HowToReadGuitarTabs

• How to Read Guitar Tabs

How to Read Guitar Tabs

Most guitarists are self-taught, as guitar is one of the easier instruments out there to just pick up and start learning.  Part of that is due to how portable it is – in social groups, there is almost always at least one person who owns a guitar.  And of course, in college or high school there is that other kind of person who brings their guitar everywhere they go.  Chances are the first guitar lesson you ever got was from a friend who played.  I remember that when I first started I was lucky to have a friend who was an extremely adept guitar player.  Sometimes he would come over while I was trying to play a song and re-arrange my fingers on the fret board in such a way that everything just magically sounded better.

The Easiest and quickest way to tablature mastery

If you want to skip all the mumbo jumbo you find out there that promises to teach you how to read tabs but doesn't deliver, then you need to click here and download this guide.

Click on the picture to the left (or on the link above) to download the free e-book on how to read guitar tabs. It will sort everything out in no time (and the video is pretty cool too -- click on the link to see what I'm talking about!).

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Guitar Tablature: The Easy Guide

Like I said, the best guide to guitar tablature that I've found is at the link above, so you need to check that out first. But here's a brief explanation that should get you going...

Since the do-it-yourself aesthetic is common amongst guitarists, it is not surprising that instead of standard musical notation, guitar tablature is the most popular method for transcribing songs.  Guitar tablature is a system that uses direct visual representations of which frets and strings you should place your fingers in order to play the notes that make up the song.  Tablature uses 6 lines, one to represent each string, and these lines are ordered from the 1st  string on down.  Each of the strings is labeled according to the note that sounds when they are played open: E, B, G, D, A, and E.

All of this is taught, by the way, in all of the better "how to play guitar" courses that are available online. For my money, two of the best are Jamorama (click on the link to check it out) and Amazing Guitar Secrets (click on the link). Jamorama is a great value for the money as they've just lowered their price for a short time. It's a great time to get your hands on one of the best guitar courses around for a steal. So do yourself a favor and check it out.

Common Guitar Tab Notations and What They Mean

While the strings might be labeled with their note names, none of the fretted notes are identified.  Instead of note names on the strings there are numbers, and these numbers represent the fret where your finger needs to go.  So, if you see a 3 on the 2nd string, then you need to fret the 3rd fret of the second string, or B string.  A 0 means that you should play the open string.  If you see a cluster of numbers together, one of top of the other, then this represents a chord.  Sometimes a guitar tab will identify the chord by name underneath the row of strings.  This allows people who are familiar with chord formations to quickly fret the necessary notes instead of having to interpret the cluster of numbers.

Guitar Tabs are a Song's "Roadmap"

It helps to think of guitar tabs as a roadmap to a particular song.  While they don’t ever display the rhythm of the track in question, they provide you with a starting point and let you follow along while you listen to the song.  Each of the fret numbers is another sign post on your way to playing the complete piece of music.  You might find that the tabs you download from the internet are divided up into different sections for the verses and choruses.  

You will sometimes see an ‘x 3’ at the end of a section – this is telling you to repeat that section 3 times.  You may also encounter small sections of tab labeled ‘Fill x’ where x represents a number.  These fills are little riffs or changes to the standard verse and chorus tab that are often tacked on to the end of a particular section.  Sometimes your roadmap can end up feeling more like a jigsaw puzzle as you try to piece together all of the different sections, but with a little practice, you’ll figure out how to read guitar tabs in no time.