But my most important design rule was SIMPLICITY. If something gets too deep too quickly, I’m gone. I don’t think that way, and I don’t play that way.
I didn’t sit down one day and decide to build a piece of software. That’s not how this started.
It started because I kept running into the same problem, over and over. I needed to write out tabs — intros, horn lines, melodies — to print for gigs and for my students. Things I’d worked out at home but wanted on paper for reference. I rarely use tabs myself, but they’re needed sometimes. I wanted something that made all of that easier, and a lot faster.
I don’t read music. Never learned. I’ve somehow managed, but that always left a gap: I could play things, yet I couldn’t really see or explain what I was playing — how the notes related to the scale, what the intervals were doing, why a run of notes worked. Why some don’t.
And the more I thought about it, the more those two wishes turned out to be one. I didn’t just want the tabs written down — I wanted to see the music underneath them. One tool that would listen to me play, write the tab, and in the same breath show me how the notes related — so the tab writing, and a better musical understanding came out of the same picture.
I started building Fab Tabs.
Quite Useful
I’ve always been a fan of the number system, so seeing the scale degrees roll out next to the tabs, I started to understand why certain licks landed the way they did. Stuff I’d played by ear for years began to make more sense. For a non-reader like me, that’s good.
Things shifted again.
What I’d built for capturing licks and figuring out my own playing turned out to be useful as a teaching tool.
The customizable triple display — tab numbers, scale degrees, and a live keyboard — put position theory and the number system into a visual form instead of something abstract. Students could see how the same melody in 2nd position maps to completely different holes in 3rd, and how the scale degrees stay put while the tabs shift around them. The Nashville Number System, which often takes weeks to grasp, was clicking in minutes.
Adding the things I personally wanted:
- Transposing between positions — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 12th.
- Save the text file, so I could open the tabs in Word, mark them up, and print them for the stage.
- All 12 keys supported, with the calibration tuned for how harps really behave — because pitch detection built for piano falls apart on a harmonica, especially on bends.
But my most important design rule was SIMPLICITY. If something gets too deep too quickly, I’m gone. I don’t think that way, and I don’t play that way.
Who’s It For
I built it for me — but at this point, I’d say it’s for:
- Pros and gigging players — tab out a horn line, an intro, a melody. Edit it, transpose it, print it. Done.
- Non-readers like me — see the theory underneath what you already play, no sheet music required. A simple, quick reference.
- Teachers — your students see the holes, the notes, the scale degrees, and how it all connects, all at once.
- Intermediate players working on bends or overblows — watch exactly what you’re playing in real time, and start to understand why things work the way they do.
- Beginners — even basic blow and draw notes work fine. You don’t need to be advanced to get something out of it.
It runs in most browsers — no install, no app store, no subscription. One-time licence. It works on Mac, Windows, Linux — best on a desktop or laptop.
5-day free trial
There’s a 5-day free trial — full features. I’d rather you try it yourself and see if you also find it useful.
