How to Read Piano Tabs

Piano tabs are a way to read music without having to look at or use manuscript paper. Piano tabs can used for beginner piano players who don't know how to read sheet music and are also helpful in learning how to play music on instruments that don't play off sheet music, like a bass guitar or drums.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Look at the following example of a common song, "Mary Had a Little Lamb." This is how a traditional piano tab line is written: 4|e--dc-d-|e-e-e---|d-d-d---|e-g-g---|.

2. Play this song by starting on the fourth octave of the keyboard. That is what the "4" represents at the beginning of the line in Step 1. Those numbers will tell you what octave to play in beginning with the lowest "c" on your keyboard.

3. Count the beats in each measure. Each dash mark represents a half step and is read as "one and, two and" and so on. Start at the "e" at the first line and count each note and dash mark. Take note of the horizontal lines. These lines separate each measure so when you count the dashes and letters you will find that the line above has four counts to every measure.

4. Read the letters in the example above as the notes you will play. Each lowercase letter in a piano tab represents the exact note. Piano tabs don't depict flat notes, but every uppercase letter you see will represent a sharp note. A song with a B-flat would read as an "A" representing an A-sharp note. Likewise, a C-sharp note would be written as "C."

Tips & Warnings

• Once you know the basics of piano tabs, you can begin to read more than one line at a time. If you see tabs that have two lines written one on top of another with different numbers, it's a tab for playing with both hands. The line with the higher number, generally the top one, will be for your right hand while the other line is for your left.
• More advanced tabs will have multiple lines all beginning with the same number. These tabs are for playing more than one note at a time with the same hand.