Guitar tab or tablature is a very popular method of notating guitar music. What makes tab so popular is that, once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to read.
In order to understand tab, you need to visualize a guitar neck as if you are playing the guitar and looking down on the neck. Tab consists of 6 horizontal lines that represent the strings of the guitar. The thickest string being the bottom most line and the thinnest string being the topmost.
Numbers are then placed on these lines to represent finger positions on the guitar fret board. If you read the diagram below you would play this on a guitar by putting your finger just behind the 2nd fret on the 5th string, then you would play the note at the 4th fret, then again on the 2nd fret. The 'zero' represents playing an open string. As musical notes this would read as follows B C# B A.
To tab a chord the notes would be placed in a vertical line upon the horizontal ones. This diagram represents a C Chord. You would strum the bottom 5 strings of the guitar in one motion if you were to read this tab properly:
And in this case you would strum the 'C Chord' three times:
Hammer-on is executed by picking a note and then hammering done with the fretting hand on the second note. The second note isn't actually picked but kind of echos the first one. Song example with this technique:
Pull-off is the opposite of a hammer-on, so the first note is played again then the fretting hand pulls the finger off and lets the one fretted behind it play. Song example with this technique:
(bar 2). In the tab below you would play the first note on the 3th fret then slide the finger that is holding that note up to the 2th fret (a slide-down):
Or here you slide your finger from the 2rd fret to the 3th without lifting your finger (a slide-up):
Vibrato is like a constant rhythmic bending of the string. You do a bend up and bend down quickly to create a moving sound. Song example with this technique:
This technique utilizes the tremolo bar to achieve vibrato. If the beat contains multiple notes, the effect is applied to all notes in the chord. The Wide vibrato creates a more pronounced effect than a Slight one. Song example with this technique:
A palm mute effect is achieved when you take the side of your right hand (4th finger side) and lightly touch the string at the edge of the bridge. This will give the notes that you are playing a muffled sound. Song example with this technique:
The best description of a ghost note, is a note that is felt but not heard. You will play the note softer, and without emphasis. A ghost note can be played by fretting a note, but not picking it. Ghost notes are barely audible, but they do a lot to the feel of the music. The notation for the ghost note is round brackets. Song example with this technique:
Dead note refers to muting the strings with your left hand. A dead note effect is achieved by lightly resting your left hand across the strings without actually pressing the strings against the fret. Song example with this technique:
A brush stroke is a quick, energetic strum where the strings are struck almost simultaneously, producing a more percussive and dense sound. A brush downstroke goes from the thicker (lower-pitched) strings to the thinner (higher-pitched) strings. A brush upstroke goes from the thinner strings to the thicker ones. Song example with this technique:
An arpeggio means playing each note of a chord one by one, with clearly audible separation between the notes, creating a more melodic, rolling sound. Arpeggio down goes from the thicker (lower-pitched) strings to the thinner (higher-pitched) strings. Arpeggio up goes from the thinner strings to the thicker ones. Song example with this technique:
Natural harmonics are notes that produce a bell like sound when you touch a string over a particular fret bar. The notation that is most commonly used is the fret that you will touch with romb sign before. Song example with this technique:
Polyphony is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody. In the tabs, one of these lines is shown in gray with the number of the fret, the other in black. Song example:
A pinch harmonic is a guitar technique to achieve artificial harmonics in which the player's thumb or index finger on the picking hand slightly catches the string which the player picked, silencing the fundamental frequency of the string, and letting one of the harmonics dominate. Song example with this technique:
Tabs do not have information on the rhythm or lengths of the notes – only on their pitch. This means you can play the same tab in different ways. Although with Songsterr you can see and hear the tab as it is being played, rhythm notation will tell you exactly when to play note and how long to hold it. We use rhythm notation which is very similar to sheet music notation (scores). The basics of rhythm notation are explained below.
Music is based in time. Most music has a steady, recurring pulse called the beat. It's the steady rhythm to which you want to tap your foot or dance. Think of any music you've heard in a dance club and you can quickly imagine the beat of the music. The element of time in a piece of music revolves around the beat.
To help keep our place in music, beats are grouped into bars, or measures as they are also called. Bars are delineated by bar lines. In many songs four beats make up one bar. The steady pulse would be counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, … and so on. Beat one always marks the beginning of the bar.
When reading tab, we can look at the time signature. This is that fraction that happens at the beginning of each tab. The top number in the fraction stands for the number of beats in a bar (in most cases it is 4). The bottom number stands for the note value that is equal to the beat of the music. In most cases the bottom number is also 4, which indicates that the 1/4 note is the pulse of the music. In other words, 4/4 time means each bar is equal to 4 1/4 notes.
