For instance, notes on line 4 in the sample tab above are played in the keyboard's fourth octave. Notes on the lines of the tab are meant to be played in the octave that corresponds to the line. For example, 'C' is the black key to the right of 'c', which is a white key. Upper-case letters signify sharps, which are the black keys. You may have already guessed that each letter corresponds to a note in the scale! Lowercase letters signify 'natural' (not sharp or flat) notes, which are the white keys on the keyboard. The letters A through G should be spread throughout the lines of the piano tab, like this: Locate the notes in the tab based on the octave of the line they're on. It's not necessary for piano tabs to include lines for every octave on the keyboard - just the octaves in which notes are played.

For instance, in the sample tab lines provided above, the lines represent, starting from the top, the fifth, fourth, third, and second octaves from the farthest-left C, respectively.Piano tabs define their octaves relative to the C scale - starting from the far left of the keyboard, the first C note on the piano begins the first octave, the second C note begins the second octave, and so on up to the highest C note.

The number at the left of each line represents the octave that the notes represented on the line are located in. Though this arrangement may at first seem to bear no resemblance to the black and white keys of a keyboard, piano tabs actually represent different regions on the keyboard through clever shorthand. Piano tabs usually take the form of a series of horizontal lines, each labeled with a number at its far left, like this: Break the keyboard into octaves which correspond to lines on the tab.

Song lines with images