Guitar Lesson 3 - Learn guitar tab easily

In the last lesson we were taking a look at the names of the strings in order to learn and master guitar, and if you'll remember correctly, we were using little lines to establish the neck and strings. Those lines looked like this..

|-------------------------| 1 (E)
|-------------------------| 2 (B)
|-------------------------| 3 (G)
|-------------------------| 4 (D)
|-------------------------| 5 (A)
|-------------------------| 6 (E)

Each line represented a string, and above you can see that they are numbered for all six, and that the corresponding key that each string is tuned to is also present. Well, perhaps you didn't realize it, and maybe you are just joining us for this lesson without reading through the first one, but those six lines set up just like that are the very first part to learn guitar tabs easily.

So we have lines that represent our strings. The next question is how do we represent notes with this method? instead of using traditional notation, numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4, etc will tell us what notes to play. Now how does that work? well, if you'll remember lesson 1, we were talking about the parts of the guitar. One of the most important pieces of the structure of the guitar are the frets, which are the little spaces on the neck of your guitar, that are distinguished by those little bars, or "wires". Any space in between a 2 pieces of "fret wire" is called a fret. This complete section of the instrument is called the fretboard, which sits a top the neck.

If you look from left to right up the neck, you can probably count a whole bunch of fret spaces. Go ahead and try it. As you're counting, you're using a number, right? fret 1, fret 2, fret 3, etc.

Now imagine that you put one of your fingers on the low E string (thickest string), and set it down onto the 2nd fret. Tabbed out, it would look like this..

|--------------| 1 (E)
|--------------| 2 (B)
|--------------| 3 (G)
|--------------| 4 (D)
|--------------| 5 (A)
|---2----------| 6 (E)

Now imagine if it were the 4th fret of the low E.

|--------------| 1 (E)
|--------------| 2 (B)
|--------------| 3 (G)
|--------------| 4 (D)
|--------------| 5 (A)
|---4----------| 6 (E)

Now imagine the 4th fret of the A string

|--------------| 1 (E)
|--------------| 2 (B)
|--------------| 3 (G)
|--------------| 4 (D)
|---4----------| 5 (A)
|--------------| 6 (E)

So using the fret numbers in tab tells us which fret to play, rather than telling us necessarily which note to play. Its such an easy system that anyone can use it. You don't need to understand sheet music.

Now imagine that we have several notes here. You would read, and therefor play them, from left to right - just like you would read a line of text from a page in a book. Go in order like this.

|--------------| 1 (E)
|--------------| 2 (B)
|--------------| 3 (G)
|--------------| 4 (D)
|-1--2--3--4---| 5 (A)
|--------------| 6 (E)

This shows us to play the following frets in this EXACT order. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

You may even encounter something kind of like this..

|---------------| 1 (E)
|---------------| 2 (B)
|---------------| 3 (G)
|----5----------| 4 (D)
|-1-----3-------| 5 (A)
|-----------5---| 6 (E)

1st fret, 5th fret, 3rd fret, and 5th fret again, but pay attention to which string you are supposed to be on!

Now, no song would be complete or really a song without some chords, and for most beginning guitar players, learning chords first is easier and a wiser decision than working too much with single notes. So, how do we indicate or read chords with tab? Very easy! we take the fret numbers and stack them on top of each other like so..

|--------------| 1 (E)
|--------------| 2 (B)
|--------------| 3 (G)
|---2----------| 4 (D)
|---2----------| 5 (A)
|---0----------| 6 (E)

First of all, whenever you see the number (0), it means to just pluck or pick the string as it is. You don't have to put a finger on it. The chord above is a basic E minor chord.

So this will get you started. Keep in mind that there are a lot of other symbols to learn, but they are not important at this point in time. They are mostly symbols that represent tricks or how to accentuate a note. Right now its more important to learn some chords using the tab system.

You by now are well on your way to learning and master guitar!