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How to Read Guitar Tab
Guitar tab lesson for beginners
You can easily learn how to read guitar tab without any knowledge of classical
music notation.
After all, when guitarists are learning the chords and lead for a
song, they need to know where to stick their fingers.
We'll start with a few examples to get
you familiar with the tab diagrams.
Oh, by the way, tab is short for tablature!
The
basics of how to read guitar tab
This is the fretboard position
that tab diagrams
mimick. It's the alignment of the strings we're interested in - skinny
string at top, fat string at the bottom.
 ...And
here's a typical blank tab diagram. We ignore the
frets on the actual tab diagram because numbers are added on each
string to tell you which fret your fingers should sit.
Numbers are used on the diagram to indicate at which fret the
string should be "pressed". However, you will often see a zero...
0
marks an open string,
which means you play that string as it
is, without fretting it.
This 0 can apply to any
string and, when noted on the tab diagram, it
simply means you do not need to fret that particular string, since the
desired note is created by the open string.
Next...
So in this example we're fretting the D string at fret
number 3.
Notice how no fret wires are
drawn on the diagram - we don't need them
because of those fret numbers!
Ok, so that was pretty easy
stuff - let's take things a little further...
We're going to look at part of
a guitar scale (actually, the first 4 notes of the G major
scale -
not important right now!)
Take a look at the tab below
and play on your guitar this sequence of notes, fretting the
appropriate string one after the other...
Tab doesn't tell us anything
about which fingers you use to fret each note, but you'll pick that up
when you move on to learn individual scales.
Rhythm and speed is also up to
you, although in a lot of cases, you'll be using tab as a reference for
a song you already know quite well, so you'll have an idea of the
rhythm and speed needed.
If it's a scale exercise, it's
best to start slow and speed up gradually using a metronome.
Onwards and upwards...
Guitar tabs are used for both lead
guitar and
chords. You've just followed a simple lead guitar tab, so now let's
look at reading chords.
The tab above represents a chord. Same as
before - position your fingers (as they feel comfortable) on the frets
accordingly. The only difference is that with chords, all the notes are played together.
So if you see the tab numbers in a vertical line, like above, they're
to be played together.
The X means you should
not
play that string at all,
the 0
means play the string but don't fret it and the 2 means fret
the string at fret number... yep, 2!
Incidentally, that was the A
major chord in tab form. More on chords in the chords section. When a chord progression is tabbed out, you get a sequence of chords like below... 
You'll
notice I've left the X's off this time. Sometimes you'll see a tab
which doesn't mark unplayed strings, but remember - if there's an X or
no fret number marked on the string, it simply means don't play that string.
And that's it for now!
Hopefully, you should now be
comfortable with the basics of how to read
guitar tab. Tab is very versatile and lead guitarists use several
symbols to refer to certain physical playing techniques (such as
hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends etc.).
If you develop into a lead
guitarist, visit my lead guitar section where this tab lesson will be
expanded on, looking at the special symbols used in lead guitar
tablature.
Keep practicing, and check out
the other lessons in the beginner guitar section...
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