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THE GUITAR PLAYERS COMMUNITY

Reading Guitar Tablature

Guitar tablature (or tabs) is a simple, plain-text way of writing musical notation for the guitar. It is widely used on the internet to enable anyone to be able to play a piece of music with minimum effort or knowledge. It has several drawbacks over standard musical notation, but it very quickly enables the beginner to start playing their favourite songs.

A simple tab looks like:

A tab contains 6 lines each representing the 6 strings on a guitar. The top line is the high E string (the thinnest string on your guitar, also called the 1st string), and the bottom line is the low E string (the thickest string, also called the 6th string). For more accuracy a tablature can also be divided into measures. This groups notes into a bar, and gives more sense of the timing and structore of a piece of music. The tempo should be indicated in the beginning of the tab for example: 120bpm

On the tab above, the tab is divided into three measures. If the song is in 4/4 timing. Each measure would receive 4 beats. Any variation in the tempo will be indicated in a tab. A tab does not indicate note names to be played, instead it indicates the frets to be fretted. For example:

The tab above plays the D major scale. You start to read a tab from left to right. The first note from left to right is the 5. This means fret the 5th fret on the A string. Then the next note being the 7, fret the 7th fret on the A string. Then comes the 4, fret the 4th fret of the D string. Next upahead is the 5th fret of the D string. And so on. A tab does not indicate the interval between two notes. For the exact interval you have to listen to the music piece itself.

For example:

In this case the notes are almost played together, i.e you play the 5th fret right after you play the 4th fret.

In this case the interval is large. So after playing the 2nd fret you have to wait a little before playing the 5th fret.

NOTE: A long interval does not necessarily mean that the note is supposed to ring, it may also be muted right after being played.

A ‘0′ on a tab represents that the open string is supposed to be played. Like in the example above.

Chords In Tabs

So far you have been playing single notes on strings. But chords can also be shown on a tablature.

The above tab shows the tab for the A minor chord. When the notes are completely horizontal in line. They have to be played simultaneously like a chord. Neither guitar tablature, or musical notation will tell you which fingers to use to play a chord.

When playing a riff (a series of notes), some chords are also indicated. For example for the D major scale above, the D7 indicates that a D7 chord should be played during this bar or measure. And then an A minor has to be played for the next bar.

Hammer-ons

The ‘h’ symbol is used to indicate a hammer-on. The tab above shows that the 3rd fret is played and then hammered on the 5th fret. The 5th fret is not played! Again the interval between the note and the hammer-on has to be heard in the music piece.

Pull-offs

The ‘p’ symbol is used to indicate pull-offs. The tab above shows that the 5th fret is played and pulled off to the 3rd fret. The 3rd fret has to be fretted before.

Slides

The ‘/’ symbol indicates sliding up to a higher note. In this case the 2nd fret is played and is slid to the 6th fret. The 6th fret can be played, for confirmation listen to the music piece.

The "\" symbol is used to indicate sliding back to a lower note. In the example above, the 15th fret is played and then slide to the 12th played which can or cannot be played.

Bends

The ‘b’ symbol is used to show the bending of a string. A note followed by a ‘b’ shows that the note should be bended to the next note.

The tab above shows that the string at 2nd fret should be bended till it reaches the pitch of the 4th fret.

The tab above shows that the 10th fret must be bended upto the 12th fret and then at ‘rb’ the bend must be released and the string must be brought to its initial position. The symbol for release bend is "rb"

Vibrato

The ‘~’ symbol is used to indicate vibrato. The number of ‘~’ indicates the amount of vibrato applied. When there are more ‘~’, more vibrato is applied.

Muting

The ‘x’ is used to show muting. In the example above , the A string is played muted, then the other notes are played, and then again the muted strings.

Tremolo picking

The ‘tr’ is the symbol for tremolo picking, The ‘~’ sign shows the amount of tremolo picking or for how long to do the tremolo picking.

Artificial harmonics

The note in the () shows the sweet spot or the fret where the harmonic will be sounded.

Wah Wah effects

The symbol w/wah means with wah wah. This part has to be played with the wah wah depressed.

Whammy bar (tremolo bar)

The symbol ‘wh’ is for the whammy bar bends. The number of ‘~’ indicate the amount of whammy bar to use.

NOTE: This is the standard notation for tablature but many authors do tend to use their own versions.