ECOLM - An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music

Basic TabCode - rhythm signs

Beaming

Beaming is a common feature of tablatures, most often joining notes of the same length:

Standard rhythm signs do not occur within a beamed group and need not be typed. Instead, the beginning of each ‘horizontal&rsquo line is indicated by the character [ and the end by ]. Only the starting and ending point of a beam-line should be labelled, so in the above example, the ‘rhythm sign’ for the first and fifth events would be [[[[, and that for the fourth and eighth would have ]]]]

  [[[[a2
  d3.
  c3
  ]]]]a3.
  [[[[c3(E)a6
  a3.
  c3
  ]]]]d3.
  

Beamed groups with notes of different lengths within them may be encoded in the same way.

Since the beginning and end of each ‘horizontal’ line of a beam is encoded, a ‘partial’ beam line (such as a 16th (semi-quaver) following a dotted 8th (quaver)) can be shown by []