Reading tabs?

We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Reading tabs?
Topic Started: Jun 19 2008, 07:04 PM (161 Views)
Wolf-GIO	Jun 19 2008, 07:04 PM Post #1
Newbie Posts: 3 Group: Members Member #8,620 Joined: June 19, 2008	Hey guys i find it quite difficult to learn tabs... anybody care to help? -Thank yoooh



Bullet	Jun 20 2008, 01:15 PM Post #2
Admin Posts: 1,833 Group: Admin Member #183 Joined: January 13, 2007	Ok, well I'm not sure what you know and what you don't but basically E ---------------- B ---------------- G ---------------- D ---------------- A ---------------- E ---------------- That's the basic tab layout for standard tuning. The high E (the thinnest string) is at the top and the low E (the thickest string) is at the bottom. The reason for this is... imagine your looking down at the guitar when your playing, you would see the strings the oposite way around. E ---------------- B ---------------- G ---------------- D --------2------- A -----2---------- E --0------------- Now this would just mean, play the low E open (0 means do not fret any notes, just play the open string), then the 2nd fret of the A, then the 2nd fret of the D. Pretty simple really. E ---------------- B ---------------- G ---------------- D - 2------------- A --2------------- E --0------------- Now when they are all on top of each other like this, it means you play them together at the same time. In this particular tab, it is telling you to play the power chord E5. There are other little notations to tell you to do various other techniques like hammer on's and so forth, but this is the basics of reading a tab. Oh and a little bit of advise. Download guitar pro and then you can get guitar pro tabs from www.ultimate-guitar.com It really helped me out alot, but I wish I knew about it sooner. Hope this helps - Bullet



paulsarcia	Oct 27 2008, 04:50 AM Post #3
Newbie Posts: 10 Group: Members Member #8,945 Joined: October 26, 2008	Also, don't forget this. Listen first very attentively to the song you're trying to play. Then read the tab, and let your own creativity run. This can make you your own version of the song. Goodluck!



mrmojorisin	Oct 28 2008, 04:25 PM Post #4
Newbie Posts: 10 Group: Members Member #8,663 Joined: July 16, 2008	Good post Bullet. A tip i always find useful...Once you have printed off your tab, go to YouTube or any other video site and see if there are some videos of people doing there own versions of the song you want to play.... If its a tough tab, i always find this helpful because these people usually video themselves close up playing the instrument and you can get great help from seein how they play the song and what notes etc.. they use! Mojo
	"When the musics over, trun out the lights"


« Previous Topic · Lessons · Next Topic »