Rhythm notation is created by altering the appearance of notes to indicate the relative duration that these notes occupy within a tab. Conversely, rests describe the relative length of silence. The names of the different notes and rests are derived from their fractional value of what is considered a beat:
All the basic rhythmic values are just simple fractions of the 4-beat whole note. Let's look at the rhythm notation of the tab below:
We can see that each note has the value of quarter. Quarter notes last one beat each. You can play this tab fast or slow, but the relative duration stays the same (one note for one beat). Another example:
Here you can see the pause with duration of half (two beats) and then chord D5 is played four times with duration of eighth (half of a beat)
All rhythm values can be constructed from two rhythm values of half the duration:
Notes and rests can be attended by a small dot, appearing just to the right of the rhythmic element. This increases the duration of the note or rest by one half. Song example with this technique:
The first dot extends the note's duration by half, and the second dot adds another quarter of that extended duration, a half of a half. Song example with this technique:
The duration of notes can also be increased by the use of ties. When tied together, the following notes are held for the duration of the second note as well. Rests are never tied together. Song example with this technique:
A Grace note is a musical ornamentation characterized by a quick note played before another note. Grace note doesn't factor into the bar's duration or rhythm display. Song example with this technique:
Similar to the one before the beat, but initiated exactly on the beat, resulting in a subtle delay of the subsequent beat. Song example with this technique:
Generally triplet consists of three notes that will have duration of two notes of the same length when playing. In the example below notes are grouped in three's because the duration of 3 of this triplet's 1/8 notes equal the duration of only one 1/4 note (not 3/8). So basically instead of dividing the 1/4 note by 2 to get 1/8th notes, we have divided by three. In standard music notation these usually have a 3 written underneath the group. Song example with this technique:
In swing rhythm the pulse is divided unequally, such that certain subdivisions (typically either eighth note or sixteenth note subdivisions) alternate between long and short durations. Check out
Repeat is one of the most confusing parts of a tab notation. When a pair of dots accompanies a double bar, it signifies that you must repeat music either from the very front of the piece or front the previous repeat symbol as follows:
You should ignore repeat symbols with the dots on the right side the first time you encounter them; when you come to a repeat symbol with dots on the left side, jump back to the previous repeat symbol facing the opposite direction (if there is no previous symbol, go to the beginning of the piece). The next time you come to the repeat symbol, ignore it and keep going unless it includes instructions such as "3x" (repeat three times). See
A section will often have a different ending after each repeat. The example below includes a first and a second ending. Play until you hit the repeat symbol, jump back to the previous repeat symbol (not shown on the picture) and play until you reach the bracketed first ending, skip the measures under the bracket and jump immediately to the second ending, and then continue. See
Dynamics tell you how loud or soft to play a note or passage. They are shown as abbreviated Italian terms near the tab. A dynamic marking sets the volume level from the point it appears until the next dynamic change. See
Indicates a gradual increase in volume. Shown as cresc. with a dotted line above the notes. Each note should be played slightly louder than the one before. See
Also called decrescendo. Indicates a gradual decrease in volume. Shown as dim. with a dotted line above the notes. Each note should be played progressively softer.
Popping is a technique commonly used on bass guitars where the player forcefully plucks one of the two highest strings using the right-hand index finger. This produces a sharp and percussive sound. See
Slapping is a technique primarily used on bass guitars, where the player hits the strings with their right-hand thumb while rotating their wrist to produce a percussive sound. See
Tremolo occurs with quick short picks up and down. In this case, the pick pulls the string with the same force both when moving down and when moving up, the hand is as relaxed as possible to achieve high speed. See
An upward pick stroke (also called upstroke) indicates you should strike the strings with a pick moving in an upward direction, from lower strings (thinner strings) towards higher strings (thicker strings).
A downward pick stroke (also called downstroke) indicates you should strike the strings with a pick moving in a downward direction, from higher strings (thicker strings) towards lower strings (thinner strings).
The note is played while sliding from an undefined fret. Slide in from below starts from a lower fret and slides up to the target note. Slide in from above starts from a higher fret and slides down to the target note. The diagonal line leads into the fret number.
The note is played first, then the finger slides away to an undefined fret. Slide out downwards slides to a lower fret. Slide out upwards slides to a higher fret. The diagonal line leads away from the fret number.
Anacrusis, also called a pickup bar or upbeat, is a partial, or incomplete bar at the beginning and the end of a tab. This bar will not be highlighted as erroneous, even when it is not completed. See
