Learn Guitar Tabs : Some Secrets
April 26th, 2010
If you’re interested in learning how to play guitar, the first thing that you should do is to familiarize yourself with the guitar’s neck.
This neck features a succession of lines that divide each fret. Songs and chords are produced by holding down specific strings at specific frets to sound out a note when the string is strummed. Guitar tabs show guitarists which strings to hold down and which to leave untouched. In addition to this, you can tell which fret to use when reading guitar tabs.
Before you can play using tabs, you need to know what each guitar string can do. The e string is the thinnest, topmost string, followed by string 2 (B), string 3 (G), string 4 (D), string 5 (A), all the way down to the sixth string (E), which is the thickest one – it’s important to know these letters so you can better read the shorthand involved in guitar tabs. The areas between the frets, which are shaped like boxes, are also given numbers, starting with ’1′ near the top of the neck, and ending with ’19′ at the bottom. You have to know which string to press against which fret if you want to learn guitar tabs. For instance, you have to understand the notation 1-2. This simply means you press the first string down inside the second fret.
Chords on the guitar require that you press down on multiple strings simultaneously. Using guitar tabs, chords become easier to lean. A C chord would be tabulated to say 2-1 4-2 5-3. 1-3 2-2 6-3 is how to play a G chord. If you study chord charts, you will be able to start playing by tabs faster. Strings with 0s next to them mean you don’t have to press down any fret; just play it open.
You’ll also need to know a few other notations and symbols if you want to learn guitar tabs. Hammer-ons are denoted by an h; pull-offs are the reverse of that, and a g on the tab denotes that particular movement on the string. Anytime there is a “b” notation, you need to bend the string to cause a wobble effect. An ‘r’ is used to instruct you to let go of one note and proceed to another one. Finally, a ‘/’ indicates that you need to create a ‘slide’ by moving to the following note described by your tabs.
Although we can’t go into sufficient detail here on how to learn guitar tabs, there are some great online guitar learning programs out there such as Guitar Superstars which are excellent resources for learning guitar.
Categories: Guitar
