and nonWestern instruments. Even JS Bach used keyboard tablature when he was short on space (ran out of paper!). I took lessons on Chinese and Korean instruments and we read traditional East Asian tablature! I had to memorize a bunch of Chinese characters for fingering.

The tablature commonly used for modern guitar and ukulele has been used for 500 years (you can actually play 16th c. music on a modern instrument using the original tablature). French tablature used letters instead of numbers and Italians reversed the string order of the string lines. I call chord diagrams, chord boxes, but in grad school I had to refer to them as chord tablatures or be smacked down academically speaking!

The tablature articles in the New Harvard Dictionary of Music and the Groves both discuss chord diagrams as a common form of tablature.

Here's a cool sample of 16th century, guitar tablature, a Pavana by Alonso Mudarra, 1508-1580 (Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela (Seville, 1546). The guitar at this time had only 4 courses of strings and was tuned G C E A like modern ukuleles. Notice the rhythm is indicated above the tablature staff as was the practice at the time. The string/line order is reversed from modern tablature but is otherwise pretty much the same.

mudarra_pavana.jpg
 
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I wasn't arguing for completing formats. I simply stated it was accepted for the past 100 years that guitar and ukulele diagrams were considered part of the tablature category of notation system by musicologists. And the reason I even mentioned it is because some posters had implied it was incorrect or ignorant for people to call chords diagrams "chord tabs." In fact these chord tabs callers are more technically correct in term usage than their detractors.

Nevertheless, the correctness of the root definition isn't the point here. The use of both Italian style lute tablature (the genesis of modern guitar and ukulele tablature) and chord diagrams is both good and useful. In my guitar and 'ukulele classrooms I use staff notation, tablature and chord diagrams all on one music sheet. Yes, it wastes a little more paper but the idea is to help as many people play in any way I can. I also have videos and audio recordings of each piece for the finger imitation learners and the learn by ear types! So you use whatever works for the most people at that moment. I would hope my students learn the proper names for each of these notation forms but, alas, I know from my quizzes many don't actually remember the proper names of staff notation or tablature. And yet they can read both of them and use them to play music!
 
Yes. I use amazon feature to sample or peek inside any book I am considering, but still have to gonthru a lot of books before Imfind something
I like.
 
Your second "Tabs - Single" is a sample of a partially written tab. It shows where to put your fingers to get the notes, but gives no indication of timing, making it useless to someone who doesn't know the tune. A properly written tab shows the timing.
One way of showing timing is to have two lines, one of standard notation and one of tab with no timing, like your example of Happy Birthday. Another is to put the timing on the tablature.

This tab for The Ash Grove (taken from a vocal duet that my brother and his wife performed) has timing indicated.

View attachment 116171

I like the Happy Birthdat tab because it includes staff notation, tablature and chord names and diagrams. Next favourite for me would be to have staff notation, tablature and chord names. If I like a piece I do consider inputting into a program to create a version that has the features I like.
 
I like the Happy Birthdat tab because it includes staff notation, tablature and chord names and diagrams. Next favourite for me would be to have staff notation, tablature and chord names. If I like a piece I do consider inputting into a program to create a version that has the features I like.

Since I write my tabs by hand, I find it much quicker to do tablature with timing and chord names indicated.

The biggest drawback to tab is that it is only useful to players of a specific instrument. Mandolin players cannot make much use of a tab written for ukulele players without doing some modification.
Standard notation is not instrument specific, unless it's written in a different clef.
 
The biggest drawback to tab is that it is only useful to players of a specific instrument. Mandolin players cannot make much use of a tab written for ukulele players without doing some modification.
Standard notation is not instrument specific, unless it's written in a different clef.

This is true.
This is why, for just the melody, I think that staff notation is the simplest way to go.
Often, when you add the notes in the chords, you find that the inversion of a chord suitable for one instrument is not suitable for another, and you need to modify them after all. If I look at a piano arrangement of a song written in staff notation, I can't play it on the Ukulele. So if the arrangement need to be ukulele specific anyway, I might as well write it in tabs to make it easier on myself.

Off course the professional approach would be to practice scales and learn all inversions of the chords by heart, so you can play chord melody right from the lead sheat. But tabs is a nice shortcut if you dont have the time to learn that.
 
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Chord/word sheets are very common for uke groups or sing-along groups. They have the lyrics with the chords over top at the appropriate places or sometimes placed within the songs like this:

I'll [Bb] see you in my [Bbmi6] dreams,
[F] Hold you [C+5] in my [F] dreams. . .

I like to do chord sheets like this because I have trouble lining up the chords otherwise.

There are some converters from ChordPro format to two line format.

 
There are some converters from ChordPro format to two line format.

I prefer the chords written on the line with the words. They take up less room, and there's no doubt about where the chord change takes place. It's also nice to have the chord diagrams on the page for unusual chords or new players.
 
I prefer the chords written on the line with the words. They take up less room, and there's no doubt about where the chord change takes place. It's also nice to have the chord diagrams on the page for unusual chords or new players.

I think I agree Jerry. When I make song sheets for our local uke club or for students I do include any unfamiliar chords in this format: CMa7-0002 or C#°-3434
 
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