Master Guitar Tabs and Play Your Favourite Songs Instantly!

What is a guitar tablature, or also widely known as guitar tabs? For a span of 7 days, I took the liberty of doing all the research to provide an easy-to-understand guide to finally read guitar tabs. Through this article, I will write out all my findings and results.

The definition of Tablature on Wikipedia is as follows: Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Simply put, it is an EASIER method to see and understand HOW to play a specific song.

A point to note is that many instruments have tablatures, not only guitars, which is a common mistake. For example, fretted stringed instruments like guitar, lute, theorbo, mandora, gallichon, banjo and vihuela all have tablatures. But in principle, it can be used for any fretetd instrument.

Let's get to the point, guitar tablatures consists of 6 lines. Each line represents a string on your guitar. The first line reprensents your thinnest string (High E) on your guitar, and the other lines and strings follow, which means the thickest string (Low E) is presented through the 6th line.

On each line there will be numbers. These numbers tell you which fret you should press. If there is a 3 on the 1st and 6th line, and a 2 on the 5th line, then that makes up G chord, and tells you to strum the G chord. If there is only one number, on one line at one time, then you have to pick that string.

Example of a guitar tablature (a random set that comprises NO melody).

G Am Scales

--3--------|-----------------------------0-1-3---|-------------
-------1---|-----------------------0-1-3---------|-------------
-------2---|-------------------0-2---------------|-------------
-------2---|-------------0-2-3-------------------|-------------
--2--------|-------0-2-3-------------------------|-------------
--3--------|-0-1-3-------------------------------|-------------

In the above example, the first 2 keys to strum are G and Am, followed by scales. Just press on the numbered fret and strum/pick the strings involved!
Guitar tabs are the easiest way to play a song instantly. Just take note on what to press and you'll be playing in no time. However, learning guitar tabs does not mean you can stop reading musical notes. You can't play complicated songs if you can't read notes. Therefore, continue your learning process even after you learnt how to read guitar tabs.