Grids & Tabs, GAT, for short, is a web-based program for users who publish printed or online music or instructions for guitar players. You can access it at the GAT website.
I've tested GAT on the Windows 7 and iPad platforms only. It works with the Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera browsers. GAT requires a browser that supports HTML5. If yours doesn't, GAT tells you immediately, and there's little you can do with the program. In that case I suggest you upgrade to a more contemporary browser. They're free, although that's not always possible if you have an older computer or tablet.
I've run GAT on my iPhone in the Safari browser. It works, but don't waste your time. Unless you have the eyes of a hawk and tiny fingers, you'll go nuts trying to edit a grid.The program assists in the building of guitar tabs and tabulature. The user builds the grid interactively and the program generates matching tabs. Use the keyboard or mouse to insert finger presses onto the grid. Then store your chord in the GAT database and record its image in a file on your hard disk or copied to the computer's clipboard. You can paste or import the grid image into your document.
With the mouse and/or the keyboard, you make changes to the blank grid you see the first time you run the program.
GAT saves your session when you leave the page and restores it when you re-open the page, so you can interrupt your work without losing anything.
GAT works with the keyboard and the mouse, so you can choose which mode you prefer.
Click on the checkboxes and radio buttons to select options and string settings. Click in the grid to program your choices.
Use the keyboard to select options and string settings. Move the keyboard cursor around with the keyboard's arrow keys.
With the keyboard: Move the keyboard cursor, a large gray disk from fret to fret and string to string. When you land where you want a change you can enter one by pressing 'O', 'X', or one of the digits '1' to '4'.
With the mouse: Click on the finger, O or X buttons. Then click on the string and fret where you want the note. You can select O and X on any fret. They affect the string without regard to a specific fret.
The grid shows the nut by default and your entries affect the top four frets. If you want to work farther down the fretboard, click the up to change it one fret at a time. For the keyboard, press Crtl+up for the same process. The down button and Ctrl+down have the same result.
Before entering the root note onto the grid, select the root checkbox by clicking it or pressing 'B'. The next note or open string becomes the root note. This assignment is required in order for GAT to compute a chord name or to allow you to store the chord in the GAT database.
If you're using the mouse, simply clicking on the string/fret programs the selected finger, open string or unplayed string.
If you're using the keyboard, move the cursor to where you want to make an entry and press 'O', 'X', or '1' to '4'.
A barre (aka bar) is when the same finger presses two or more adjacent strings on the same fret. To program a barre, you can select all the presses with the same finger or simply select the strings at either end of the barre, again with the same finger.
If you then select to finger, open, or leave unplayed ('X') a note on one of the barred strings and on a fret above the barre, GAT will reject the entry and nothing will change unless you are replacing or Xing out the note at either end of the barre. If you select to position a finger below the barre, GAT allows that and hides that finger from the barre without affecting the bar.
GAT deduces the chord's name based on which note is assigned to the root and what the other notes are. Every time you change the grid, GAT recomputes the chord name and displays it above the grid and in the chord name text box.
If GAT cannot arrive at a chord name given the data provided, it posts the root note name followed by a question mark.
You can override Gat's automatically generated chord name by choosing the chord name text field (Alt+n) and typing a different name. Do this last, however, because the next change you make to the grid will replace your name with GAT's choice.
GAT shows the names of notes below the grid under each string. When the note is one that could be either sharp or flat, the program makes an educated guess based on the root of the chord, if you have programmed a root, that is. If GAT gets it wrong, particularly when you choose not to program a root, click on the note name to change the accidental.
Click the undo button or press ctrl-Z to undo your most recent change. You cake as many as twenty-five undos after which GAT discards the oldest one. Click redo or press ctrl-Y to undo the undo and put things back the way they were. You can redo back to the top of the undo stack.
Undo and redo work just like the same operations in you word processor, spreadsheet, and just about any conforming application.
GAT begins each session with the grid displayed at its maximum size. You can shrink and expand it by pressing the minus (-) and plus (+) keys on your keyboard. You don't need to use the Shift key to do that.
I use the smaller sizes when my publication does not need a large grid display. I can resize the grid in the work processor for each grid, but that's repetitive work that I'd rather not have to do. Having poor eyesight, I don't do the resize until I am ready to export the grids to my documents.
This function is GAT's primary purpose. How it works depends on your browser. You will save the images to files or in the Clipboard for import into your document.
