Note: In order to accomodate this
file, TAB lines could not be wrapped
This was uploaded from OLGA on
July 29, 1998
CONTENTS
-----------
1.0 What is TAB
1.1 What TAB will tell you
1.2 What TAB won't tell
you.
Reading Tab :
--------------
2.0 TAB notation - The Basics
2.1 Other symbols used in TAB
2.2 Hammer ons and pull offs
2.3 Bends
2.4 Slides
2.5 Note length information
Writing Tab :
-------------
3.0 Getting Started
3.1 To Tab or not to tab
3.2 Things to do when writing TAB
3.3 Things to avoid
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*****************************
*** 1.0
WHAT IS TAB ***
*****************************
TAB or tablature is a method of
writing down music played on guitar or bass.
Instead of using symbols like
in standard musical notation, it uses ordinary
ASCII characters and numbers,
making it ideal for places like the internet
where anybody with any computer
can link up, copy a TAB file, and read it.
****************************************
*** 1.1
WHAT TAB WILL TELL YOU ***
****************************************
TAB will tell you what notes to
play - it will tell you which string to hit
and which fret to fret it at.
TAB will tell you where hammer-ons,
pull-offs, bends, slides, harmonics and
vibrato are used.
TAB will tell you what tuning
the piece is in. If this isn't given
explicitly, assume normal tuning.
TAB should also give you information
on use of capos etc.
TAB will give you an indication
of the ryhthm of the piece - i.e it will tell
you which are the long notes
and which are the short notes.
However it will not tell you exactly how long or how short they are.
This leads me on to ...
******************************************
*** 1.2 WHAT
TAB WILL NOT TELL YOU ***
******************************************
TAB will (usually) not tell you
the note lengths of the notes - so in most
cases you will *have* to listen
to the song yourself, with the TAB in front
of you to work out the ryhthm
of the notes.
TAB will not tell you which fingers you use to fret which note.
TAB will (usually) not tell you
anything about picking and strumming -
you will have to decide for yourself
where to use upstrokes/downstrokes
and so on.
*******************************************
*** 2.0 TAB
NOTATION - THE BASICS ***
*******************************************
TAB is simple to read, and should
be simple to write if you want to submit
a song you have worked out yourself.
The idea is this :
You start out with 6 lines (or
four for bass). These correspond to the strings
of the instrument. The
top line is the highest pitch string, and the bottom
line is the lowest pitch string.
Below is a blank bit of TAB with the string
names at the left.
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers are written on the lines
to show you where to fret the string
with the left hand. If a zero
appears , this means play the open string.
Like standard musical notation,
you read from left to right to find
out what order to play the notes.
The following piece of TAB would mean
play the sequence of notes (E
F F# G G# A) on the bottom E string by
moving up a fret at a time, starting
with the open string.
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E---0--1--2--3--4--5---------------------------------------------
OK so far ?
Here we have notes being played
one at a time. If two or more notes
are to be played together, they
are written on top of one another,
again just like standard notation.
In the next example we have a G bar chord.
E----3------------------------------------------------------------
B----3------------------------------------------------------------
G----4------------------------------------------------------------
D----5------------------------------------------------------------
A----5------------------------------------------------------------
E----3------------------------------------------------------------
So this means play all these notes together as a chord.
You might see the same chord written like this :
E--------3--------------------------------------------------------
B-------3---------------------------------------------------------
G------4----------------------------------------------------------
D-----5-----------------------------------------------------------
A----5------------------------------------------------------------
E---3-------------------------------------------------------------
Which would mean strum the same
shape starting at the bottom string, so
that each string is hit slightly
later than the last string, but all notes
will ring together. Below is
am example of the same shape again, but now
the gaps between the notes are
bigger - so you would probably pick the
strings separately instead of
slowly strumming the shape.
