How to read Guitar Tab: The Basics

Guitar Tab

When learning to play guitar, one of the most important things, in my opinion is being able to read guitar tab. (Tablature) Without tab, assuming of course you cannot read music, it will be very difficult to lean new songs or to remember songs that you have written. The good news though is that Tab is very simple and easy to understand!

Guitar tab is a way to represent the strings of a guitar, Each line being a string. e Being the thinnest string, E being the thickest.

e--------------------------------
B--------------------------------
G--------------------------------
D--------------------------------
A--------------------------------
E--------------------------------

Numbers are then written on the lines. Each number represents where you place your finger on the fret board. The example below would be played by placing a finger behind the second metal strip (fret) on the fret board. A 0 means the string is plucked with no finger on the fret board. (Open)

e-------------------------------
B-------------------------------
G-------------------------------
D-------------------------------
A--2--2--2--4--2--0---------
E-------------------------------

Chords

The tab below represents a C chord. The notes in a chord are written in a vertical line. This means they are all to be picked, or strummed at the same time. Notice the E string has no numbers on it. This means it does not get played.

e--0----------------------------
B--1----------------------------
G--0----------------------------
D--2----------------------------
A--3----------------------------
E-------------------------------

The two main problems with tab are that it does not tell you which fingers to use and it does not give any indication of timing or rhythm. For this reason, i would recommend listening to a song while learning it from tab and follow along.

Tab Symbols

Below is a list of pretty much all the symbols used in tab. These will tell you how to play each not or if you have to do anything fancy. I will not go into detail of how to use each of these techniques, however soon i will do a post on advanced techniques.

That's all for now, keep on playing!

Thanks for reading, Paul