German tablature

What it means

German tablature designates forms of notation from the German-speaking area that represent notes not by noteheads on a staff but by letters and signs. It was in use from the late Middle Ages into the seventeenth century for keyboard instruments and for the lute. Common to these forms is that the pitch is named and not depicted; the duration stands as a sign of its own above it.

In the notation

In organ and keyboard tablature, each note carries its letter name, supplemented by strokes or additions that indicate the octave register; above the letters stand signs for the note values. In the later form all the voices are written in letters; in older mixed forms the upper voice remains in ordinary musical notation and only the lower voices appear in letters. The lute tablature of the German type works with a stock of signs of its own that designates frets and strings and differs clearly from the Italian and French systems — there numbers or letters are placed on a staff that represents the strings.

Musical use

The practical advantage lay in saving space and in the fact that the notation relates directly to the instrument: in lute tablature it does not say which note sounds but where to press the string. A large part of early keyboard and lute music is transmitted this way, including many intabulations, that is, transcriptions of polyphonic vocal pieces for a single instrument. With the establishment of notation on two staves, tablature lost ground in the seventeenth century.

It is to be distinguished from present-day guitar tablature, which follows the basic idea but is a modern development of its own.

Performance practice

If you want to work from a facsimile, first acquire the sign system of the source in question — the forms are not uniform, and the assignment of octave registers differs from manuscript to manuscript. For the study, a modern transcription is the more sensible way; alongside it the tablature is worthwhile as a check, because it often fixes fingering and position more unambiguously than any transcription.