How to read guitar tabs

Why do you need to know how to read guitar tabs?

Most people just starting out learning to play guitar might well find reading conventional music notation a bit of a stumbling block. It is not something you can really learn overnight However, once you can read it and understand it is the best way to read and write music but learning how to read guitar tabs will be quicker.

Now here then is why knowing how to read guitar tabs is so important, especially for a beginner. Guitar tabs, or tablature make reading and writing guitar music very much easier than with conventional music notation. Tabs are in reality a pictorial representation of your guitar strings on which finger position is denoted according to the note or notes to be played.

The six strings of your guitar are represented by horizontal lines. If you look at your guitar you will see that the thickest string is at the top and the thinnest at the bottom. However as you start to learn how to read guitar tabs you will see that they are inverted, the thinnest string is at the top and the thickest at the bottom. This representation is as though you had the guitar in front of you and you turned it upwards so that you were looking at the face of the guitar.     

This set of 6 lines is known as a Staff and you will see that it has a striking similarity to the template used for standard music notation.

The strings or lines are numbered 1 – 6 starting from the top. In fact these represent then, string no.1 your high E string, string no.2 your B string, string no.3 your G string etc through to string no.6 your low E string.

1 E (High)------------------------------
2 B-------------------------------------
3 G-------------------------------------
4 D-------------------------------------
5 A-------------------------------------
6 E (Low)------------------------------

The Frets are actually the thin metal bars that run vertically across the fingerboard, but in tablature Frets refer to the gap between the metal bars, where you put your fingers.

The first or number 1 fret is the one furthest away from your playing hand at the head of the fingerboard. There are usually between 21 and 24 frets on a guitar getting narrower as you move from headstock towards the body of the guitar.

Vertical lines on the staff represent each bar and numbers placed upon a horizontal line tell you which fret you should hold down for each string within that bar.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN & MASTER YOUR GUITAR

As you will start playing from the left hand side of the staff and move to the right, as you would reading a book, the horizontal axis represents time. So each note represented on the strings is played as it appears left to right.

If there is only 1 number in a vertical plain then only that string is played with the fret number shown. If two or more numbers are shown in the vertical plain then those strings are played together using the fret numbers shown for each string. Where more than two strings are played at the same time to make a chord, the fret numbers for each string then stand in a vertical stack.

Where a string is played “open “, or not held on a fret, the notation is a 0. If no number is shown on a string then it is not played.

Here is shown tab for the chord E-major.

E------0-------------------------------
B------0-------------------------------
G------1-------------------------------
D------2-------------------------------
A------2-------------------------------
E------0-------------------------------

You will see that the fret numbers are shown in a vertical stack – so they are all played at the same time.

Here the same chord is shown where you will play each note one after the other.

E--------------------------------------------0-----
B-------------------------------------0------------
G------------------------------1-------------------
D------------------------2-------------------------
A-----------------2--------------------------------
E----------0---------------------------------------

As you start learning how to read guitar tabs you will notice a fundamental flaw in the notation is the inability to read any of the dynamics of the piece. There is no facility to note rhythm and timing except the sequence in which notes or chords are played. This can be overcome to a degree by having access to the piece played in a recording. Listening to it being played will give you that sense of rhythm and timing which you can then apply as you read the guitar tablature.

There is of course more to knowing how to read guitar tabs than you have seen so far. Things to learn include how to designate Hammering on and Pulling off, String bends and Sliding. In truth to really understand how to read guitar tabs requires an amount of specific tuition and lots of practice.
The best way to learn how to read guitar tabs is to learn it as part of a structured course. A good course will lead you through how to read guitar tabs and give you a thorough grounding and set you a series of practice exercises that will gradually build your skill in both reading guitar tabs and in playing them too.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN & MASTER YOUR GUITAR

CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL