1. Pick the smallest useful part
Don't start at bar one of the whole song. Pick the riff you actually want to play and cut it down to a few bars. As TrueFire's guide says, even a famous riff is just a few short chunks joined together. If this is your first try, choose something slow with few notes.
2. Find the key
The key tells you which notes are likely, which removes most of the guessing. Hum the note the song seems to want to rest on. Find it on your low E string. The last chord of a song often points the same way.
Then listen to whether it sounds sad or bright: that's usually minor or major. Now you have a scale to hunt in.
3. Get a rough version
You have two honest choices:
- By ear. Sing the phrase. Find the first note, then the last, then fill in between. Premier Guitar suggests working on rhythm and pitch separately, marking notes with an x when the rhythm is hard.
- From an AI draft. Drop the audio into a tab generator and treat what comes back as a sketch.
Here's a draft BeatMap wrote for a recording where we know every note:
Bars 1–2 e|------------------------------------------------|-------------------0-----------------0-----3----| B|-------------------------0----------------------|-------------1-----------1----------------------| G|-------------------0-----------0----------------|-------0-----------------------0----------------| D|-------------2-----------------------2----------|------------------------------------------------| A|-------2-----------------------------------2----|-------3----------------------------------------| E|-0----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------| Bars 3–4 e|-------------------------5-----------2----------|------------------------------------------------| B|-------------------7-----------------------3----|-------------------------------------0----------| G|-------------7----------------------------------|-------------------------0-----2----------------| D|-0-----7----------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------| A|------------------------------------------------|-2----------------------------------------------| E|------------------------------------------------|-0----------------------------------------------|
4. Slow it down and loop it
Loop one bar at a time, slowly, without changing the pitch. Our guide to slowing down a song lists free ways to do it. Play the draft along with the loop, and stop at the first note that rubs.
5. Fix what sounds wrong
On this riff, playing against the recording exposes two errors:
- Bar 2 starts late. The riff opens the bar on a C (A string, fret 3) right on the beat. The draft puts it an eighth note later, on top of the next note. You'd hear the bar start with a hole, then two notes at once.
- Bar 4's chord is missing a note. The recording has a three-note E5 chord. The draft has only frets 0 and 2 on the low strings, and misses the E on the D string, fret 2. You'd hear it sounding thinner than the record.
These are typical mistakes: notes in the wrong spot in time, and notes lost from chords. They're quick to fix once you're listening for them. Real songs have more of them than this clean test, and full band recordings have far more.
Check the position too. The right notes can sit in a different place on the neck from the record. If a run feels awkward, move it. Players rarely choose the hardest route.
6. Check it at full speed
Play with the record at full speed. Right notes vanish into the sound, and wrong ones stand out. Then write down your final version, so you don't have to do it twice. It's also worth comparing it with any tab you can find, even a poor one, as a second opinion, after you've done your own work.
When a tab does exist
Check for one first. Songsterr and Ultimate Guitar cover a lot of songs, and a good human tab saves you all of this. Lead parts need more work: see how to transcribe a guitar solo.