Lesson 1: How to read guitar tabs?

There are a lot of articles out there that teaches a beginner how to read guitar tablatures. Here's one from howtotuneaguitar.org:

Reading Guitar Tab

Guitar tablature (tab for short) is a system of notation that graphically represents strings and frets of the guitar fretboard. Each note is indicated by placing a number which indicates the fret to play, on the appropriate string. With these easy instructions you will be able to understand how to read and write guitar tab in 5 minutes.

The Basics Of Reading Guitar Tab

To start out, tabs are written in lines, each line representing a string on the guitar. The thickest string being the bottom most line and the thinnest string being the topmost.

e--------------------------------
B--------------------------------
G--------------------------------
D--------------------------------
A--------------------------------
E--------------------------------

Numbers are then placed on these lines to represent finger positions on the guitar fret board. If you read the diagram below you would play this on a guitar by putting your finger just behind the 2nd fret on the 5th string (or the second thickest string). As musical notes this would read as follows B B B C# B A. The ‘zero’ represents playing an open string. So in this case you would play the A open with no finger position on the fretboard.

e-------------------------------
B-------------------------------
G-------------------------------
D-------------------------------
A--2--2--2--4--2--0------------
E-------------------------------

How To Read Guitar Tab Chords

To tab a chord the notes would be placed in a vertical line upon the horizontal ones. This diagram represents a C Chord. You would strum the bottom 5 strings of the guitar in one motion if you were to read this tab properly.

e--0----------------------------
B--1----------------------------
G--0----------------------------
D--2----------------------------
A--3----------------------------
E-------------------------------

And this one you would strum the ‘C Chord’ three times.

e--0--0--0---------------------
B--1--1--1---------------------
G--0--0--0---------------------
D--2--2--2---------------------
A--3--3--3---------------------
E------------------------------

The one shortcoming of guitar tab is Read More...