Instructions

What is Guitar Tab Reader?

There is a type of musical notation for the guitar that is called tablature or tab for short. It consists of numbers and symbols that are displayed along a set of 6 lines of hyphens that represent the 6 strings of a guitar. Tablature depends on each character having the same fixed width so that notes on separate strings that should be played together can be shown in a single column.

Tab is a simple and efficient way of representing guitar music for people with adequate vision and reading skills. However, for people who are blind it is inaccessible even with a screen reader. It can also be difficult or impossible to use for people with visual impairments that rely on screen magnification. Finally, the way horizontal and vertical information is presented together can be difficult for people with some types of reading disabilities.

What Guitar Tab Reader does is translate guitar tablature into simple playing instructions in plain English. For example, it would display the tab snippet "-12-" on the second line of a group of tab lines as "B string fret 12." Notes that are played together are indicated as well as special instructions such as "bend up to fret 5 and "hammer on to fret 8.""

Tabs are frequently found in web sites that collect guitar tabs from many individual contributors. With just a single button click, Guitar Tab Reader can process a web page containing the tablature for an entire song or piece of music. Everything that is not tablature is discarded and the resulting output is organized as separate numbered lines of instructions with all measure markings preserved. This output can be copied to the system clipboard as simple text that can then be incorporated into documents and messages.

How to Use Guitar Tab Reader

1. Navigate to a web page or text document that contains guitar tablature.
2. Select the entire contents of the web page or document.
   • In Windows, press Control plus A.
   • On a Mac, press Command plus A.
3. Copy the selected text to the clipboard.
   • In Windows, press Control plus C.
   • On a Mac, press Command plus C.
4. Navigate to Guitar Tab Reader at http://www.guitartabreader.com.
5. Paste the copied text into the Tab Input text box.
   • In Windows, press Control plus V.
   • On a Mac, press Command plus V.
6. Click the Translate button. The playing instructions will display in the Output text box.
7. Click the Copy button to copy the entire set of playing instructions in the Output text box to the system clipboard.
8. Click the Clear button to remove the contents of the Tab Input and Output text boxes.

Try It Out

Here are links to several guitar tabs in different musical styles. You can use these with the instructions above to see Guitar Tab Reader in action. Each link opens in a new tab or window depending on your browser settings.

• Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
• Blackbird - The Beatles
• Bouree in E Minor - Bach
• Blue Sky - The Allman Brothers Band

Tips

The tabs that are freely available on the Internet are created by many individuals and there is no universal standard for tablature notation. As a result you may at times have to do a little troubleshooting if the Guitar Tab Reader's playing instructions don't make sense. Here are some tips:

• If the program encounters one or more characters it does not recognize on an individual guitar string, the playing instructions for that string will say "Unable to translate:" and display the unrecognized characters. If it's not clear what the tab author meant go back to the original tab and check for a legend that explains the unrecognized characters. For example, most tablature uses the character "h" to mean "hammer on" from one fret to another. However, sometimes an author intends the character "h" to represent playing a natural harmonic.
• If the program reports that it cannot translate the equals sign ("=") or underscore ("_") characters, it is likely the author made a typo when typing a hyphen. You can fix the typo in the original tab that you pasted in the Tab Input text box and then click Translate again.
• Notes on separate strings that are played together need to be correctly aligned. If you find that some playing instructions in a group don't make sense, check the alignment of the notes in the Tab Input text box. It is possible to correct alignment errors but it must be done precisely or other sequences of notes might become misaligned.

Tablature Legend

Reporting Issues

If you encounter any problems please send an email to "glcalvert" at the Google mail domain "gmail.com"