How To Read Guitar Tab

Reading Guitar Tab

Guitar tablature (tab for short) is a system of notation that graphically represents strings and frets of the guitar fretboard. Each note is indicated by placing a number which indicates the fret to play, on the appropriate string. With these easy instructions you will be able to understand how to read and write guitar tab in 5 minutes.

The Basics of Reading Guitar Tab

To start out, tabs are written in lines, each line representing a string on the guitar. The thickest string being the bottom most line and the thinnest string being the topmost.

e--------------------------------
B--------------------------------
G--------------------------------
D--------------------------------
A--------------------------------
E--------------------------------
Numbers are then placed on these lines to represent finger positions on the guitar fret board. If you read the diagram below you would play this on a guitar by putting your finger just behind the 2nd fret on the 5th string (or the second thickest string). As musical notes this would read as follows B B B C# B A. The ‘zero’ represents playing an open string. So in this case you would play the A open with no finger position on the fretboard.

e-------------------------------
B-------------------------------
G-------------------------------
D-------------------------------
A--2--2--2--4--2--0------------
E-------------------------------

How to Read Guitar Tab Chords

To tab a chord the notes would be placed in a vertical line upon the horizontal ones. This diagram represents a C Chord. You would strum the bottom 5 strings of the guitar in one motion if you were to read this tab properly.

e--0----------------------------
B--1----------------------------
G--0----------------------------
D--2----------------------------
A--3----------------------------
E-------------------------------
And this one you would strum the ‘C Chord’ three times.

e--0--0--0---------------------
B--1--1--1---------------------
G--0--0--0---------------------
D--2--2--2---------------------
A--3--3--3---------------------
E------------------------------
The one shortcoming of guitar tab is it doesn’t usually represent how long to hold a note for, or rhythm very well. Although some good tab writers will represent it by how much space is between each note. Tab works best if you listen to the song for guidance on timing then read the notes and practice it. Here for example is the timing of ‘Day Tripper’ by the Beatles, note the distances between the numbers, the first ‘0′ would ring slightly longer then the next 4 notes and the distance between D2 and D0 would also indicate a break in timing:

e-----------------------------
B-----------------------------
G-----------------------------
D-----------2---0---4---0-2--
A---------2-------2---2-------
E-0---3-4---------------------