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May 26

Converting between guitar tablature and pitched music notation

This question is mainly about music, but it involves mathematical procedures so that I post it here. Are the algorithms or mathematical methods to convert between guitar tablature and standard ("pitched") music notation? 113.178.24.91 (talk) 11:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably better on the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous, but it is quite easy. The strings in standard tuning are EADGBE which are pitches of the open strings, each fret raises the note a 12th so the notes on the first fret are F, B♭, E♭, A♭, C F, see Guitar#Tuning for the notes on the other frets. So to translate a guitar tab simple find which fret each string is held on. Find the corresponding notes in the table and mark on the stave. Your typically playing chords so you'll have multiple notes sounding together.--Salix (talk): 12:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The correspondence between the two systems isn't unique - going from staff notation to guitar tablature, you might be able to play the same note on several different strings (even ignoring different tunings) - maybe somebody has developed an algorithm to try and find a convenient fingering. In the other direction, tablature usually doesn't convey rhythm, and you have to make choices about the clef, keys, accidentals, etc., which are often largely a matter of taste. I'm pretty certain there will be software that can carry out these conversions (there is certainly software that can convert from MIDI data to staff notation, but it often comes out looking a little odd - being far too specific about timings, for example). 130.88.73.65 (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]