teaching question

I've been playing professionally for 38 years and have a lot of original licks to offer. (Country, Rock, Southern rock, Blues, Classic rock) I wanted to do some video lessons but I heard I need to add tabs to them. Is this true? I hope not cause I don't know how to write tab. Does anyone know of a website that would write the tab just from watching my videos? :confused:

Originally Posted by: 1stratistI've been playing professionally for 38 years and have a lot of original licks to offer. (Country, Rock, Southern rock, Blues, Classic rock) I wanted to do some video lessons but I heard I need to add tabs to them. Is this true? I hope not cause I don't know how to write tab. Does anyone know of a website that would write the tab just from watching my videos? :confused:

I doubt such a site exists, but I can tell you how tab works:

e----------
b--------1-
g------0---
d----2-----
a--3-------
e----------

The above is a very simple tabulation. At the beginning of each line you will see a letter; that indicates the string. On certain lines you will see a number; that indicates the fret you are to be playing. All you do now is play what it tells you, moving from left to right. So first you'd play a C on the A string, then an E on the D string, then an open G, then a C on the B string. Simple stuff.

Then there's the other stuff:

d---3h5--- (hammer-on)

e---1p0--- (pull-off)

g--4/6---- (slide)

a--12*--- (harmonic)

e---6^8-- (bend at the 6th fret until it sounds like it would at the 8th; bend a full step up) [I've also seen this as --6b8--]

Sometimes the symbols used are different, but if they are it's usually indicated at the top of the page what they mean.

Hope that helps!

I appreciate your explanation. It does help. But do I need a chart to put the numbers on or do I use notepad and create my own? Sounds very time consuming until you get the hang of it.

Also, is there a certain number of beats between notes. Or does that part matter when doing tab?

I never usually worry too much about the timing... I feel that if a guitarist is taking the time to learn the song I tab out... they're probably good enough to figure out the timing. And since you're including a video with the tab you shouldn't have to worry about the timing at all...

You can just do it on Word, or any word processor, really.

I've seen tabs where the beats are counted out, but it's not that important. If you're providing a sound clip, most people can figure out the timing.

If that doesn't do it, though, it might help to include a "1 e + a 2 e + a" thing underneath that lines up with the notes.

Ok guys,
Thanks for taking the time to school me on this. I feel I can do it now. Maybe I can do a trial run on something simple and post it here tomorrow. If this forum lets me import a word document. Then someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, or, hopefully right.
Thanks again. You were super!

If I were you I'd just take a coupla hours and learn it yourself. It's so simple it's laughable.
Up until recently, around here, we did all the tabs by hand.
For instance, I'd keep a blank tab in a clipboard on my hard drive:

|-------------|
|-------------|
|-------------|
|-------------|
|-------------|
|-------------|

... like that, and then just add in the notes. It only takes a couple of minutes. When you've been doing it a few years, you can breeze through a tab in no time. The easy part is there's no timing or strumming information necessary. It's basically just the notes and some general directions on how to play them.

Now however, we're switching over to GuitarPro software. Basically, it's a little slower but you get a very pro looking tab with notation and a lot more strumming and timing information. The good part is you can also listen to your tab using the built in player so you can play around with the notation until you get it perfectly in time, and end up with a .jpg or .pdf score that can be read by other musicians. It's about $60 and takes a while to learn it, but once you've done a dozen tabs, it's relatively simple.

I use Powertab - download here

It has all the symbols etc for tab, and puts the notation together for you based on the tab if that's useful to you. It has midi playback as well...

It's also free, which is why I use it instead of Guitar Pro... :D