Learn how to read guitar tabs.
Tabs, or “tablature” as it’s otherwise known, is a system of notation that shows you exactly where to place your fingers on the fretboard. It is a useful tool for learning how to play guitar songs, and these days it is so widely used that it is absolutely necessary for an aspiring guitarist to be familiar with it.
Tablature uses horizontal lines, but these lines represent the strings of the guitar. The spaces between tablature lines are not used, so ignore them.
The lowest line of tablature represents the low E string. The next one up is the A string, and so forth like so:
Typically, tablature doesn’t include labels identifying which string each line represents, but assumes that the reader already knows how to read guitar tabs. Therefore, all the tab throughout the remainder of this lesson will likewise not include labels. Don’t let this worry you, they will all be easy guitar tabs. At first.
With tablature, the numbers on each string show, not which finger to use, but what fret you’re playing. It’s up to you to decide which finger to use. As you become more familiar with how to play guitar songs, you will know right away which fingers to use. So, when we see this…
…we know that we are playing the A string at the 3rd fret. That, as you will remember, is Middle C. Now, knowing what we have already learned, it’s probably a good idea to play this note with the middle finger, right? That is because chances are pretty good that the next note will be one of the other notes from the C major scale. In fact, while we’re at it, let’s take a look at what the C major scale looks like in tab:
Now, keeping your fingers in the same position, try to play this simple tune using tab:
There are many sources online for free easy guitar songs for beginners. It would be to your advantage to seek them out and learn as many of them as possible. Becoming familiar with a wide variety of music is the best way to learn how to play guitar songs.
When first learning how to read guitar tabs, it is also important to become familiar with how they represent guitar chords. Chords are shown by stacking three or more notes vertically. This signifies that these notes are played simultaneously rather than one at a time, as with a scale.
The numbers are stacked vertically in order to show that they are to be played together as a chord. Here is an example of the C major chord we have already learned:
At this point I will repeat that the numbers on guitar tab do not represent the fingers you use to play the chord. They represent the frets. This is the most important element of guitar tabs for beginners to remember.
On this particular chord the fret numbers happen to correspond with the fingers used, but you will see as we continue to learn how to read guitar tabs that this is not always the case. Here is another example:
This of course is an A minor chord. You will notice the (0) on the low E string on both of these chords. The parentheses indicate that this string is optional. If there is not a number on a string, that means that you do not play that string, as with the F major chord:
Here we see that the Middle C is optional, but the low E is not played at all. Avoiding this low E string can be achieved by “muting” it with your thumb.
Sometimes, you will see easy guitar tabs that require you to form a chord with your left hand, but play the notes individually. More often than not, the name of the chord will be shown above the tab, so you can get your fingers in place quickly.
This tab tells you that you are playing the notes of a C major chord one at a time.
Okay, now let’s have some fun.
We already know how to form the chords from the key of C major, and we know how to read guitar tabs. But we haven’t spent any time moving from one chord to another. Let’s try that now. Here is a simple, and very common, chord sequence:
Before we get to some easy songs to play on guitar, let’s take a look at something else. Here is the very same chord progression, however, instead of playing the notes of each chord all at once, we will be playing them one at a time. But beware: these notes are not in order:
It’s a bit challenging isn’t it? In fact it is one of the simplest and most widely-used guitar chord progressions in the world. As far as easy guitar tabs go, this is among the easiest. It is important, however, when learning guitar tabs for beginners to become comfortable with this exercise before progressing to more complex ones.
I hope you learned something from this....
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