How guitar TAB chooses strings and frets

Why one note has several places on the neck

Because the strings overlap. In standard tuning the open strings are E2, A2, D3, G3, B3 and E4, five half steps apart except G to B, which is four, so the 5th fret of one string (the 4th on the G string) plays the next string’s open note. The E above middle C, E4, is the open top string, the 5th fret of the B string, the 9th of G, the 14th of D, the 19th of A and the 24th of the low E: six places on a 24-fret neck, five on a 22-fret electric or a 19-fret classical guitar.

A staff only gives the pitch. TAB gives the string and fret, so whoever writes it, a person or a program, picks one of those places for every note, and the choice decides where the hand goes.

What rule does notation software use?

MuseScore’s is in its source code, in StringData. A note goes to the highest string whose open pitch is at or below it (“using the highest possible string”, says the comment above convertPitch). For a chord, the notes are taken from the highest down; when a note’s string is already used, the app looks for “a suitable string, from topmost”: the first free string from the top that can play the note within the neck’s frets. If none can, both notes stay on one string and the TAB marks the clash.

We wrote the same rule for ScoreStarling and compared the two. A script wrote 120 random chords of one to four different notes between E2 and C6 on a standard-tuned TAB staff with no frets in it, let the MuseScore 4.7.5 command line fill them in, and compared every note. We ran it four times with different random chords.

The rule is predictable, which is why it’s a good default: anyone reading the TAB can work out where a note will be. A Guitar Pro or MuseScore user who opens the score sees the same frets.

When does the lowest-fret rule read badly?

When a line sits high on the neck. The rule never looks at the note before or after, so every note that the top string can play goes there, and a phrase a player would keep in one place runs up and down that one string. Here is a phrase coming down from the E at the 12th fret, as ScoreStarling writes it under each rule.

The first column covers frets 3 to 12 on one string, so the hand moves again and again on the way down. The second plays the last two notes on the B string at the 10th and 8th frets and stays between the 7th and the 12th. Neither is wrong, and the lowest-fret version is what most notation apps would show; the second is closer to what a teacher would write.

A program can find the second kind by planning the whole part. ScoreStarling’s “fewest hand shifts” option treats each note or chord as a step, lists the ways it can be fretted, and searches for the cheapest path through all of them: the hand covers four frets, a move costs more the farther it goes, a chord wider than four frets costs extra, higher positions and frets above the 12th cost a little, and open strings are free. It still doesn’t know your technique, so a planned fingering is a suggestion to check.

Why is my TAB an octave too high?

Because a guitar sounds an octave below its written notes, and a file can say that in two ways. MusicXML can write the part at the pitch it sounds, under a treble clef with a small 8 below it, or write it an octave up with a transpose element, which “represents what must be added to a written pitch to get a correct sounding pitch”. Both print the same staff. An app that fills in TAB from the written pitch of the second kind puts every note an octave too high.

We saw it in MuseScore 4.7.5. A file held an open-position C major scale, C3 to C4 as it sounds (from the A string’s 3rd fret to the B string’s 1st), written the second way with its strings and frets in it. MuseScore replaced every fret and wrote the scale from the B string’s 1st fret to the top string’s 8th, the same scale an octave up. Written at the pitch it sounds under the 8 clef, the same scale opened with every string and fret as written. ScoreStarling’s MusicXML downloads write TAB parts that way.

If a TAB you were given sits an octave high, check the clef and any transposition of the part in the source file before you change notes.

What does a capo change in a file?

The open notes. MusicXML’s capo element “changes the open tuning of the strings” by its number of half steps, and fret numbers start at 0 for an open string, so with a capo at the 2nd fret, fret 0 is the string played at the capo and fret 3 is the 5th fret from the nut. That matches what players read on a capo chart. MuseScore 4.7.5 ignored the capo when it opened our MusicXML and wrote frets from the nut, so print the capo position in the score’s text as well.

How ScoreStarling writes TAB

From October 8, 2026, ScoreStarling shows a guitar, bass or ukulele part with TAB under the staff or as TAB alone, from a recording or a video link, a PDF of sheet music or a MusicXML, MIDI or ABC file. The default strings follow the lowest-fret rule above; “fewest hand shifts” plans one hand position; you can move any note to another string at the same pitch or type a fret. Tunings include drop D, DADGAD and open G, with a capo up to the 12th fret. Notes no string can play as written are marked. It doesn’t write bends, slides, hammer-ons or strumming, and the tuning stays the same for the whole piece. Try it on audio to guitar tab, YouTube to guitar tab or sheet music to guitar tab.