Beginner Guitar Lesson 7 – How to Read Guitar Tabs
Reading guitar tab isn’t difficult, you just need to understand a few basic principles. In the video above I explain the basics of reading guitar tab. If you haven’t watched it yet I urge you to take 5 minutes and do so now.
Guitar Tab Basics
e —X—
B —1—
G —3—
D —0—
A —0—
E —X—
Above is a very simple tab, we’ll use this to explain how you read the most basics of guitar tab.
When you see guitar tab you want to remember that the order of the strings you’re looking at on the page (or screen) is opposite to how you think of the strings when you’re holding your guitar.
We’re used to having the high E string being the bottom string and the Low E string being the top string. Note on the tab example above it is opposite.
What do the X’s and Numbers Mean?
A number corresponds to a particular fret you are to play on that particular string.
So a 1 means you play the first fret, a 3 means you play the third fret and a 0 means you play the string open.
The X’s represent strings that you do not strum or play at this time.
When you see the numbers all stacked on top of each other as they are in the example above this means you strum all the strings at once, except for the high and low E strings since there are X’s on those strings.
Something a little more complicated
e —-3—————-
B ——-4————-
G ———-0———-
D ————-1——-
A —————-5—–
E ——————-3–
In this example above the numbers are not directly underneath each other. So for this guitar tab you would not strum the strings, but rather play them one at a time starting with the third fret on the high E string, then the fourth fret on the B string and so on down the line.
We play guitar tab the same way we read a book from left to right.
This is an intro on how to read guitar tab. Again if you haven’t yet watch the video I did above explaining it in a little more detail.
For more beginner guitar tips, lessons and information I recommend you try JamPlay.com.
JamPlay has over 350 hours of online video guitar lessons from 30 different teachers. It’s the ultimate guitar membership to teach yourself to play from home.
