Squeezebox StudioHow to read melodeon tab
Melodeon tab tells you two things about every note: which button to press, and which way the bellows are moving. Everything else on the page is there to make those two things quick to read.
The button number
Buttons are numbered along each row from the chin end, the end of the keyboard nearest your face as you hold the box. On most two-row boxes button 1 is an accidental and the rows proper start at button 2. On a D/G with a third-button start, button 3 on the outside row is D and button 3 on the inside row is G.
Count from the chin end even if you learned the keyboard the other way up. Charts and tab books do.
Which row
With two rows, the tab has to say which one a number belongs to. English tab usually leaves the outside row plain and marks the inside row with a ′, so 3 is the third button of the outside row and 3′ the third of the inside. French tab does the same.
Some tutors do it the other way round, marking the outside row, and some write the row's key in front of the number, so the third button of the G row becomes G3. If a page of tab doesn't look right, look for its key, which most tutor books print at the start.
Push or pull
One common way to show the bellows is position. Numbers above a line are played on the push, closing the bellows, and numbers below it on the pull. Squeezebox Studio writes tab like that, with push in blue and pull in orange as well, so the direction never depends on colour alone.
Other tab uses letters instead, P for push and D for draw, or marks the pull with a symbol. The key tells you which.
Reading a line
Here are the first four notes of a G scale on a D/G, played along the G row, which is the inside row:
Read it left to right: push button 3′, pull button 3′, push 4′, pull 4′. That is G, A, B and C, and you've changed the bellows on every note. That's normal along a row, because each button gives one note of the scale on the push and the next on the pull.
What tab leaves out
Button numbers say nothing about rhythm. Tab is usually printed with the tune in notation or ABC, and you read the timing from that. If you don't read notation, listening to the tune does the same job; tab is much easier once the tune is in your head.
The left hand is usually shown as chord names above the line. Often you play the bass note on the strong beats and the chord in between. The bass side, button by button explains how those letters map to the buttons.
Tab for your own box
Tab is written for one layout. Tab for a D/G is no use on a G/C, and tab for a third-button start is a button out on a fourth-button start. The button charts show what each layout has where, so you can check before you start.