In fact, Tai-yu's book can be understood with a little explanation: the characters are composites of other, standard characters which, in combination, indicate which fingers to use where.
其實黛玉所用的譜，已是經改良的「減字譜」，只要稍加解釋並不難懂。例如，表示「大」指在第「十」徽，右手「勾」第「四』弦。