ECOLM - An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music

Basic TabCode - rhythm signs

A rhythm sign, where present, is the first element of a tabword. Generally the symbol above the stave refers to a standard musical rhythm sign. These signs may each be encoded with a single letter:

B	= Breve
W	= Semibreve (Whole note)
H	= Minim (Half note)
Q	= Crotchet (Quarter note)
E	= Quaver (Eighth note)
S	= Semiquaver (Sixteenth note)
T	= Demisemiquaver (Thirty-second note)
Y	= Hemidemisemiquaver (Sixty-fourth note)
Z	= Semihemidemisemiquaver (Hundred-and-eigth note)

Note: As with pitch symbols, tablature rhythm-signs indicate relative durations rather than absolute. However, shorter note-values being easier to represent graphically than longer, in the sources one often finds music that at first sight appears to be much faster than it is.

• Dotted notes are indicated by simply adding a . after a rhythm indicator, so a dotted crotchet is represented as Q.
• A fermata may take the place of a rhythm signs in tablature and, in this case, should be encoded as F
• Tuplets and beamed notes present some complications and are dealt with in their own sections.