Getting To Grips With Acoustic Guitar Tabs

Tablatures (more commonly referred to as tabs) are used for many stringed instruments, but most people immediately think of acoustic guitar tabs when they hear the term. This article provides the beginner with a basic understanding of tabs, and how they are used for playing the guitar.

Standard musical notation used when playing other instruments involves having to learn the complexities of sheet music, with note values, ledger lines, staffs, key signatures, time signatures and notes. Guitar players use a much less complicated kind of musical notation, called a tab.  By using acoustic guitar tabs in your lessons, you can learn to play guitar without ever having to learn to read music in the traditional sense. 

When you look at an acoustic guitar tab, you’re actually looking at a diagram of the strings of the guitar.  The lines represent the strings, with the first string at the top and the sixth string at the bottom.  On the lines, you will see numbers, which represent which fret you’re meant to play.  A zero (0) indicates an open string.  An X represents a muffled string. A good trick for beginners is to make your own tab cards that you can slide under the strings, then remove it again when you have positioned your fingers correctly.

If you are completely new to learning the guitar, you may have no idea what a fret is. The fret is the area between two metal bars on the neck, or fingerboard, of the guitar.  Most guitars have between 21 and 24 frets. The dots on the frets are just visual guides to help you know where you are on the guitar. 

If you look at an acoustic guitar tab and there is a number on each of the lines and the numbers are stacked one on top of the other, the acoustic guitar tab is telling you to play all of those notes at the same time, strumming all six strings.

If  the tab shows all of the numbers one after the other, all on one line, then the numbers indicate which fret to use on that string, and you pluck only that string.  The numbers noted one after the other, indicates that you play one note at a time.

Once you get the hang of reading tabs, try doing a search for "easy acoustic guitar tabs" and pick out a very basic song that you already know spend a little time experimenting with it.  Because it is a totally different way of interpreting music, reading and playing acoustic guitar tabs can take a little getting used to at first, but you might be surprised how quickly you can pick it up now that you know a bit more about tabs.

Being able to hear the song that you are learning to play always makes it easier to learn. Online and DVD guitar courses often combine playing the tune (or segments of it) with a visual representation of the tabs on screen.  Even if you think you can remember how it goes, listening to it while you’re practicing it will help you with both rhythm and detail.

Learning acoustic guitar tabs can be a lot of fun.  In no time at all, you will have several tunes in your repertoire that you can play for your family and friends, or just for your own enjoyment.