'How to read Tabs' - All You Need to Know

The lesson as promised. Just a simple lesson for beginners to understand the basics of reading tablature. All the basic (and a bit advanced) keys are here. Spend the time to learn this… it will be important in your future guitar journey.

Guitar tablature, or just tab for short, is a notation system that graphically represents the frets and strings of the guitar. Tab is guitar-specific, and it tells you what string and fret to play. Use the tab if you’re ever unsure as to which fret or string a note falls on.

Music for guitar usually comes either in tab or with two staff, one using standard music notation (the one with the treble clef), with a tab staff just beneath it, like most of the examples of guitar music you'll find on this site. The tab staff aligns with and reflects exactly what’s going on in the regular musical staff above it, but it’s in guitar language.

The following figure shows a tab staff and some sample notes and a chord. Here are a few points to keep in mind when reading tab:

•    The lines of the tab staff represent guitar strings, from the 1st string on top (high E) to the 6th string on bottom (low E).

•    A numeral appearing on any given line tells you to press, or fret, that string at that numbered fret. For example, if you see the numeral 2 on the fourth line from the top, you need to press down the 4nd string (D) at the 2nd fret (actually, the space between the 1st and 2nd fret, closer to the 2nd metal fret wire).

•    A 0 on a line means that you play the open string — that is, unfretted, with no left-hand finger touching the string.

When you see stacked notes, as in bar 3 of the figure, that notation tells you to play the fretted strings all at the same time, which produces a chord. The fretted strings in the figure form a D major chord.


Now for the slightly hard stuff.

Duration Legend

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W - whole; H - half; Q - quarter; E - 8th; S - 16th; T - 32nd; X - 64th; a - acciaccatura

+ - note tied to previous; . - note dotted; .. - note double dotted

Uncapitalized letters represent notes that are staccato (1/2 duration)

Irregular groupings are notated above the duration line

Duration letters will always appear directly above the note/fret number it represents the

duration for.  Duration letters with no fret number below them represent rests.  Multi-

bar rests are notated in the form Wxn, where n is the number of bars to rest for.  Low

melody durations appear below the staff

Tablature Legend

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 h   - hammer-on

 p   - pull-off

 b   - bend

 pb  - pre-bend

 r   - bend release (if no number after the r, then release immediately)

 /\  - slide into or out of (from/to "nowhere")

 s   - legato slide

 S   - shift slide

  - natural harmonic

[n]  - artificial harmonic

n(n) - tapped harmonic

 ~   - vibrato

 tr  - trill

 T   - tap

 TP  - trem. picking

 PM  - palm muting

\n/  - tremolo bar dip; n = amount to dip

 \n  - tremolo bar down

 n/  - tremolo bar up

/n\  - tremolo bar inverted dip

 =   - hold bend; also acts as connecting device for hammers/pulls

 <>  - volume swell (louder/softer)

 x   - on rhythm slash represents muted slash

 o   - on rhythm slash represents single note slash

Misc Legend

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 |  - bar

||  - double bar

||o - repeat start

o|| - repeat end

*|  - double bar (ending)

 :  - bar (freetime)

 $  - Segno

 &  - Coda

Tempo markers -  = BPM(8/16=s8/s16), where s8 = swing 8ths, s16 = swing 16ths

Hope you were able to get something from this lesson. Any questions you can comment or mail universeofguitars@gmail.com