How To Read Guitar Tab: A Beginner's Guide

Guitar tablature, a different style of musical notation, is designed completely for the guitar.  It's a much easier approach to reading music and knowing precisely where the note or notes are being played on the neck of the guitar.  While fingering is revealed in tablature, be aware that rhythm, or how the notes are played, will not be.  I suggest listening to the song along with reading tablature or studying standard notation.

So now let's get into understanding guitar tab.  Tab is a great way to learn your favorite songs quickly.  If you listen to the song and get tab for it, you will know exactly what that guitarist is playing.  There are many resources online that will help you find those guitar tabs.

First, let's go over the most basic guitar tablature.  You will find a good introduction at http://guitar.about.com/od/tabchordslyrics/ss/read_guitar_tab_2.htm. 

Understanding the Tab Staff

 

A tab staff for guitar has six horizontal lines, each one representing a string of the instrument. The bottom line of the staff represents your lowest "E" string, the second line from the bottom represents your "A" string, etc. Easy enough to read, right?

Notice that there are numbers located smack dab in the middle of the lines (aka strings). The numbers simply represent the fret the tab is telling you to play. For example, in the illustration above, the tab is telling you to play the third string (third line) seventh fret.

Note: When the number "0" is used in tablature, this indicates that the open string should be played.
This is the concept of reading tab, at its most basic.

Guitar tab is a style of notation that is easier to comprehend for a beginner guitarist than standard notation.  Let's continue with another example of basic guitar tab.  In this example,  two popular melody lines will be included to get a grasp on how a song will look like in guitar tab at http://www.countryguitarlessons.org/how-to-read-guitar-tablature.html.

Let’s begin by taking a look at this image below.  You’ll notice that it has the number 1-6 instead of the actual note of the string.  This is how tabs are read.  They don’t use the string names.  But it’s still very important to memorize each string for other guitar playing purposes (like down tuning, scales, chords, etc.).

 

Now this can be quite confusing at first.  But if you look carefully, you’ll notice that the fattest string (E) is number 6.  The lightest and most high pitch string is the high E also referred to as 1 in tablature.  Remember this also as it’s important.

When you take that image of the fret board with the frets and the string numbers to the written form, you’ll get the image below which is a standard tab diagram:

 

Remember that I told you how it’s important to remember the letters as well?  That’s because some tab is written using the letters instead of the numbers like in this example tab I found:

The same rules apply for the strings as with the other tab example.  The E on the bottom after the A represents the fat string on your guitar.  So by looking at this picture, you would start off playing this tab on the 4th or G string of your guitar.  Now let’s talk about what those numbers mean going across.

As you may have guessed, there are 6 lines and each line represents a guitar string.  The top being the thinnest or high E and the bottom being the thickest or low E.

On the fret board, you’ll notice the metal pieces sticking up at various locations.  These are here for a reason and separated at just the right distance to form the correct notes.

Each section of these frets as they’re called represents the horizontal numbers you saw above on the tab for ‘Silent Night’.

So to play that piece of tab in the example, your first note is shown at 0, also known as open.  This means you hold nothing down when you pluck the string.

Then you press down that same string on the second fret and pluck again.  Then it’s open again and you pluck it and so on and so forth.  The number that you see on the horizontal lines or “strings” is where you hold down that specific string on the fretboard on your guitar.

Pat yourself on the back.  You have just learned how to read guitar tab.  When you see something like the following example, you’ll now have a general idea of how to play it:

This is the most famous song of Christmas, Jingle Bells.  To play this song according to this tab, you start off holding down the 5th or A string on the 5th fret and continue from there.

This Jingle Bells tab is actually a perfect example that you should use to practice.  Start off slow and go through the entire string.  You’ll occasionally get confused as to which fingers to use and for that I have this answer:

Use whichever finger is most comfortable for you to play that note.

But do NOT neglect the pinky.  Yes it might be annoying to use at first.  But when you get used to using it, you’ll be thanking yourself later.  It’s a great finger to use and absolutely necessary for playing anything intermediate or advanced.

As you get more comfortable with guitar tab, there are other symbols that represent various guitar techniques.  For example, a few of these techniques are hammer ons, pull offs, string bends, and slides.  Here is a detailed look into how these techniques are written in guitar tab at http://guitar.about.com/library/blhowtoreadtab3.htm.

Here are some of the little details that you'll need to know to fully understand how to read guitar tablature. Be aware that some of these symbols vary, depending on who created the tablature.

Hammer Ons & Pull Offs
It's most common to see the letter h representing a hammer on, located within the tablature between the original fret, and the hammered on fret (eg. 7h9)

Similarly, the letter p is generally used to represent a pull off, also found in the same location within the tablature (eg. 9p7)

Ocassionally, you'll see the ^ symbol used for either a hammer on or pull off (eg. 9^7)

String Bends
String bends are often notated several different ways in guitar tablature. Often, a b is used, followed by the fret at which the original note should be bent to. For example, 7b9 would indicate that you should bend the seventh fret until it sounds like the ninth fret. Sometimes, this target note is included in brackets, like this: 7b(9). Occasionally, the b is omitted altogether: 7(9).

An r is generally used to indicate a return of a bent note to it's unbent state. For example, 7b9r7 indicates a note on the seventh fret being bent up to the ninth fret, then returned to the seventh fret again.

Slides
Generally, a / symbol is used to notate an ascending slide, while a \ symbol is used to notate a descending slide. So, 7/9\7 indicates sliding from the seventh fret, up to the ninth fret, and back to the seventh fret. If no number precedes the slide symbol, this indicates sliding from an indiscriminate fret.
It is also not uncommon to see the letter s used to notate a slide. This is somewhat less concise, as when sliding from an indescriminate point (eg s9), it is unclear whether to slide up to the note, or down to the note.

Miscellaneous Tab Notation
The use of vibrato can be notated several different ways in tablature. Most often, the ~ symbol is used, often strung together to appear as ~~~. Sometimes, vibrato will be simply notated with a v.

A string mute is almost always notated with an x. Several x's in a row, on adjacent strings, is used to notate a rake.

Right hand tapping (for right handed guitarists) is generally notated in tab via a t, in conjunction with the pull off and hammer on techniques used when executing right handed tapping. Thus, 2h5t12p5p2 represents traditional tapping technique.

When notating the tab for harmonics, the <> symbols are usually used, surrounding the fret which the harmonic is played at.

This should give you all you need to get started reading and writing guitar tablature. Again, if you're serious about music, it highly advisable that you learn standard notation as well as tablature.

Overall, guitar tablature is an excellent way for beginning guitarists to start playing their favorite songs as long as they are familiar with them.  It isn't quite as complex as standard notation and it is guitar specific.

Here at Mike's Guitar Talk, I try my best to get the information that matters most to you.  Thank you for reading.

Have fun and stay tuned!

Mike