How to read a line

Every line here is written two ways at once: standard notation on top, tab underneath. This page explains both on a line you may already know by ear: the six notes of Ice-T's "I'm Your Pusher." If you can hear it in your head, you can learn to read it.

Two halves, two questions

Tab answers where. Four lines, one per string (G on top, low E on the bottom), and a number for the fret. 0 means the open string. Plain text tab, the kind pasted into forums, usually doesn't say when. Tab apps like Songsterr add rhythm as stems and beams under the numbers, using the same note-length menu below; a fret number in brackets, like (2), means a tied note still ringing, so don't pluck it.

Notation answers what and when: which pitch, and exactly how long. It doesn't say where, and on a bass most notes live in more than one place. The E in this line could be fretted at D-2, A-7 or E-12. The tab picks one (D-2), which keeps the whole line in one hand position.

Read them together: each note on the staff sits directly above its fret number. Use the tab for your hand, the staff for your timing.

Counting

Most lines here are in 4/4: four beats to a bar, counted "1 2 3 4." Split each beat in half and you get the "and"s; split again for "e" and "a."

Bar 1:  1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
        F#~ ~ ~ F#~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ E ~
Bar 2:  1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
        ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ C#~ ~ ~ B ~ ~ ~ A ~

A note's start is where it's plucked; the "~" is it still ringing.

How long: the menu

Note lengths come in a fixed set, each half the one before. The shape tells you which.

A dot adds half again. A dotted quarter is 1½ beats; a dotted half, 3.

Ties

A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch: play the first, hold through the second, don't pluck again. Every note already rings for its own length, so a tie only appears when a length isn't on the menu, or when a note crosses a bar line.

In Pusher, the high F# lasts 2½ beats. There's no single 2½-beat note, so it's a half tied to an eighth. The E starts on the last half-beat of bar 1 and rings into bar 2; a note can't sit in two bars, so it's split at the bar line and tied. That tie is the riff's whole trick: no new note on the downbeat of bar 2.

Rests

Silence gets written too, with its own menu of shapes, one for each note length. Some lines on this site are as much about the rests as the notes.

The odd bits

Bass clef (the curly symbol with two dots) puts lower notes on the staff. Bass parts are also written an octave higher than they sound, so they don't need a pile of extra lines below the staff. Everyone does this; it isn't a mistake.

The key signature (sharps or flats right after the clef) applies to every note on that line or space, all the way through. Pusher's three sharps mean every F, C and G is played sharp unless marked otherwise. A minor key borrows its signature from its relative major, the major scale that starts three frets up and uses the same seven notes: F# minor is written with A major's three sharps. Each scale page shows which notes that means, in any key.

Repeat signs (a thick bar line with two dots) mark a stretch to play again. Brackets over the last bar, numbered 1. and 2., are endings: the first time through, play the bar under 1; on the repeat, skip it and play the one under 2.

Chords and numbers

Some lines sit on one chord the whole way, like most hip hop loops: there the bass line is the harmony. Others move with chord changes, and those lines show the chords twice: as symbols above the notation (C#m7, A, E) and in a strip under the facts, with a Nashville number under each.

Nashville numbers name each chord by its place in the key, so a progression reads the same in any key. In E major, E is 1, A is 4, B is 5, and C#m is 6m (the m means minor). On those lines the note table says what each note is against the chord: root, 5th, ♭7.

What your hands do: How to play a line →

Each line page has a short "Reading it" note on the one idea that line teaches best. Start with I'm Your Pusher.