E------------------3----------------------------------------------
B---------------3-----3--------------------------------------------
G------------4-----------4-----------------------------------------
D---------5-----------------5--------------------------------------
A------5-----------------------5----------------------------------
E---3-----------------------------3--------------------------------
You might ask - How do I know
how fast or slow to play this ?
Are all the notes supposed to be the same length ?
This is where TAB differs from
standard notation. Most often TAB
will *not* give you any information
on the note lengths. It is usually
left up to you to listen to the
song to pick up the rhythm.
However - don't despair. TAB should
give you some indications of
timing. In the example
above all the notes are evenly spaced so you
can reasonably assume that the
notes are the same length (maybe all
eighth notes or quavers) but
this may not always be true - it depends on
who wrote the TAB.
As a general rule, the spacing
of the notes on the TAB should tell you
which notes are the long ones,
and which are the short and fast ones, but
obviously it won't tell you if
a note is a triplet or anything like
that. Again, this will
depend strongly on the person who wrote the
TAB.
As an example, here are the first
few notes of the American National
Anthem in TAB. You should
see fairly clearly that the different spacing
corresponds to the different
note lengths.
E-----------------------0--------4--2-0--------------------------
B---0--------------0---------------------------------0-----------
G------1------1----------------------------1----3----------------
D--------2-------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously it will be a lot easier
to play the TAB for a song you
know well than for a song you've
never heard of because you will
already be familiar with the
ryhthms of the familiar song.
*****************************************
*** 2.1 OTHER
SYMBOLS USED IN TAB ***
*****************************************
So far I've looked at what notes
to play : which string to hit, and
where to fret it. I've
mentioned how to get an idea of note lengths
by looking at the spaces between
notes on the TAB, but this can only
be a rough guide. You will always
have to check with the original track
to work out details of the rhythm.
A lot of other imprtant information
can be included in a piece of TAB.
This includes hammer-ons, pull
offs, slides, bends, vibrato and so on.
The standard practice is to write
extra letters or symbols between notes
to indicate how to play them.
Here are the letters/symbols most
often used :
h - hammer on
p - pull off
b - bend string up
r - release bend
/ - slide up
\ - slide down
v - vibrato (sometimes written as ~)
t - right hand tap
x - play 'note' with heavy damping
That last one, the x, is used
to get a choppy, percussive sound.
You usually use your fretting
hand to lightly damp the strings so
that when you pick the note it
sounds dead.
Note that the use of 'x' is *totally*
different from the use of
an 'x' when giving chord shapes.
For example if you wrote the chord of D, you would see :
EADGBE
xx0232
where the 'x's mean do not play this string.
In tab it is implicitly assumed
that a string is not played if it is not
marked. So the same chord
in TAB would be :
E-----2-----------------------------------------------------------
B-----3-----------------------------------------------------------
G-----2-----------------------------------------------------------
D-----0-----------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
with no 'x'. The x is is
only used in TAB to represent a heavily
muted string which is picked/strummed
to give a percussive sound.
There are a number of other symbols
for things like whammy bar bends,
pick scrapes and so on.
There seems to be no particular standard
way of writing these - details
should be given in the TAB to explain
what the symbols mean.
Bass TAB will probably need a
few extra symbols to cope with the
different techniques used in
bass playing - for example slapping
and 'popping' the string with
thumb or middle finger.
You could use 's' for slap and
'p' for pop as long as you wrote
them *underneath* the lines of
tab to distinguish them from slide
and pull off which would be written
*on* the lines of tab.
****************************************
*** 2.2 HAMMER
ONS AND PULL OFFS ***
****************************************
With hammer-ons and pull-offs
you might find things like these :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A---------5h7-----------5h7--------------------------------------
E---0--0----------0--0-------------------------------------------
which would mean play the open
E twice, then hit the A string at the
5th fret and hammer on to the
7th fret.
