Music Tutorial:Tablature

 How To Read A Guitar Tab

Guitar tab or tablature is essentially a method of notating

guitar music by fingering rather than pitch of notes.

A tab staff which is made up of 6 horizontal lines graphically

represents the 6 strings of a guitar and the numbers across 

these lines represent the frets. 

In order to understand a guitar tab, you need to visualize a

guitar neck as if you are playing the guitar and looking down

on the neck. The thickest string being the bottom most line

and the thinnest string being the top most.

e-------------------------------- 1st string
B--------------------------------
G----------7--------------------- 3rd string, 7th fret
D--------------------------------
A--------------------------------
E-------------------------------- 6th string

1^st string: close to ground            6^th string: close to your face

For example, in the illustration above, the tab is telling you to play the 3rd string just behind the 7th fret.

e-------------------------------- 1st string
B--------------------------------
G--------------------------------
D--------------------------------
A---2--4--2--0------------------- 5th string,2nd,4th,2nd fret.
E-------------------------------- 6th string,

Note: When the number "0" is used in the tablature, this indicates that the string is unfretted.

This is the concept of reading tab at its most basic. The more advanced aspects of reading tablature notation will include reading chords in tab.

Guitar Tab Chords

To tab a chord, the notes would be placed vertically upon the horizontal lines. The diagram below represents a C chord and you would strum once the bottom 5 strings of the guitar in one motion. 

e-------0------------------------- 1st string
B-------1------------------------- 2nd string,1st fret
G-------0------------------------- 3rd string,open
D-------2------------------------- 4th string,2nd fret
A-------3------------------------- 5th string,3rd fret
E--------------------------------- 6th string

The next diagram below represents a C chord strum twice. 

e-------0--0----------------------- 1st string
B-------1--1----------------------- 2nd string,1st fret
G-------0--0----------------------- 3rd string,open
D-------2--2----------------------- 4th string,2nd fret
A-------3--3----------------------- 5th string,3rd fret
E---------------------------------- 6th string

The inherent shortcoming of a guitar tab is that you can't read rhythm on it and neither can you read the exact length of a note. However, some good tab writers will represent it by more or less space between each note. 

Tab works best if you listen to the song for guidance on timing and rhythm and then read the notes. 

In example A the note played on the 5th fret on the E string
lasts longer then the same note in example B

ex.A                                    ex.B

          

When all the notes are evenly spaced, you can assume that 
all the notes are of equal length

   

                                               Happy Birthday in tabs