How to Read Guitar Tabs to Master the Guitar

Once you have decided to learn how to play the guitar, you are very likely brimming over with excitement; you have your brand new guitar, some accessories and even some guitar tabs to get you off to a good start. You're excited; at least until you look at those tabs and realize you haven't a clue how to read guitar tabs! Luckily, reading guitar tabs is not terribly difficult. Once you learn how to read guitar tabs, you'll be playing from tabs in no time! They are easier than sheet music and are designed specifically with beginning players in mind.

Reading guitar tabs is easy once you get to know the layout of the tabs. Tabs are the preferred method of music for many beginning guitar players, because it allows you to start learning how to play guitar before you even learn how to read sheet music. There are many differences and similarities between traditional sheet music and guitar tabs. First, guitar tabs show you where each note that is to be played is and how to play it.

Traditional sheet music and guitar tabs share some similarities; but there are many important differences. Guitar tabs, unlike sheet music denote where each note is played by demonstrating the proper placement of your fingers. When you are learning how to read guitar tabs, the first thing you will likely notice is that each tab has six lines as opposed to the five seen in sheet music - these six lines represent the six strings of a guitar. The dots shown on guitar tabs show you where to put your fingers. So you will need to become familiar with the six strings of your guitar before you start reading guitar tabs.

There are six strings on a guitar, E, B, G, D, A, and E again. The first E, is a high E, with the last E being the low. When learning how to read guitar tabs, you will need to know the placement of these strings on the tab itself. The lines go from top to bottom, the higher E will be on top, which is then followed by the B, G, D, A, and lower E on the bottom, in that order.

The strings on your guitar correspond to the following notes: E, B, G, D, A and E. The first E is the high E string and the sixth string is the low E. When you are learning how to read guitar tabs, you need to know how the tabs translate to your guitar strings. The lines on these tabs are directly related, with the top line being your high E string and so on down.

These numbers will be present in your tabs and correspond with frets on your guitar; however, you will also see an occasional zero on the tabs - this means that you should play that string "open". Open means that you will not place your finger on any fret. To briefly explain, if you were to see the number four on the A string in your guitar tab, you would place your finger on the fourth fret of that string.

When learning how to read guitar tabs, you'll see a lot of other symbols on the tab - these include X,B,R,H,P,PM,T and /. These symbols all have a different meaning. An X, for instance means that that string will not played during that particular chord or note. A B means that the note should be bent, the P a pull off.

To briefly run down the other symbols, an H denotes a hammer-on, R release, T is for tap, PM means to palm mute that note or chord and a / means to slide. When you are learning to read guitar tabs, you will gradually become with all of these parts of playing and reading tabs - frets, symbols and everything else.

About the Author

If you appreciated this article on How to Read Guitar Tabs by author, 'Guitar Dan' Adkins, take a few seconds to see what else he has to offer at Guitars FYI

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