Reading Tablature

Tablature is a system of writing down music for the guitar and other fretted instruments. TAB, as it is most commonly referred, simply sets out the fingerings for a piece of music in a type of shorthand. This system of writing music however, relies on the musician to actually hear the piece of music so that you are familiar with not only the rhythmic structure of the piece, but also the individual timing of each note. TAB is very easy to understand.

In order to write TAB, you start out with six lines. These six lines correspond to each of the guitar strings. Thus, the top line refers to the top string, while the bottom line corresponds with the bottom string. The illustration below shows what a six line blank TAB looks like. At the beginning of each line, you will find the string names. Starting with the first string at the top and ending with the sixth string at the bottom

Numbers are written on the lines to illustrate where you should fret the string. If a zero appears, this means for you to play the open string. TAB is read from left to right. Below, is an example of how notes can appear in tablature form. This diagram expresses the notes, E, F, F#, G, G#, A as played on the bottom E string

In the diagram above, the notes would be played one at a time. Yet, how do we show, through TAB, how to play a chord, which contains multiple notes? There are two ways of doing this. To illustrate both ways, we will use a diagram of a standard G chord.

The first way, shown above, is written with all the numbers on top of each other in relation to what string they belong to. The second way is to stagger the numbers to show that each string is hit slightly later then the one prior to it.

Now you know the basics of TAB, but there are some things that TAB will not tell you about playing music. For instance, very rarely will TAB give you note lengths. Instead, TAB can give you and idea of how long notes are by the space in between each number on the lines. Tablature uses various symbols to indicate how to play the notes, when to add accents, or hammer-ons, etc.

1. h = hammer on
   
2. p = pull off
   
3. b = bend string upwards
   
4. r = release the bend
   
5. / = slide upwards
   
6. \ = slide downwards
   
7. v = vibrato (vibrato is also written as 7~9)
   

Please be advised about the use of "x" IF you see an "x" in the shaping of a chord, the "x" means to not play that string. For example, in a standard D chord you would see:

EADGBE
XX0232

The following diagrams illustrate how the TAB symbols will appear in written six bar form.

Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

This diagram shows that you would play the open E twice then hit the A string at the fifth fret, and hammer it until the seventh fret.

A pull off diagram:

In this example, the player would pick all of the notes in the third and second frets, and the open strings would get their sound by pulling off.

Bends

This illustration shows us that you strike the B string at the seventh fret, and bend the note upwards so it would sound like the same pitch as a note on the ninth fret.

Slides are very common in guitar playing. In tablature, a slide is identified by a "/" or a "\." Depending on the direction of the slash, the player would slide upwards or downwards. You might see slides shown very simply, like the diagram below on the B string. Also, slides can be long, and complex, as it is shown here on the A string.

In the illustration above, you would pick only the first note, and slide upwards to the ninth fret. Also, slides can be long, and complex, as it is shown here on the A string.

The above document was an introduction into reading tablature, and how to play tablature. The diagrams that appear above are the property of Mr. Howard Wright and were used with written permission from him.