Write guitar tabs next to your lyrics

Use the Songcraft tab builder to write guitar, bass, or ukulele tabs right in your song, with hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends, and any tuning.

The Songcraft team · Oct 24, 2026

The tab builder lets you write a riff, an intro, or a fingerpicking pattern as a tab, right between the lines of your song, instead of lining up hyphens by hand. Tabs follow your song's instrument and tuning, they print with your chart, and your co-writers can edit them with you. The tab builder is free on every plan.

Add a tab

  1. Click at the end of the line the tab should follow.
  2. Click the + beside the line and choose Tab block, or press ⌥T (Alt+T on Windows). On a phone, select an empty line and tap Tab block.

A tab block appears with a string for each string of your instrument, labeled down the left side.

Type the notes

  1. Click a string where the note goes, and type the fret number.
  2. Use the arrow keys to move along the string and between strings.
  3. Add a technique from the toolbar above the tab, or with its key: Hammer-on or pull-off (H), Slide (S), Bend (B), Vibrato (V), and Mute (X).
  4. Click Bar line to mark the end of a bar.

A tab block under a line of lyrics, with an A minor arpeggio and the toolbar for hammer-ons, slides, bends, vibrato, mutes, and bar lines

To repeat a tab, click Duplicate tab in the toolbar, and to remove one, click Delete tab.

Change the instrument or tuning

Tabs use the song's instrument. In the bar above your song, click the instrument (it starts as Guitar · Standard), choose Guitar or Ukulele, and pick a Tuning. For drop D, open G, a bass, a mandolin, or anything else, click Add custom tuning (Pro) and set the number of strings and the note for each one. Chord charts and playback follow the tuning too.

Write tabs on a phone

Tap a tab block to open Edit tab, a full-screen editor with a fret keypad. It has the frets 0 to 9, arrows, the technique keys, and Bar |. Tap Done when you're finished. See Write songs on your phone.

How to read a tab

Each line of a tab is a string, with the highest string at the top, and each number is the fret to play on that string (0 means open). Read from left to right, and play numbers that are stacked in a column together. A tab shows which notes to play, so pair it with a recording of the riff for the rhythm (see Record ideas and keep voice memos with your songs).

Tips

When you print a song, the Tabs setting shows or hides your tab blocks (see Print chord charts). You can also paste a text tab from another site into your song, and Songcraft turns it into a tab block.