Friday, January 30, 2009

Reading Basic Acoustic Guitar Tabs

By Jay Tyler

Guitar music has it's own form of notation, called a tab, or tablature. Tabs are different from standard musical notation because they do not use staffs, ledger lines, key signatures, or notes. For this reason, acoustic guitar tabs are beneficial because they allow you to learn how to play the instrument without also having to learn to read music. Tabs may also be used as notation for other stringed instruments.

The form of musical notation specific to the guitar is acoustic guitar tabs, or tablature. Each chord is notated with one tab, a small chart of the guitar strings themselves. The string at the top of the diagram is the one furthest from your body as you hold the guitar. Each string will show a number, which is the fret you should hold to create that chord. If you see a zero, that means an open string. An X means that string should be muffled.

The area between the two metal bars on the neck or fingerboard of a guitar is called a fret, if you are not familiar with this. On an acoustic guitar, there are usually 21 to 24 frets. The dots on the frets are visual guides for your convenience when playing.

Although looking at acoustic guitar tabs the first time may seem very confusing, with a little time you can become very good at it. One thing you first need to learn is when the numbers are listed one after another that tells you which fret to use and to pluck that string individually. If the numbers on the line are stacked on top of each other vertically, the acoustic guitar tab is letting you know that you need to play all of those notes at the same time.

When you're reading on up acoustic guitar tabs, a few other things are going to come up, like hammer-on's, pull-offs, bends and slides. The letter h indicates a hammer-on. For instance, you might see something like 7h9 on one of the lines. Pull-offs are indicated by a p, bends by the letter b, and slides by the notation "/ (that's a slash mark).

It is best that you hear the song you are trying to learn as it makes the learning easier. While you can remember how a song goes, listening to it while you practice can help you with the rhythm and detail. It can be tremendously fun to learn how to play a guitar when you utilize acoustic guitar tabs. Before you realize it, you have many songs in your repertoire that you can play at parties to impress friends, or for your sole pleasure.

One tip that we can suggest is when trying to learn a song, listen to it as you play. Even if you can play the chords, this will help you learn to keep your rhythm and hear subtle details. Once you start you will find out how fun it can be to play the acoustic guitar. Soon you will have learned many songs that you can use simply to enjoy by yourself or to share with friends.

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