TablEdit Users Say:

"I also use TablEdit for arranging songs as I think they should go, cos I'm one of those frustrated individuals who can hear music in their head, but can't play well enough to show everyone else their idea. I play a melody or harmony on the guitar or bass, then tab it, change the instrument, and away we go. This gives the guitarist and keyboard player a far neater and more accurate idea of how I think a piece should be presented, not that they always agree."
John Gregory - Derbyshire, UK

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Some music editing software simply has you enter row upon row of numbers and insert the measure bars afterwards. Other automatically create a new measure when the previous one is completed.

Although these techniques are fairly flexible, they require the frequent use of rests in order to follow the rhythm assigned to a given piece and lead to complications when notes of differing durations crowd up on one another.

The logic used by TablEdit is different in that the work consists of placing notes within pre-determined measures without reference to prior entries. This means, for example, that you can enter a note in measure 10 even if the first nine measures of the score are completely devoid of either notes or rests.

On the other hand, notes must be placed precisely at the location corresponding to their sequence in the overall scheme of the piece. This precise placement is facilitated by the use of the ruler which allows the correct location to be found.

One of the advantages of this concept is that rests become somewhat irrelevant to obtaining a legible printed score. Another advantage is that it becomes very easy to hold a note for an entire measure despite the fact that the following note is sounded only an 1/8th note interval afterwards. This allows the creation of an aural realism worthy of the best music editing software.

A short walk-through
Example 1 below shows the most common "lead-in" to a tune in the key of C.


Example 1
As the actual notes don't begin until the second beat of the measure, a rest should be entered on the first beat. Place your cursor at the very beginning of the measure. Which string it's placed on doesn't really matter but convention dictates that, unless there are other notes on the same beat, it should be placed as close to the center line as possible. This isn't a problem in the five line classical stave. In a six line tablature grid the cursor would normally be placed on either the 3rd or 4th string. Now, press [F6] to set the current duration to a 1/4 note and then [.] to insert a 1/4 rest. Note the use of the [F*] shortcuts to change note duration rather than using the mouse to select from either the menu or the "Notes" palette. When you're entering measure after measure of tablature, this little feature will save you lots of time. The shortcuts run from [F4] (whole note) to [F9] (1/32nd note). Only 1/64th note duration has to be set manually.

Leaving the current duration as a 1/4 note, press [Tab]. This will automatically advance the cursor to the right a distance equivalent to the duration of a 1/4 note. Now use [] to move the cursor down to the 6th string and press [3]. You've just entered your first note of tablature! Congratulations!

Press [Tab] again to advance the cursor to the next position and then use [] to move it to the 5th string. Now press [0] to indicate the open 5th string and then (I'll bet you can guess what's coming next) press first [Tab] and then [2]. Now you're up to an entire measure!

Now that we've got a little bass line going, let's add some melody notes. Example 2 illustrates the measure directly following the one represented by Example 1, above.

Example 2

The first step is to hit [Tab] again to move the cursor to the first beat of the second measure. Once it's in place, enter a "3" on the 5th string in order to complete the bass run leading into the basic C chord. You now have a choice. You can either enter all of the bass notes of the measure and then go back to the second beat and start entering the melody or you can go back and forth between the two as you progress along the measure. This is strictly up to you. There is, however, at least one situation in which the first procedure is best. If you're tabbing out a piece in which the basses are more or less consistently damped (a Merle Travis solo, for example), you can apply the "muted" effect to the first bass note and this will automatically be applied to the following bass notes as you enter them. The function is canceled if you enter a note on a treble string or select "No effect" from the "Special effects" palette or select another effect. Another reason in favor of writing the bass and treble lines separately is that you avoid switching the note duration back and forth between, for instance, 1/4 notes and 1/8th notes all the time.

Start out by entering the four bass notes. With the cursor still on the "3" you entered earlier, press [Tab] to advance the cursor to the next 1/4 note position and then use [] to move it to the 4th string. Keep following this procedure until all four notes have been entered.

Now, move the cursor to the first string (in this particular case, using the mouse to left-click on the correct position is the most direct and, thus, quickest method), directly above the first bass [2], press [F7] to change the current duration to 1/8th notes and enter a [3]. Continue entering the treble notes, using the same technique as above, until you get to the last beat of the measure. Notice how the final bass note is displayed as both a bass 1/4 note and a treble 1/8th note. What you want to ask yourself is "does the performer actually cut the final G note of the previous beat short or does it continue to ring out?". If you decide that the note is actually cut short, a 1/8th rest should be inserted above the following bass note. If not, then the G note must be extended by the use of a tied note on the first string. Simply make sure that the cursor is located on the existing G note, press [Tab] to advance it to the next 1/8th note position, press [3] and then press [L] to assign the "tied" attribute to it.