Hey how you doing? Justin here
back with you on your beginner journey
and today we're going to talk about
a thing called guitar tab
which you've probably heard of before
Right? It's the way that we write down guitar music
Many of you are probably aware
that there's a thing--traditional notation
what we often call "dots"
Which is actually really difficult to read on guitar
principally because on guitar we can
play one note lots of different ways
So like the top space on a guitar stave
can actually be played on a guitar here--
the thinnest open string,
the fifth fret on the second string,
the ninth fret on the third string,
the fourteenth fret on the fourth string,
the seventeenth fret on the fifth string,
and if it had a 24th fret we could play it on the 24th fret on the thickest string
So potentially six different ways of
playing the same written notation
And that can make it a little bit difficult
In guitar tabs instead of having
five lines like we have in normal--dot notation--traditional notation,
we have six lines and those six lines
represent the six strings on the guitar
Okay? The thickest string is at the bottom
and the thinnest string is on the top
So for me I look at it if I lie the guitar strings down like that
then I can see the bass strings at the bottom
and the treble strings at the top
You'll often see on guitar tabs,
TAB is written as well at the beginning of the tab
and you'll see the T is at the top
where the Treble strings are
the treble is the high sounds
and the bottom--the B--the Bass
is where the low strings are--the bass strings
So that can be a nice way to remember
as well that the treble, the thin strings--the top sounds are the top
and the bottom strings--the bass stings
are written at the bottom of the guitar tab
Now, on those six lines are written numbers
and the numbers tell you where to put your finger
They don't tell you which finger
for that you have to use a little bit of logic, or
figuring it out, or being told or just--
there's lots of different ways that you approach figuring the fingering out
But what the number tells you is the fret
that you need to put a finger
Okay? So let's have a little look
at a couple of examples here
First of all we'll play the fifth fret on the thinnest string
So to 5 on the top line of the tab
So the top line we know well that's the thinnest string
It's the fifth fret so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
So if there's a five on the top line of a tab,
we would play that one note
If you see a zero, that means that
you're going to play a string open
i.e. with no fingers on it
So if you saw the 3rd from the top line was a zero
so like nothing, nothing, nothing, 0, nothing nothing
on the six lines, that would be an open third string
So the third string with nothing on it
so you'd just be playing that
If you see notes that are written on top of one another,
they're played at the same time
Okay? So if you were playing a chord
let's say an E chord like this:
this would be written in the tab with a
0 on the bottom line to say that string was played open
then a 2, then a 2, then a 1,
then a 0, and a 0
So the top two lines, the highest two lines would both have zeros on it
the next line down would be a one
then a two, and a two, then an open at the bottom
the lowest line would be that open, thickest string
There isn't any rhythm shown on guitar tab
now, it is possible to add rhythms if you want
Sometimes I find that I do that on my own transcriptions if I'm writing a tab
But at the beginner stages,
rhythm reading is often far too complicated
and it's a lot easier just to listen
to a riff or a song or whatever
and figure out how to play a riff that way rather than reading the rhythm
I will be explaining some basic rhythm patterns
particularly for the ones where we're strumming so you get an understanding
of what rhythms look like when you're strumming that's a very helpful thing
But particularly for any more complicated solos you find that they look
way more complicated and if you actually
just listen to it you'd be able to play it
Looking at the rhythm would probably freak you out most times
I would recommend that you get used to reading tab as soon as you can
it's definitely definitely one of those
skill sets that you're going to find