How To Play Guitar Tabs

Once you have decided that you want to learn to play the guitar you really need to know how to play guitar tabs, as this is how guitar music is written out and will help you in the long run. It will mean you can have a go at playing any tunes on your guitar that you can find the music for, and it is a simple but great skill to have.

Firstly you need to have the guitar in front of you, and lay it down on the floor face up.  Next, go and kneel by the neck of the guitar, as this visualization is the best way to explain how to play guitar tabs.  Guitar tabs are written for your left hand, and tell you which strings you should be holding down, whether it is one at a time or more than one at a time, and whereabouts along the next you should be doing so, as this can change the sound that the guitar makes which obviously affects the tune you are trying to play.

Now, kneeling above your guitar you will see that there are 6 strings, which all have names and are tuned to a specific musical note.  The string furthest from you, at the top, is an ‘E’ string, as is the one nearest to you, just – in musical terms – an octave below.  So starting with top ‘E’, the strings are as follows: E A D G B E – the last E string being the lower note that we mentioned before.

This is something you need to know when you are looking at how to play guitar tabs, and also something that you really should know when learning to play the guitar generally. Now still sitting there, imagine 6 parallel lines, one for each string on the guitar, and this is the basis of the guitar tab.

The guitar music is written out along these 6 parallel lines; however, rather than using musical notes numbers are used to show you which order and where on the fret board you should be holding the string, for example a ‘2′ on the bottom line would mean hold the low ‘E’ string at the 2nd fret.

When learning how to play guitar tabs you need to remember it is the same basis as learning to read generally, as music is still read left to right along the lines. The guitar tabs are no exception, so if the guitar tab requires you to hold more than one string the numbers will appear one on top of the other, on the correct lines with the corresponding number to tell you which fret to be playing.

This is called a chord.  For example if you saw 3 on the ‘E’ string, 2 on the ‘A’ string and 5 on the ‘G’ string all written together one on top of the other, then this would mean that you need to play all these at the same time and create a chord. However, if the same pattern of notes appears one after the other then you need to play them like that, so play the E string on fret 3, followed by the A string on fret 2 and then finally the G string on fret 5.

It is then a case of playing them as they are written. The only other thing you need to consider is the spacing given to the notes when they are written, as this determines how fast you need to be playing the notes. Obviously if they are close together – yet if there is more space between them the changes can be slower – timing is another skill and one you will have to learn if you are going to play with other people at any stage.

Whilst looking at how to play guitar tabs may seem difficult to explain, by getting a book of  and studying them you will find that it is not that bad, but it does take time to learn to read quickly so that you can move your fingers quickly.  Again as with learning to play any musical instrument practice is paramount, and you need to make time to have regular practice.

When it comes to guitar tabs maybe just take time to sit and read some, and make sure you understand what they are telling you to do.  Once you have mastered the basics there are other things that appear on the music, and these give you guidance on ‘how’ to play the note, but initially you need to master the basics first.

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