Learning How To Read Guitar Tabs: Your Best Tool For Learning Songs

One of the most important skills in learning to play guitar is to become intimately familiar with the neck of your guitar.

Hand in hand with becoming familiar with the notes on the neck of the guitar goes learning how to read guitar tabs. Guitar tabs represent a kind of short hand which is unique to those playing a guitar. It tells you which strings to hold down and which to leave open. The tabs also tell you which fret to place your finger on.

To learn to play guitar tabs you must first identify each string on the guitar. Starting with the thinnest first string you have an E which will be number 1. The second is B or number 2. The third is G or number three The fourth is D or number 4. The fifth is A or number 5 and the thickest string which is the sixth is E or number 6.

The boxes on the guitar neck which are known as frets are numbered from the far end (1) to the one nearest to you (usually about 19). Learning how to read guitar tabs means understanding which string to hold down and on which fret. For example, the notation might read 1-2 which means hold down the first string on the second fret. For example:

------ 2 ----------------------------------

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To play guitar chords you have to hold down several strings at the same time. Chords are very easy to learn if you follow the guitar tabs. To play a C chord, the tab would read like this: 2-1 4-2 5-3. For a G chord it would read: 1-3 2-2 6-3. Studying chord charts can help you easily pick up playing by tabs. When you see a 0 by the string it means play the string without holding it down (play the string 'open').

C Major

-------- 0 ------

-------- 1 ------

-------- 0 ------

-------- 2 ------

-------- 3 ------

-----------------

G Major

-------- 3 ------

-------- 0 ------

-------- 0 ------

-------- 0 ------

-------- 2 ------

--------3 -------

To be able to learn guitar tabs there are several other symbols you will need to understand. If you see 'h' in the notation it means to hammer on the note, the opposite would be to pull off the note which is noted by the letter 'g'. The letter 'b' tells you to bend the string to give the note a wobble effect. The letter 'r' is the code for releasing a note and moving on to the next one. When you see a '/', slide down to the next note by moving your finger on to the next note in the tab.

Learning how to read guitar tabs is one of the best ways to start learning songs quickly and easily. There are dozens of websites out there that have guitar tabs for most any song you know so it's well worth learning how to read them.

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