How Do I Write Solos With Tablature?

Tablature is a fantastic bridge, enabling even us beginners to play solos and nifty strums without needing to know every individual note on the fretboard or read music notation. With tabs one’s able to ease into treating the uke as a “real” front stage instrument. (see my post Fingering Diagram versus Tablature for more)

How, then, does Scriptasaurus handle tabs? Quite nicely, thank you:

tab-converter — The sample shown above is a “before and after” for “The Rainbow Connection” intro. On top is the “before” — the text only tabs, and below that is the “after” — how the tool automatically formats it. Neah, huh?

At its simplest tablature must indicate the four strings and the fret numbers. In order for the program to notice this you must enclose it within {start_of_tabs} and {end_of_tabs} tags.

{start_of_tabs}
-----2---2-----------3-3---
---3---3---3-------0-------
-2---------------0---------
---------------------------
{end_of_tabs}

Of course, this is rather plain. And we can use abbreviated tags ({sot} and {eot} just like the {start_of_chorus} tag), add some measure dividers, and even preface the whole thing with the string names like this:

{sot}
A|-----2---2-----|-------3-3---
E|---3---3---3---|-----0-------
C|-2-------------|---0---------
G|---------------|-------------
{eot}

Recently there’s been quite a bit of interest in enriching the tablature feature — so stay tuned!