Pull offs look very similar :
E----3p0------------------------------------------------------------
B---------3p0-------------------------------------------------------
G--------------2p0--------------------------------------------------
D-------------------2---------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Here we have a descending blues
scale using pull-offs to the open
strings. For each pull off you
only pick the first note of the pair
with the right hand - so in this
example you would pick all the
notes on the 3rd and 2nd frets,
and the open strings would be
sounded by pulling off.
Because you give the string an
extra bit of energy when you hammer on
and pull off, you only need to
hit the first note with the picking hand.
You could even have a long string
of hammer-ons and pull-offs like
this :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G---2h4p2h4p2h4p2h4p2h4p2----------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
In this case you only pick the
first note.
**********************
*** 2.3 BENDS
***
**********************
When bends are involved you need
to know how much to bend the note
up. This is indicated by writing
a number after the 'b'.
For example, if you see this
:
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b9-------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
it means strike the B string at
the 7th fret, then bend the note up
two semitones (one whole step)
so that it sounds the same pitch as
a note fretted at the 9th fret
would do. (Sometimes the bend is
written with the second part
in brackets, like this ---7b(9)--- )
Something like this :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b9--9r7--------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
means play the note at the 7th
fret, bend up two semitones, strike the
note again whilst it is still
bent, then release the bend so that the
note has it's normal pitch.
You sometimes get a note which
is bent up only a quarter of a tone or so.
In this case it would look a
bit strange to write :
B--------7b7.5--------
if you have to bend it up half
a fret's worth.
Instead it's written as :
bend up 1/4 tone
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7b--------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
with instructions on how much
to bend written above the note.
**********************
*** 2.4 SLIDES
***
**********************
The most common symbols used for
slides are / for a slide
up and \ for a slide down.
You might also see 's' used to mean slide.
You don't always need separate
symbols for 'up' and 'down' slides
since a line of TAB reading :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7/9-------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
is clearly a slide *up* from 7th
to 9th fret. However you might
also see things like these :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------/7-9-7\---------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
where the exact start or finish
of a slide is not given. Here you
have to know whether you're sliding
up or down. In these cases use
your judgement to choose the
starting or finishing fret. The effect
usually desired is to have a
note 'swooping in' from a lower pitch
or dropping suddenly in pitch
as the note fades.
You could have a whole series of slides running together, like this
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B------7/9/11\9\7\6\7--------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
which would mean you only strike
the first note with the pick using
the sustain to produce the other
notes.
***************************************
*** 2.5 NOTE
LENGTH INFORMATION ***
***************************************
Occasionally you will find TAB
which includes information on all
of the note lengths. There seems
to be no particular 'standard'
way of doing this, but it usually
involves a line of letters or
symbols above the TAB.
See below (Section 3.2 part 6) for more details.
If the explanation of the timing
symbols is not given in the TAB
then you've got a problem !
In this case a quick email to
the author to ask for enlightenment
is the only way forward.
*********************************************
*** 3.0 WRITING
TAB - GETTING STARTED ***
*********************************************
Perhaps one of the most important
things to do before you start
typing up a piece of TAB is to
decide exactly how much information
to include in it. The trick is
to convey the right amount of
information in a clear, easily
readable form.
Questions you can ask yourself are :
- Is the song played using mostly chords ?
- Are there a number of riffs which appear throughout the song ?
- Is there a clear verse/chorus/middle
bit structure ?
By planning ahead a little you
should be able to produce a clearly
structured TAB which will not
only be easier for others to read, but
also easier for you to type in.
There are also choices to be made
when deciding what package to use
when typing the TAB in.
All you really need is a simple text editor,
however a mouse-driven editor
will probably make things easier.
When you start typing in it saves
time if you draw out one blank stave
and then make 8 or 10 copies
of these before you start typing in
the fret numbers etc.
If you use a more complicated
package like Microsoft Word then
make sure that the characters
you use are all the same length.
If an 'm' character is wider
than an 'i' character then your TAB
is going to look very strange
on another text editor. Choose a font
where all charcters get the same
width - Courier usually does the
job.
