How to Read and Play Guitar Tabs

Guitar tabs are easy to read when you understand all of the different symbols and 'markers' used to represent what to play and how to play it. In fact, it's not usually the 'notes' that trip people up when they try to read guitar tabs. It's all of the other dots, dashes and slashes that are confusing!

So, let's talk about the most important part first - how to read which notes to play and where - because it is also the easiest.

When you look at a song in tabbed notation, what you are looking at is an 'aerial' view of the fretboard. In other words, imagine that you have your guitar laid flat in your lap and you're looking down at the fretboard.

Your sixth (lowest in pitch) string will be closest to you, right? Now, imagine that you pick up your guitar and hold it out in front of you. Your sixth string is closest to the floor, while your first string is closest to the ceiling.

This is what you're looking at with tabs. There are 6 lines in a 'measure' of tab, one for each string of the guitar. The top line is your 1st string (high E) and the bottom line is your 6th string (low E).

The next thing you'll notice is that these 'strings' will have numbers on them. For example, you might see a '0' on the 3rd string, followed by a 2, and then a 3 on the 1st string.

What these numbers represent is the fret position of the note you need to play on that string.

From the example above, you would play an 'open G' by picking the 3rd string, then play an 'A' by picking the 3rd string again while holding your finger on the second fret. Finally, you would play another 'G' by placing your finger on the 3rd fret of the first string. Make sense?

Although you'll see 'fret-like' dividers on guitar tab, these divisions do not represent frets. They're more like the bars that divide measures. If a series of note or chords is meant to be played sequentially, they will be spaced apart from one another on the tab.

Also, if you are to play a chord, an interval or anything involving multiple notes that sound simultaneously, these will be stacked vertically in the notation.

Now, let's move onto the other signs and symbols you'll come across in tabs. The easiest thing here is to just give you a reference 'table':

x = Mute. This is seen most often in tabs for songs where a lot of palm-muting is used on chords to create a percussive sound.

h = hammer-on. Let's say you're supposed to perform a 'hammer-on' from open 'E' up to G on the first string. This will be written on the top line of the tab as “0h3”.

p= pull-off. Let's say that your hammer-on was follow by a pull from G back to E. It will be written, again, on the top line of the tab as “3p0”
b = bend. When you see a 'b' between two notes - e.g., 7b9, it means that you should bend the first note up until it reaches the same pitch as the second note indicated by the tab.

/ = When you see a forward slash connecting a series of notes, this indicates that you should slide from the first set of notes up to the second.

= When you see a backslash connection a series of notes, it indicates that you should slide down from the first set of notes to the second.

The above represents the most frequently used symbols in tab, but is not all-inclusive. Other symbols for things like “gliss” and arpeggio use special characters which can't be accurately represented here as they aren't included in the character set of a standard computer keyboard.

Hopefully, though, this quick lesson has given you just enough to get started using tab to learn most of your favorite songs!