These browsers have buttons below the grid and Tab images labelled save grid and save tab respectively. Click these buttons, right-click the image in the new page, and choose Save image as... or Copy from the context menu. Close that page in the browser to return to GAT.
To save the grid or tab images, right-click the image in the GAT page and choose from the context menu as above.
GAT has erased its keyboard cursor from the grid in order to save the image without it. The program has no way of knowing when the context menu is done with the image, so it can't restore the cursor. Press one of the arrow keys to get the cursor back.
The ASCII tab is plain text. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor across the text to mark it just as you do to mark the text in a word processor. Then right-click inside the marked block and select Copy from the context menu. The ASCII tab is now in your clipboard to be pasted into your document.
GAT's database stores your grids for later retrieval. Since web pages are not permitted access to your computer's file system, GAT uses browser cookies to store the data. This has implications. If you change browsers without importing your existing cookies, you lose the database. If you change computers, you lose the database. If you use the browser's internet options to delete browser history, again, your database is kaput. So use this feature in GAT with caution.
Your chord must have its root and chord name programmed in order to be stored in GAT's database. With your grid programmed to your satisfaction, click the store chord button. Your chord's name appears in the list of chords with a dash suffix that identifies the root string number. You may have only one copy of the same chord name and root string stored in the database. If you need multiple versions of, say, the C major chord with the same root string, go to the chord name edit box (alt+n) and add a unique suffix of your own choosing. Do this last because if you make more changes to the grid, GAT will replace your modified name with the one it thinks your chord should have.
Scroll through the chords list to find the one you want. Click on that chord entry in the list. That's all there is to that.
With a chord selected from the list, click the delete chord button.
Click the validate button to have GAT examine the grid for inconsistencies. GAT reports a list of errors it finds in an alert window. GAT takes measures as you edit to correct many inconsistencies. For example, if you try to program finger 1 on the first fret of string 6 (E), and finger 2 on the second fret of the same string (F), GAT deletes the finger on the higher fret. You can play it with those fingers in those positions if you want, but nobody will hear the E.
GAT includes a choice of items to view or not.If the checkbox is checked, GAT displays the associated item. If not, it doesn't.
Some grid portrayals include the position markers, the icons on the neck that tell you where you are. They don't add much to the graphic, but you can turn on their display if you wish.
GAT is not a tablature editor, but it generates two versions of a tab for the chord you've programmed in the grid. One is a graphical image and the other is ASCII text. Tabs are published in both formats.
You can display the finger presses with finger numbers in their icons or not, in which case the icons are solid black. If your fingerings are unconventional you might prefer not to reveal them to your readers.
If, however, you choose not to display them, make sure you have the same finger number selected when you program a barre. That's the only way GAT knows that its a bar and not just different fingers on the same fret.
When you pass the mouse over the grid, TAB displays the fret and string under the mouse and what note would be programmed if you clicked that position. It does the same thing with the keyboard cursor. Turn off the display if it annoys you.
This selection got you here to this document.
This selection opens the Guitar Chord Progressions page described below.
Please contact me through my website, www.alstevens.com with your comments, criticisms, and bug reports. I am particularly interested in hearing about chord configurations for which GAT fails to compute the expected chord name.
GAT is a free program that I wrote for my own use when I set out to write about guitar chords in jazz. I could not find what I needed, so I came out of programming retirement to write GAT.
GAT worked so well for me that I decided to make it available to others. I do not ask for acknowledgment or remuneration. If you find this program to be useful, please express your appreciation with a small (or large) donation to a homeless shelter or food bank in your community. I developed this concept years ago when I was a columnist for Dr. Dobb's Journal. I call it careware.
Guitar Chord Progressions takes your selections from the GAT database and builds grid and tablature depictions of chord sequences, aka progressions.
The chords you've saved in GAT are listed such that you can select them for the progression. But first...
Select whether you want to include tablatures in the progression by clicking the tablatures checkbox.
Select whether you want to include finger numbers in the grid by clicking the finger numbers checkbox.
The clear the palatte checkbox resets everything. Use this when you want to start over.
Click chords in the list in the order you want them in the progression. You may program up to five chords.
Click the save sequence button to open a window with the image ready to be saved. Follow the instructions.
If you don't have a save sequence button, right-click the image on the main page and choose Save image as... or Copy, which might have varying labels depending on which browser you have. It should be obvious.