Ukulele tab paper
Four lines for a uke, spaced for the mostly single-digit fret numbers a short neck produces — so more music fits on the page.
Ukulele tab is four lines, one for each string, read exactly as guitar tab is: a number on a line is the fret to stop that string at. Standard tuning is G, C, E and A, and the lines run in that order from the bottom of the staff upward.
There is one thing about that ordering worth saying out loud, because it surprises people who came from guitar. Standard soprano and concert ukulele tuning is <em>reentrant</em>: the G string is tuned above the C, not below it, so the bottom line of the tab is not the lowest-sounding string. Tab lines map to strings by their position on the instrument rather than by pitch, and on a reentrant uke those two orderings simply are not the same. The paper cannot tell you which convention a given piece of tab used, so it is worth writing the tuning at the top of the sheet yourself.
A short neck is why this page is laid out more tightly than the guitar one. A soprano ukulele has twelve to fifteen frets and most arrangements stay in the first five, so nearly every number you write is a single digit and the gap between lines does not need to hold a 14. Four millimetres is comfortable, which leaves room for ten systems on a Letter or A4 page.
A baritone ukulele is tuned like the top four strings of a guitar — D, G, B, E — and takes exactly this sheet, since the string count is the same. Anything with more strings, an eight-string tenor for instance, is the tab lines control.
Ten systems rather than the eight the guitar page opens with, and four millimetres between lines rather than four and a half. Both come from the same fact: a soprano ukulele has twelve to fifteen frets, so almost every number you write is one digit and does not need the room a 14 does. That is thirty per cent more music on the same sheet of paper.
Staff and tab paper by instrument
- Staff and tab paper, any sizeThe full generator — any staff height, six systems
- Blank sheet musicFive-line staves · manuscript paper at any staff height
- Guitar tab paperSix lines · one per string, spacing you can set
- Bass tab paperFour lines · wider spacing for high fret numbers
- Grand staff paperTwo staves joined by a brace · piano, harp, organ
- Staff and tab paperNotation over tablature · joined as one system
Questions
Is the bottom line the lowest note?
Not on a standard soprano or concert ukulele. Reentrant tuning puts the G string above the C in pitch even though it sits at the bottom of the tab, because tab lines follow the physical order of the strings rather than their pitch. Low-G tuning removes the surprise, which is one reason players who read a lot of guitar tab often switch to it.
How is ukulele tab different from guitar tab?
Four lines instead of six, and in practice lower numbers on them. Everything about how you read it is the same. The difference on this page is the layout it opens with: tighter line spacing and more systems, because a short neck produces single-digit fret numbers.
How do I check the ukulele tab printed at the right size?
Measure the whole four-line span rather than a single gap: four lines have three gaps, so at the 4 mm default the top line to the bottom line is 12 mm. Twelve millimetres is short enough that a ruler with a millimetre scale settles it in one look.
Other tools
- Staff and tab paperBlank manuscript and tablature ruled to a staff height you can measure with a ruler, not to whatever the PDF you found happened to be.
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- Printable dot grid paperDot paper at the spacing you actually use — 5 mm for a bullet journal, or whatever you type.
- Printable lined paperCollege ruled, wide ruled, or handwriting paper with a dashed midline — at the real spacings, not an approximation.
- Year in pixelsOne cell a day for a whole year, drawn for the year you name — so February is the right length and the months stop where they actually stop.
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