How to use FretLens

Paste a guitar tab in the left panel and press Process. FretLens replaces the fret numbers with note names. The layout stays the same — same strings, same timing, same spacing.

Before:                        After:
e|--0--2--3--                  e|--E--Gb-G--
B|--0--3--5--                  B|--B--D--E--
G|--0--0--0--                  G|--G--G--G--
D|--0--2--3--                  D|--D--E--F--
A|--------                     A|--------
E|--------                     E|--------

Reading the notes

Note formatting tells you which octave you're in:

Frets 0–11 (open position) — UPPERCASE

e|--0--1--3--5--    →    e|--E--F--G--A--

Frets 12–24 (one octave up) — lowercase

e|--12--13--15--17--    →    e|--e--f--g--a--

Frets above 24 (two octaves up) — lowercase + underlined

e|--25--    →    e|--f--

At a glance: uppercase = low register, lowercase = high, underlined = very high.

Techniques

Technique markers are preserved between the note names. Hammer-ons and pull-offs use superscript characters for a cleaner look.

Hammer-on — h becomes superscript ʰ

e|--5h7--    →    e|--AʰB--

Pull-off — p becomes superscript ᵖ

e|--7p5--    →    e|--BᵖA--

Slide up (/) and down (\)

e|--5/7--    →    e|--A/B--
e|--7\5--    →    e|--B\A--

Bend — b becomes ↑

e|--7b9--    →    e|--B↑Db--
e|--7b---    →    e|--B↑---

When a target fret follows the bend, it shows which note you're bending to.

Trill / tremolo — tr becomes superscript ᵗʳ

e|--7tr9--    →    e|--BᵗʳDb--

Release — r becomes ↓

e|--9r7--    →    e|--Db↓B--

Tuning

FretLens auto-detects the tuning from the string labels (E, A, D, G, B, e). If you're in a non-standard tuning, type it in the Tuning box — low string to high string, e.g. DADGAD or DADGBE. Use b for flats and # for sharps (e.g. EbAbDbGbBbeb).

Transpose

Use the Transpose dropdown to shift all notes up or down by semitones. Use Accidentals to choose between flats (Db) and sharps (C#).

Why bother?

The idea is simple: play songs with note names instead of fret numbers. From the very first bar, it's a challenge — the notes feel unfamiliar, and it can be hard to tell where anything is on the fretboard. That's the point. Hide the original tab and try to play from the note names alone. It's uncomfortable at first, but that discomfort is the learning happening.

After playing a few songs with note names, patterns start to stick: B is always one fret below C, the same note appears at different positions across strings, octaves and fifths line up in predictable shapes. The fretboard stops being a grid of arbitrary numbers and starts making musical sense — not through drills, but through playing.

FretLens just makes the notes visible. Everything else — the intuition, the fretboard knowledge, the harmonic awareness — comes from playing.