Learning how to read guitar tab is one of the first steps for any beginner player.

Hands down there’s no quicker way to learn a song then from guitar tabs. The majority of us decide to learn guitar because we want to play our favorite tunes, because if this it makes sense that beginners should learn to read tabs quickly.

I’m going to share with you how to use and read guitar tabs with 3 tips: First, how to read and understand guitar tab, next some examples and finally tips to break a song down so you can learn quickly.

Understanding Tab

Most beginners find understanding tab a heck of a lot easier then learning to read music.

Here is how basic guitar tablature looks:

e——–

B——–

G——–

D——–

A——–

E——–

Each one of the lines on tab matches up with one of the 6 strings on your guitar. The first or top line is the same as the bottom or first high e string on your guitar and the bottom line is the same as your low E or 6th string on your guitar.

Reading Tab

Guitar tabs are simply a mix of numbers and symbols placed on different lines. Here’s a very simple tab for the E chord.

e—0—-

B—0—-

G—1—-

D—2—-

A—2—-

E—0—-

The number on each line corresponds to the fret you play on that string. So for the above example tab you would be playing the 2nd fret of the A string, the 2nd fret of the D string, the first fret of the G string and you’d strum the low E, B and high e strings open (hence the 0 on those lines).

You can tell that this guitar tab is for a chord because the numbers are right above each other in a perfect vertical line. If you say something like this:

e———–

B———7-

G———–

D———–

A—–5—–

E-3———

You would be picking individual strings. In this case it would be the 3rd fret of the low E, followed by the 5th fret of the A string and finally the 7th fret on the B string.

There are other symbols you may run into when reading guitar tabs these are the basics.

Tips for Learning Songs from Guitar Tab

This might seem straight forward but I have met many beginner guitar players who don’t think of this basic technique.

When you’re beginning to learn a song you should break that song down into sections.

For example if the guitar tab has the verse, chorus and bridge parts all separated out then first practice the verse chords or what ever it may be. By learning to play a song by it’s parts, first starting out slow then adding speed and learning each part on it’s own before you combine it will make it more enjoyable and less frustrating.

If you’re a complete beginner and as of yet haven’t learned your basic guitar chords I’d suggest getting a good guitar lesson dvd or learn guitar dvd to help you along the way. These courses can be almost as good as private lessons so long as you find one created by a quality guitar teacher and that covers all the right materials so you’re not left with any gaps in your learning later on.

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