In an effort to help people tab more songs and tab them more easily, I'm hoping to compile a list of tabbing tips, so please submit any tips you have. This will be geared toward those just starting out, but I imagine ever the veterans will learn a thing or two as we share different approaches.

Specifically:
a) How do you choose which song you are going to tab?
b) What do you start with? (an audio track, a lick/riff on your harp, sheet music, etc.)
c) Do you use any tools to help you (software, hardware, etc.)?
d) How do you record the tab (pen/pencil & paper, straight to computer, etc.)?
e) How do you post them to harptabs.com (do you use a certain font, do you copy & paste from another program or type directly into the harptabs.com form, etc?)

Personally, I tend to start with songs or artists/bands I like. First I do a search on harptabs.com to see if someone has already tabbed it (I search by song, by artist, and by any variation I think might capture the song; e.g., adding or dropping "the" from the title). I'll then search on the Web to see if anyone has tabbed the song for piano or guitar, or whether free sheet music is available for it. Sometimes, I'll be able to get part of a song on my own, but most of my songs are tabbed from sheet music. Once I translate the musical notation to numerical harp tabs (using pencil & paper), I play the song to see if it sounds right--usually, a note isn't available or doesn't sound right and I have to adjust to what sounds right (sometimes this is a piece of cake and sometimes one note really holds me up; sometimes translating a tab up or down an octave can help too). Once I've got the notes right, I usually do a search for the lyrics on the Web, copy and paste the lyrics to Word in a font like Courier (any monospaced font which allows you to line things up by using the spacebar will work). I type in the tabs (using nothing but the numbers for blows, a minus sign for draws, and a B or BBs to indicate partial and full bends). Then I copy and paste into the "Add a Tab" form on the harptabs.com website, make sure I've filled in all the info I know (artist/band, key, type of harmonica, genre, etc.), type in any notes that might be useful, and submit it.

Thanks in advance for any tips you can share!
-marc