If you’ve gotten into guitar much at all, you’ve probably noticed there are two main ways of reading guitar sheet music: Notation (or traditional sheet music) and guitar tabs. In my experience working with guitar students, I find that people use either one or the other and have no clue how the other one works.
In this article, I want to talk to you about guitar tabs and 4 things you NEED to know about them. Do I have an opinion on which is better? Yes, but that’s for another article.
Let’s isolate guitar tabs and the things you need to know about them.
#1 What Are Guitar Tabs?
Guitar tabs, short for guitar tablature, are a visual system of telling you which strings to play on the guitar. For people who’ve never read sheet music before, this may be the best option for you.
Tabs are shown with six horizontal lines. Each line represents one of the strings on the guitar from the bottom, lowest E string, to the top and thinnest high E string. As you read the tabs from left to right, you play individual or groups of strings the tabs tell you. The numbers tell you which fret to that string on.
Note: A zero (“0”) tells you to pick the open string.
This graphic gives you an idea of what it may look like.
#2 It Doesn’t Show Rhythm
As someone who learned to read standard notation on my trumpet first, one of the most confusing things for me, and some of my students, about guitar tabs is that it doesn’t really show the rhythm. The notes go in order from left to right, but there isn’t a clear indication of how long each note lasts.
For those learning by guitar tabs (which is awesome for solo and lead work), you’ll need to do some listening to the song to get an idea of how the rhythm for each melody goes.
#3 Vertically Aligned Numbers Show Chords
In standard notation, when chords appear, there will often be a chord symbol. In guitar tabs, this symbol may appear, but they’ll often spell out each string and what frets need to be pressed.
When you see multiple numbers stacked directly on top of each other, this is when you play the chord. It means you need to strum all the strings at the same time. For many, this throws them off when they see it for the first time.
#4 It Takes Time To Learn And Master
Many students try to pick the reading system that seems easiest, but the truth is, there’s no clear answer on which one is better. Guitar tabs tend to make more sense right off the bat, but there is an equal number of people, especially in the jazz and blues guitar world, who say standard notation is better in the long run.
Whatever you pick to learn (or better yet, try to learn both!), know that it’s going to take some time and practice. Just like everything else on guitar!
But you don’t have to go it alone or without guidance. Look for great learning programs to help you out. I happen to enjoy Guitar Tricks’ lessons on guitar tabs the most. They do a great job of building your ability to read the tabs by sequentially developing your skills with engaging songs and exercises.
Check out Guitar Tricks online guitar lessons.
