Hi gang! This lesson is about how to get a handle on learning simple tablature, sometimes just simply called "tab" (not the drink).
Tablature had actually been around since the 15th century before falling out of favor. Recently though, it has come back in a big way.
It's no big deal really. Instead of using note values as with standard music notation (what ya see when reading music), what tablature does is to show you the location on your instrument -- in this case, the guitar -- where the note or notes are played.
Guitar tablature is your guitar strings. See the beautiful picture below. The high E string is on top followed by the B, G, D, A and low E string at the bottom. The metal fret markers that separate the frets are not shown. There is no need as we are about to see.
Look at the second picture below. See the "3" on the low E string? That "3" means 3rd fret. So that means that ya have to place one of your fingers on the 3rd fret.
Which finger?
You haven't been given enough information for that, so you can use any finger here.
Wait a minute! Enough information??? What kind of information?
What finger that you use depends on the "context" of the other notes. All that means is that you have to look at other notes that are around that note.
Yeah.
If possible, when playing single notes, you want to do what's called "position playing". To play "in position" means that your hand is anchored in one place, your fingers lining up with the frets on your guitar.
For example, If you were playing in the 1st position, your 1st finger would take care of any and all notes on the 1st fret for all strings (for single notes). Your 2nd finger takes care of all notes on the 2nd string; you're 3rd finger does the 3rd fret, and your 4th finger handles the 4th fret.
Where your 1st finger is located -- that's the position.
If you were playing in the 3rd position, your 1st finger takes care of the 3rd fret, 2nd finger does the 4th fret, 3rd finger does the 5th fret, and your 4th finger does all of the notes on the 6th fret.
Position playing helps you to play faster without having your hand flying around all over the place.
So... But in the example below, there are no other notes that could give you a guess as to the position -- It's just a single stupid note. So that means that it doesn't matter which finger you use here.
Let's move on here. Look at the next picture. There's a "0" on the 3rd string. "0" means an open string. So that means that you play the open G string.
Notice also, that these two examples do NOT tell you how long to hold a note.
If you are looking at a song that has ONLY tablature and not a piano score attached, you will NOT know. Most (NOT ALL) tablature assumes that you already know the song. And you do in most cases. You simply don't know how to play the darned thing.
Advanced tablature sometimes comes with (tied to) piano scores. The notes on the score tell you how long to hold each note.
But most of the time, tablature that you will see assumes that you already have a good idea of what it's supposed to sound like -- you just wanna know how to play it.
Anyway... Enough on that. Look at the next picture. That's how your basic open position A chord looks like in tablature. You can tell chords in tablature when all of the notes are in a straight line downwards.
Now look at the last picture. Ignore the line in the middle. That's just there to help you with the song.
Play this song in the 4th position. Why? because the lowest fret number is 4 and the highest is 7. THAT'S what context is. The 4th position fits perfectly for this song.
Now I said earlier that tabs won't tell ya how long to hold a note. But look how some notes are grouped together. These are hints. The notes that are grouped together are played one after the other fairly quickly (NOT TOO QUICKLY NOW!). A space between 2 notes means that you should pause just a wee bit between notes.
Try playing this beast. What's the name of the song? Leave me a comment and let me know if you figured it out.
This is just the simple stuff. There's more to it, but you will see lot's of stuff on the internet that looks like this.
Have fun!
Professor Bruno Noteworthy
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Contributor's Note
Professor Bruno Noteworthy is a toon music professor who loves teaching the guitar to kids (and other humans).
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