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How to Play Guitar Tabs a Beginners Guide
by Dave Fraser
Learning to read guitar tab is the fastest method of reading music for the guitar. The greatest thing about it is that you don't need any musical theory to comprehend how to play guitar tabs since the music is basically an upside down guitar neck.
This article is going to explain how guitar tabs are formed, how you can read individual notes and chords on tab and provide some easy to understand examples. After reading this article you'll be able to go ahead and start finding tabs of your favourite songs and learning them.
The Concept of Guitar Tablature
If you've taken some beginner guitar lessons or watch some videos you know that that 6 strings on the guitar are numbered from the bottom to top 1 to 6. The low E string being the 6th string and the high E string being the 1st string.
When you see a piece of tab what you get is something like this
1st --------2nd --------3rd --------4th --------5th --------6th --------
These would represent the 6 strings of your guitar, but picture it that you've laid your guitar down on a table and you're staring down at it. Remember the 1st string is the bottom string when you're holding your guitar.
Guitar tabs will have numbers or dots on particular strings telling you which fret to press on and on which string.
EXAMPLE
1st -4------2nd --------3rd --------4th -----6--5th --------6th -------7
Reading Guitar Tabs
Reading guitar tabs is just a matter of interpreting the numbers, which are the frets you must press down on, and the string numbers, which are the strings you must play.
The above example tab is telling us to first press on the 4th fret of the 1st string and play the note. Next press on the 6th fret of the 4th string and play the note and lastly the 7th fret of the 6th string and play the note. That's it you've just played your very first guitar tab.
Of course this is very simplistic and complete songs are far more advanced but this is the basics of how to play guitar tabs.
Guitar Tabs as Chords
Often there will be a guitar tab that shows a chord you must play. This will look differently then what is above because it's telling you to play some strings and not others while also pressing down on more then one fret at a time.
An 'x' on a string means that you do not hit that string while playing. So for example the below tab is telling you to play a D chord but only hitting the first 3 strings.
1st ---2----2nd ---3----3rd ---2----4th ---x----5th ---x----6th ---x----
Note how you form the D chord position on strings 1, 2 and 3 but are instructed only to hit the first 3 strings.
There are more advanced concepts when it comes to how to play guitar tabs, but this is enough to get you started so you can find some of your favorite songs to practice with. The concept of how tabs work is the same for difficult and easy songs the only thing you'll notice will be some additional symbols that require you to play the note(s) a little differently. This could mean you need to bend or slide to the note or use some other form of technique.
To learn more about how to read guitar tabs and other beginner guitar skills consider checking out a learn to play guitar DVD or other learn guitar program. Using self study programs you can teach yourself basic and intermediate guitar techniques all using videos and online support forums for assistance.

View more articles from Dave Fraser