According to Wikipedia: "Tablature (or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering or the location of the played notes rather than musical pitches."
Although guitar tabs are popular today for sharing guitar music, tablature in general is very old, going back to organ tablature in 14th century Europe.
Wildwood Tabs (also known as Lightning Tabs or Express Tabs) bring tablature to the Wildwood Soundworks Lightning and Express products.
Wildwood Tabs are text files that contain lyrics and chords as well as other information. Here is an example:
{Title: House Of The Rising Sun - Traditional}
{Subtitle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun}
#
{Key: A minor}
{Channel: 16}
{Octave: 3}
{Instrument: Acoustic Guitar Steel}
#
{Am} {C} {D} {F} {Am} {E} {Am} {E}There
#
{Am}is a {C}house in {D}New {F}Orleans they
{Am}call the {C}Rising {E}Sun. And it's
{Am}been the {C}ruin of {D}many a poor {F}boy, and
{Am}God I {E}know I'm {Am}one.
The text surrounded by left and right curly brackets / braces is the meta-information. When you open a song file with a .tab suffix, Lightning and Express interpret the meta-information to create the Tab View:
As you can see, the Tab View displays two rows for each line of music in the file. The top row contains the chord names and the bottom row contains the lyrics.
The current location in the song is displayed in inverse video along with information on how to play the next chord change.
For Lightning, this is displayed inline as two circles. The left circle shows the position in the Chord Type wheel for the chord type. The right circle shows the position in the Chord Strum wheel for the root of the chord.
You start the chord by pressing the indicated chord type on the left wheel and the chord root on the right wheel and then strum it by rotating around the strum wheel on the right.
Usually only chord changes are included in the file. The number of times you play each chord and how you play it (e.g. strum up, strum down, arpeggio) is entirely up to you and the song.
Due to space constraints, in Express, the information on how to play the chord is displayed in a popup on the right side of the screen.
Chord meta-information consists of the chord name surrounded by left and right curly brackets / braces.
Other types of meta-information consists of a directive followed by a colon (:), a space and a value, all surrounded by left and right curly brackets / braces as shown in the example above.
The following sections describe how to use the various meta-information directives. Directives are optional. You do not need to provide a directive if you don't want to.
If the first character in the line is a hash sign (#) the entire line is ignored. This is good for comments or formatting.
Chords and lyrics are generally used together. When formatted in the Tab View, the chord appears immediately above the lyric text it precedes.
For intros, interludes, outros, etc. you can make the chord appear above a space or any other character or text just by preceding that text with the chord.
Chords are specified using standard naming conventions consisting of the chord root and type.
The chord root is a note name (A-G) followed by an optional sharp (#) or flat (b) indicator, followed by an optional slash (/) and note for inverted chords, followed by the short name of the chord type from this table:
| Chord Type | Short Name |
|---|---|
| Major | maj |
| Minor | m |
| Seventh | 7 |
| Minor Seventh | m7 |
| Major Seventh | maj7 |
| Sixth | 6 |
| Minor Sixth | m6 |
| Suspended Second | sus2 |
| Suspended Fourth | sus4 |
| Augmented | aug |
| Diminished | dim7 |
| Blues | 7/6 |
| Scale | scale |
| Power | 5 |
Here are some examples of valid chord names: {G}, {Em}, {Cmaj7}, {D7}, {D6}, {Em7}, {Gmaj7}, {Bb6}, {C#dim7}, {F/C}.
The title is arbitrary text that is displayed in the Tab View, generally at the top.
The subtitle is arbitrary text that is displayed in the Tab View, generally below the title. The subtitle is displayed in a smaller font that the title.
The key specifies the key of the song. By specifying the key, any sharps or flats in the key can be played as naturals (i.e. you don't have to play the sharp or flat).
The key of the song is indicated by the key signature in sheet music, the first set of symbols to the right of the clef.
If you read music and recognize the key, you can specify the key by name. Otherwise you can specify the number of sharps or flats you see.
You can use any of the following values. All values on the same row of the table are equivalent and they are not case sensitive.
| Major Key | Relative Minor Key | Short Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cb Major | Cb Maj | Ab minor | Ab min | 7 flats |
| Gb Major | Gb Maj | Eb minor | Eb min | 6 flats |
| Db Major | Db Maj | Bb minor | Bb min | 5 flats |
| Ab Major | Ab Maj | F minor | F min | 4 flats |
| Eb Major | Eb Maj | C minor | C min | 3 flats |
| Bb Major | Bb Maj | G minor | G min | 2 flats |
| F Major | F Maj | D minor | D min | 1 flat |
| C Major | C Maj | A minor | A min | no sharps |
| G Major | G Maj | E minor | E min | 1 sharp |
| D Major | D Maj | B minor | B min | 2 sharps |
| A Major | A Maj | F# minor | F# min | 3 sharps |
| E Major | E Maj | C# minor | C# min | 4 sharps |
| B Major | B Maj | G# minor | G# min | 5 sharps |
| F# Major | F# Maj | D# minor | D# min | 6 sharps |
| C# Major | C# Maj | A# minor | A# min | 7 sharps |
If Key is not specified, it will use the current setting (which is C Maj/A min by default).
Channel lets you select a channel on Lightning or Express when the .tab file is opened.
Channel lets you specify the octave for the current channel when the .tab file is opened. Use this after the Channel directive to specify the octave for that channel.
The octave is a specified as a number in standard pitch notation, where 4 is the octave for middle C.
You can specify an instrument by name or program number.
The Instrument directive lets you specify an instrument by name. It is applied to the current channel when the .tab file is opened. Use this after the Channel directive to specify the instrument for that channel.
Instrument names are from the General MIDI instrument set. You can also specify the abbreviated instrument names that appear under Instrument in the header row of the display.
Program lets you specify an instrument for the channel by program number when you open a .tab file.
Program numbers are from the
General MIDI instrument set. For example, Program: 15
is the same as Instrument: Tubular Bells.