Guitar Tabs


For those who want to play guitar, but are unable to play songs by ear or read traditional sheet music, another option exists for learning new songs. Guitar tablature (sometimes spelled tabulature, which is actually closer to the Latin word root), known commonly as guitar tabs, offer a fairly basic way to depict the chords and notes to be played in a song. Reading a tab requires no real musical knowledge, only the ability to position your fingers on the correct frets and strum or pluck the appropriate strings. In addition, guitar tabs are widely available in books of guitar music and on the internet.

A guitar tab staff will consist of six lines, with the top line representing the high E string and the bottom line representing the low E string. This can be somewhat confusing to a new guitar player, as the low E string is usually referred to as the first string, but many tabs will include the notes which correspond to each string at the beginning of the first line of the tab, making it easier to follow. Occasionally, the lines will be numbered 1 through 6 instead. If you remember that the top line always represents the thinnest string, you will be able to follow along with the remaining string designations on any tab.

On each string that is meant to be plucked or strummed, a number appears on the corresponding line of the tab. If a "0" appears on one of the lines, it means that the string is to be strummed or plucked, but that string is not pressed down to produce this chord or note. If no number appears on a line, it generally means that the corresponding string is to be left alone. This is most common when a portion of the song will be plucked note by note, but also can occur with some chords.

Some tabs will include lines or arrows to indicate different guitar playing techniques, such as slides, bends, and hammer-ons, as well as any other techniques the song requires. There are some variations in the way in which music and techniques are written on a tab, but most published music will include a key to show you any of the oddities of their system of notation.

Tabs are commonly used for rock and pop songs because it is easy for nearly everyone to understand the way in which they are written. As tabs are basically an image of a guitar's fretboard, they help a guitarist to visualize the appropriate finger positions to play the chords necessary for the song. When it comes to chords which have some unusual variations, a tab is usually the best way to depict the fingering necessary for the chord in question. Tab notation is also very easy to reproduce on a computer, which makes the sharing of tabs via the internet an easy process.

However, tabs are not always the best way to represent guitar music. Tabs do not give any information about the time signature for a song, so it can be very difficult to play music from a tab for a song with which you are not familiar. While tabs are adequate for most modern music, there are aspects of classical guitar music that cannot be sufficiently rendered through the use of a tab. The very simplicity which makes tabs so useful for most guitarists prevents them from detailing the information necessary for those who wish to play more complex music.

Another difficulty of tabs is that they are specific to a single variety of instrument. Tabs are the same between acoustic and electric guitars, as these instruments share a common number of strings, but the tab for any other stringed instrument would not be useable by a guitarist. Traditional staff notation, on the other hand, can be adapted between multiple instruments.

Finally, although tabs are relatively easy to comprehend, they are not always easy to physically read, as the typeface used for some tabs can be very small, and numbers can be indistinct at that size. This can also be a problem with standard sheet music, but small notes are generally easier to read than small numbers. It is always possible to reproduce a tab or sheet music at a larger size, but many published tabs begin at a fairly small font size.

For most modern guitarists, tabs will be the most common form of sheet music that they will use to learn songs. It is, therefore, important for a guitarist to understand how to read guitar tabs. A guitarist who is capable of reading tabs, standard guitar sheet music, and playing by ear, without written music, will be apt to be the most versatile guitarist, capable of learning and creating the best music.