Every guitarist needs to know how to read guitar tab (tablature) but many beginners find the clusters of numbers, letters and countless hyphens to be a little intimidating. Actually, playing guitar tab is incredibly simple once you learn a few basics.
What are guitar tabs?
Guitar tabs help guitarists play songs without having to learn the tune by ear or purchase traditional music notation. Essentially, one guitarist figures out how to play a song – Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” for instance – and he uses guitar tab to show others how it’s done. It’s completely free. But keep in mind, many tabs have errors in them, and you should always play along with a recording of the song to check the accuracy.
The lines
Most guitar tabs look vaguely like traditional music notation. There are lines, usually six of them, made mostly of hyphens (or dashes, if that’s what you call them). Each of these lines represents a guitar string. Similar to traditional notation, all six lines should be read simultaneously, from left to right.
Often these lines are unlabeled, and it can be a little difficult for beginners to tell which line represents which guitar string. Trial and error is the only surefire method for figuring this out, but most tabs have the highest pitch string at the top and the lowest pitch string at the bottom. If the lines were labeled by the guitar strings’ open notes (which they sometimes are) they would read, from top to bottom: e, b, g, d, a, E.
The numbers
The numbers in guitar tabs represent notes. The value of the number indicates which fret the note is played at. So if the first note in a guitar tab is a “4” on the bottom line, you should press your finger down on the fourth fret of the lowest string -usually called the low E string – and play the note (it’s a G#).
It’s often necessary to play more than one note at a time, so there are numbers stacked on top of each other. This happens when you need to play chords. Don’t be intimidated by this – it may just take a second for you to get used to the chord shape.
Other letters and symbols
You will see these letters and symbols frequently as you learn guitar tab. They direct you to play in the style used by the initial guitarist – say, Jimmy Page.
p – pull off
h – hammer on
/ or – slide
~ – let the note ring
^ or b – bend
x – mute the string
The rhythm
You’re pretty much on your own on this one. The biggest difference between learning guitar tab and learning sheet music is that there is rarely a rhythm indicated in guitar tab. Most tab writers just assume you have easy access to a recorded version of the song, and you can hear the rhythm that way. Even if you don’t have the CD or the mp3 downloaded, you can always use GrooveShark, which allows you to listen to almost any song you can imagine for free.
These are just the basics, but you shouldn’t need much more than that to get started. Now, get shredding!