There are also a number of programs
available by ftp which were written
specifically to make TAB writing
easier. Details of these programs
including ftp addresses are in
the 'TABBING MADE EASY' FAQ by John Kean,
along with other useful hints
for writing TAB.
*************************************
*** 3.1 TO
TAB OR NOT TO TAB ***
*************************************
If a song can be described well
with just chords, then it will be
a lot easier to read and write
if you just use the chord shapes, rather
than tab out the chords.
BUT - if you do just send in the
chords it makes things *much* clearer
if you give the chord shapes
as well.
For example, if you wanted to
send in Led Zeps 'Gallows Pole' you could
write:
Intro : A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
Verse : A7 G/A A7
Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A G D
A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A A7 G/A A7 Am7 Dadd4/A
(You should really have the words
underneath as well, but I can't
remember them at the moment !)
Now this is OK, but how many people
actually know how to play Dadd4/A
off the top of their heads ?
What you need to do is include
some chord shapes like this :
EADGBE EADGBE
EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE EADGBE
x02020 x02010
x04035 320033 xx0232 x00000
A7
Am7 Dadd4/A G
D G/A
To TAB out these chords will take
a lot longer to type in, and
will probably take people a lot
longer to read and understand.
Where a chord is based around
chords like this, it makes things
much easier if you just give
chord shapes and names, then show
where the chords go in relation
to the words.
**********************************************
*** 3.2 THINGS
TO DO WHEN WRITING TABS ***
**********************************************
One of the most important considerations
when typing in TAB is to make
it clear and easily readable.
There are a few simple things
you can do to make things work.
-- 1 -- Use spaces !
It's amazing the difference it
can make if you insert a few blank lines
in the right place. If
you are used to writing the words above or below
the lines of TAB make sure you
leave a few lines free so that it's clear
whether the words belong to the
line of TAB above or below.
Space out the individual lines
of TAB and the whole thing will be a lot
easier for others to understand.
-- 2 -- Define the symbols you use.
It would make everybody's life
a lot easier if everyone used the same
symbols for hammer ons, bends
etc.
BUT - if you are convinced that
your particular way of writing bends
and slides makes much more sense
than anyone else's, that's OK as long
as you tell everybody what system
you use. It makes very good sense to
start your TAB file with a list
of symbols used.
The list of most commonly used
symbols is below :
h - hammer on
p - pull off
b - bend string up
r - release bend
/ - slide up
\ - slide down
v - vibrato (sometimes written as ~)
t - tap (with strumming hand)
x - muted, struck string
when you get on to harmonics ,
you might see a variety of symbols
used. Even in standard
music notation, an accepted way of writing
natural and artificial harmonics
has neverbeen agreed !
However, using brackets is the
standard way of writing harmonics,
so a natural harmonic at the
12th fret would be :
E----------------------------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E------<12>------------------------------------------------------
Normal brackets () are sometimes
used for grace notes or optional
notes so 'pointy' brackets <>
is the usual choice for harmonics.
-- 3 -- Label bits of the TAB
It makes things a lot easier if
you can see where the 'verse' and
'chorus' parts of a song are,
so put a few labels in certain places
to guide people through it.
Many songs will have clear 'verse'
and 'chorus' structures - so you
can tab out the riffs/chords
or whatever for these just once, and then
indicate where these are repeated.
Or there maybe a couple of
important riffs which are used
- so TAB these out and label them
'Riff One' and 'Riff Two' - then
when they come up later in the song
you can just say 'repeat Riff
One four times' instead of tabbing
the whole thing again.
As long as it's clear which bits
of TAB go with which label, you
will save yourself time this
way as well as making it easier to
read for others.
-- 4 -- Include Artist/album
It's useful for others to know
where to find the original song,
so at the beginning of each TAB
include some information on
the artists who recorded the
original, and the album on which
the song can be found.
