How to Read Guitar Tab

From £10 per lesson (based on purchasing 10 ten lessons)

In this lesson you will learn the basics needed to be able to read guitar tab.
You will work through an example exercise and be able to relate instructions straight onto your guitar fretboard.
After this lesson you can begin to learn songs.

You will need to understand what frets are to learn from this article

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GOOD NEWS!! You will not need to learn how to read music to play guitar. However you will need to know how to read Guitar Tablature (tab).

Tab is the name for the way guitar music is written. Its easy to read and easy to follow, and very easy to learn the basics.

You dont need any previous musical experience to understand guitar tab. You just need to understand how to relate the lines and numbers to your guitar.

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Basics

Below is a typical layout for guitar tab.

Reading tab is like reading basic instructions, you read tab from left to right and follow the instructions.

Tab is upside down, so the bottom horizontal line is actually the string nearest to you (the thickest string)

The horizontal line at the top of the tab is the string furthest away from you (the thinnest string)

E|------------------------ String on the right of the picture above
B|------------------------
G|------------------------
D|------------------------
A|------------------------
E|------------------------ String on the left of the picture above

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Playing Indivdual Notes

E|------------------------ String on the right of the picture above
B|------------------------
G|------------------------
D|------------------------
A|------------------------
E|-1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8- String on the left of the picture above

There are six horizontal lines and each of them represent the six strings on a guitar.

The numbers on the lines represent which fret you will need to play.

1 means play the first fret on that string
2 means play the second fret on that string
3 means play the third fret on that string and so on
0 means dont play any fret on that string, play the string open.

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Playing Notes on Different Strings

If you pick up a guitar and play each sting individually, starting from the nearest string to you (the thickest string) and work downwards, playing one string at a time.

Then come back again. So start by playing the furthest string from you and work your way upwards, playing one string at a time

E|------------0-0--------------(Thinnest string - furthest away)
B|----------0-----0------------
G|--------0---------0----------
D|------0-------------0--------
A|----0-----------------0------
E|--0---------------------0----(Thickest string - nearest to you)

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Chords

When the numbers all line up vertically, it means play the notes all at the same time (strum all the strings)
As an exercise, try playing this:

E|--0-------------------------(Thinnest string - furthest away)
B|--0-------------------------
G|--0-------------------------
D|--2----Ring Finger----------
A|--2----Middle Finger--------
E|--0-------------------------(Thickest string - nearest to you)

Use your middle and ring finger to play the chord
- The key is to play the strings cleanly without them buzzing

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Bars

You will come across bars quite often when reading my tabs on this site. They are really easy to understand, just have a quick read through this because I am going to try to explain the basics of rhythm.

Most music and songs that you hear are played at a certain speed. The speed of a song normally stays constant throughout from start to finish. Most people are able to follow the beat of a song without even realising it, they do it subconsciously. For example if you dance, you dance to the speed and rhythm of a song. Sometimes you may be listening to a song and you're tapping your foot along to the beat of a song without even realising it. If this doesnt sound familiar then try it for yourself. Play any song and try and tap your foot along with it (if you really struggle with that, then try playing any dance song and just try to tap your feet to the drum beat)

Ok, so play that song again, but this time dont worry about tapping your feet, try instead counting "1-2-3-4" "1-2-3-4" "1-2-3-4" "1-2-3-4" - at the speed that you were tapping your feet. Just repeat that over and over again. Well as a general rule, each time you repeat 1-2-3-4, you have heard a "bar" of music.

Bars are just a way to split up a song into sections of equal amounts of time. They are also a way to split guitar tab up so you can get a feel for when you are supposed to play a chord or change a chord.

In terms of tab, when you see one of these symbols ¦ it represents a new bar.

Ok so lets pick up the guitar and follow this tab example (I am assuming you now understand how to follow tab)

1 2 3 4 ¦1 2 3 4 (Beats for you to count)

E¦----------------¦----------------¦
B¦----------------¦----------------¦
G¦----------------¦----------------¦
D¦----------------¦----------------¦
A¦----------------¦----------------¦
E¦0---0---0---0---¦0---0---0---0---¦ (Notes for you to play)

You can see yourself in this example after four notes, a new bar has started

Hopefully this hasn't been to complicated or messy to understand, but thats all you need to understand

You can count tempo

Bars break up the song into