How To Read Guitar Tabs – Part 1

As a guitarist, reading guitar tabs (also known as ‘tablature) is one of the most important lessons you’ll need to learn.

Luckily for you, guitar tabs are much easier to read than the standard musical notation many other musicians have to read.

It takes practice, but over time you should be able to read and play simple guitar tabs at the same time. It’s all about learning to read patterns.

Step 1: Working out the tuning

Below is a tab of the main riff to Wonderwall by Oasis – a popular track for beginners.

 e---3--3--3--3-3-3-3-3--3--3-3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3-3-3-3-3----|
 B---3--3--3--3-3-3-3-3--3--3-3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3-3-3-3-3----|
 G---0--0--0--0-0-0-0-0--0--0-0--0-2-2--2--2-0-0--0--0-0-0-0-0-0-0----|
 D---2--2--2--2-2-2-0-0--0--0-0--0-0-0--0--0-0-2--2--0-2-2-0-2-2-0----|
 A---2--2--2--2-2-2-2-2--2--2-2----------------0--0----0-0-0-0-0------|
 E---0--0--0--0-0-0-3-3--3--3-3---------------------------------------|

You’ll notice down the side of the bar there is a series of letters: these represent the notes on each string without any fingers on the fretboard.

It’s laid out as if you’re looking down on your fretboard, so read it from bottom to top. This is standard tuning, so it reads E A D G B e (the small ‘e’ represents the high E string).

Step 2: The finger position

The lines in guitar tabs represent each string, and the numbers show where your fingers need to be when you play the note.

 e---3--3--3--3-3-3-3-3--3--3-3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3-3-3-3-3----|
 B---3--3--3--3-3-3-3-3--3--3-3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3--3--3-3-3-3-3-3-3----|
 G---0--0--0--0-0-0-0-0--0--0-0--0-2-2--2--2-0-0--0--0-0-0-0-0-0-0----|
 D---2--2--2--2-2-2-0-0--0--0-0--0-0-0--0--0-0-2--2--0-2-2-0-2-2-0----|
 A---2--2--2--2-2-2-2-2--2--2-2----------------0--0----0-0-0-0-0------|
 E---0--0--0--0-0-0-3-3--3--3-3---------------------------------------|

As you can see, there are several numbers in each column, which means there are several notes being played at a time. If you’re particularly clever you might notice that you’re actually playing 4 chords: Em7, G, Dsus4 and A7sus4.

In other songs, you might only play one or a few strings at a time – we’ll look at that in our next blog post.

Step 3: The rhythm

This is where it gets more difficult. You’ll ideally have the song playing on your laptop or MP3 player while you read the tabs, which should help you figure out when the notes are played.

However, this can be surprisingly difficult at first, which is why it helps to have a guitar teacher show you.

One reason for this is that most guitar songs have ‘ghost’ notes that you might not notice at first, but add a lot to the overall feel of a track. Most guitar tabs you’ll find online don’t show these notes, but they can make your guitar playing sound much more professional. We’ll talk more about these ghost notes in the next blog.

Step 4: Learning the patterns

As you may already know, chords are often displayed as a series of numbers (e.g. A = x01110, G = 320033). These numbers show you where your fingers need to be placed on the fretboard when playing the chord.

As we saw in step 2, tabs work in a similar way. The numbers may not always resemble a chord you already know, but they often follow a familiar pattern, which can make it easier to figure out which fingers you should be using on each string.

Let’s look at a basic example. Look carefully and you’ll notice the numbers for each ‘chord’ follow a similar pattern:

 e --------------------------------------------------------------------|
 B ---2------------------4------------------7----------------10--------|
 G ---3------------------5------------------8----------------11--------|
 D ---4------------------6------------------9----------------12--------|
 A --------------------------------------------------------------------|
 E --------------------------------------------------------------------|

The easiest way to play this one is to place your first (index) finger on the 2nd fret of the B string, your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the G string, and your third finger on the 4th fret of the D string – then sound the notes.

Notice that your fingers make a very neat pattern on your fretboard. For the next chord, simply hold this position and slide your fingers along until they reach the 4th, 5th and 6th frets. Then do the same for the last two chords.

As you learn more songs, you’ll start noticing more and more of these familiar patterns. A good guitar teacher can show you the best way to play these patterns in different situations.

Click here for part 2!

The advice here will be useful, but we’ve only scraped the surface when it comes to reading guitar tabs! In my next post you’ll learn more about ‘ghost notes’, alternative tunings, and specific techniques like hammer-ons, pull-offs and ‘glissando’ (sliding notes).

In the meantime, if you’d like to book a guitar lesson, simply leave me a message and I’ll get back to you shortly.