-- 5 -- General comments
It's also useful to include a
few lines at the beginning of the
TAB to explain the style of the
song, or to point out important
features such as alternative
tunings, use of capos etc.
A few words along the lines of
"use a staccato, funky kind
of strumming style for the chords,
then change to a sustained
feel for the lead line"
will help people to get an idea of
how to approach the playing style.
Information on the type of guitar
(electric/acoustic,
6 string/12 string) and effects
used would be useful.
One point on the use of capos and alternative tunings :
It's a lot easier for people to
understand chord names etc if
they are written as though played
*without* a capo.
For example, if you have a D
shape chord played with a capo at
the 2nd fret you should write
it as D major even though you will
actually be fretting notes at
the 4th and 5th frets.
Also - for TAB using a capo, it's
standard practice to write the
numbers of the frets *relative*
to the position of the capo.
So again, if you had a D major
chord with a capo at the 2nd fret
the TAB would be :
E----2-----------------------------------------------------------
B----3-----------------------------------------------------------
G----2-----------------------------------------------------------
D----0-----------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
even though you actually fret the notes at the 4th and 5th frets.
It's similar with TAB for guitars
tuned a semitone or tone
lower than usual. If a
song should be played with the guitar
tuned to Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb, and
it has this chord :
Eb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
Bb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
Gb-----1--------------------------------------------------------
Db-----2--------------------------------------------------------
Ab-----2--------------------------------------------------------
Eb-----0--------------------------------------------------------
it makes things a lot easier to
understand if the you call the chord
'E' rather than Eb.
That way, if you decide to play
in standard tuning, you don't get
confused.
-- 6 -- Timing information
You may want to get really serious
and include details
giving the precise rhythm of
the piece. This will involve
a lot more typing, but it means
all the information
necessary to play the piece is
given explicitly.
One way to approach this is to
write a line of dashes
interspersed with numbers which
count the beats.
So in 4-4 time, you would have
:
1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4--- etc
Under this you can write a line
of d's and u's to represent
down and upstrokes.
Here is a simple example where
the rhythm is 2 crotchets
(quarter notes) followed by 4
quavers (8th notes)
1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4---
etc
d---d---d-u-d-u-d---d---d-u-d-u-
You could expand on this to use
upper and lower case letters
to indicate accents and so on.
If you use this method make sure
that you clearly separate the
2 lines of rhythm information
from the 6 lines of TAB !!!
One other way of including timing
information is to use one
letter/symbol for each note type.
For example use e for 8th note
(quaver), s for 16th note (semi-
quaver) and so on. The letters
you use may well differ depending
on whether you're used to the
american system of quarter notes,
8th notes etc or the english
system of crotchets and quavers ,
but the method is the same.
(If you're not sure of the 'translations' here they are :
whole note
- semibreve
half note
- minim
quarter note -
crotchet
8th note
- quaver
16th note
- semiquaver
32nd note
- demisemiquaver
64th note
- hemidemisemiquaver )
Simply write the letters above
the corresponding note in the
TAB. (Make sure you define which
letters/symbols you use)
Here's an example of what this looks like :
This is the opening riff from
the Beatles' Ticket To Ride
q
e e t t t q e
e t t t
E--------0-----------0--------0-----------0----------------------
B-----------2-----0--------------2-----0-------------------------
G---2----------2----------2---------2----------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A----------------------------------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------------------------------
Here I've used q for quarter note,
e for 8th note
and t for triplet quarter note.
If you want to send in a TAB with
rhythm information like this
then it's *essential* to explain
the system you use. I've seen
a lot of different systems of
letters and numbers of varying
degrees of simplicity and readability.
Whichever you choose to
use, you'll have to explain all
your symbols to make sure others
can work out what the hell you're
on about.
If you want to give a few clues
as to the rhythm of the TAB, but
don't want to get too involved,
use of bar lines is an effective
way of conveying timing information.
Simply insert a vertical line
of |'s to indicate the end of a
bar. So using the national anthem
example I had before, with bar
lines it looks like this :
E--------|---------------|0--------4--2-|0--------------|--------
B---0----|----------0----|--------------|---------------|0-------
G------1-|-----1---------|--------------|-----1----3----|--------
D--------|2--------------|--------------|---------------|--------
A--------|---------------|--------------|---------------|--------
E--------|---------------|--------------|---------------|--------
-- 7 -- Lyrics
It's a lot easier to follow a
piece of TAB when you've got at least
some of the lyrics to follow,
and you can match up the notes/riffs
in the TAB to the lyrics.
Try to include lyrics for at least
the first verse and chorus. If
you're not sure of the words
you can ftp cs.uwp.edu - there is a
large collection of song lyrics
held there.
Failing that a request to the newsgroups along the lines of
" Please mail me the lyrics to
such and such so that I can make
a proper job of the TAB I'm working
on"
will usually get a sympathetic
response.
As a final note on writing TAB
I should say that whenever you post
to the newsgroups ALWAYS cross
post to both guitar groups, and also
mail a copy to guitar@nevada.edu
so that it can be included in OLGA.
For more information on posting
to the guitar newsgroups and OLGA
see the other FAQs regularly
posted to the guitar newsgroups.
********************************
*** 3.3 THINGS
TO AVOID ***
********************************
-- 1 -- Tab Wraparound
One of the most common problems
in writing TAB is text wraparound.
This makes the TAB almost impossible
to read but is very easily
avoided.
The problem occurs when you write
a line of TAB which is maybe 80
or 90 characters long. For a
lot of people this is too wide for
their screen, so what should
be a single line of tab ends up being
split onto two lines.
Here is what it looks like :
E---------------------------------------------0-----------------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------2--4-----4--2-----------------------------------------
G------------------------------1--2--4-----------------4--2--1--------------------------------
D---------------------1--2--4-----------------------------------4--2--1-----------------------
A------------0--2--4-----------------------------------------------------4--2--0---------------
E---0--2--4-----------------------------------------------------------------------4--2--0-----
Now this will probably look pretty
weird when you see it. When I
wrote it, using Windows 'Notepad',
it looked fine because I could
fit the whole thing on one screen.
For most newsreaders though,
it is too long and you run into
problems.
All you have to do is be careful
when you type in TAB so that you
the maximum width of line is
say 60 characters.
I've tried to do that in this
FAQ so that the maximum width is about
<<<------------------------------------------------------------------>>>
this much. If you limit your TABs in the same way, you should be OK.
Of course, if TAB *does* get wrapped
around the author might not realise
because it looked fine on his/her
screen when they wrote it. It might be
worth letting them know of the
problem, so they can be careful in the
future.
(This includes me ! If parts of
this FAQ are too wide for your screen,
please let me know !)
-- 2 -- Very squashed TAB
It's amazing how easy it is to
ruin an otherwise good piece of TAB by
not spacing it out so that the
end result is a mass of cramped TAB,
explanations, labels etc.
When you finish typing up, go
back through the TAB and see if you can
insert a few blank lines here
and there to separate verse from chorus
or whatever. It really
does make it a lot easier for others to read.
It might also be worth considering
if you've included too much detail
in the TAB. Usually this will
not be the case, but I have seen a few
TABs which go into great details,
but are extremely off-putting to
try to read because of the sheer
quantity of information.
-- 3 -- Unnecessary repetition
If a line of TAB or a particular
riff is repeated a number of times
then save yourself the effort,
TAB it once.
It's also easier to read like
this.
That's all I *think* you need
to know about reading and writing TAB.
If there's anything important
you think I've left out or if there
are bits of the FAQ which you
can't understand then let me know.
You can contact me at :
H.Wright@astro.cf.ac.uk
or spxhaw@thor.cf.ac.uk