Guitar tablature is sheet music that, in addition to chording, shows which notes are being played on the guitar. Lead riffs, intros, breaks, and fill-ins are all examples of places where we might expect to hear some fancy guitar work that can be broken down in guitar tablature. Tablature is also a good fit for songs that aren’t widely known, such as the Beatles’ classic Blackbird.
Because it does not require the guitarist to know how to read music, guitar tablature is a very useful tool for learning popular songs. Because it is also simple to write, the internet is a rich source of free guitar tablature of all kinds. You can’t always be sure that the tab you try is an accurate representation of the original artist’s rendition because virtually anyone can upload tablature to the internet. Not everyone is a natural at deducing what a guitarist is doing!
There are numerous guitar tablature songbooks available for purchase. Hal Leonard is a well-known author, and there are several others.
Guitar tablature, also known as tab, is a six-line staff that represents the strings on a guitar. The top line denotes a high E value. This is due to the fact that the guitar is strung in the opposite direction, with the high E string being the bottom string. On a guitar, however, the bottom string is considered the first string. As a result, both the first string on the guitar and the first line on the tablature staff are high E.
————————————————————————————————— (high)
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————— (low)
A fret number appears on the appropriate string to indicate a note. For instance, if the first note of a riff was G played at the 3rd fret of the 6th string, the note would be written as:
————————————————————————————————— (high)
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
———————————————————————————————————— (low)
A vertical line runs down the staff to indicate a bar of music, and an open note is indicated by a “0” or zero, indicating that there is no fret noted but the string is played open. A connecting arc from the first note to the last note is shown on slides, and a hammer-on will have a between the notes, or an h, as shown here:
————————————————————————————————— (high)
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————
E —3h5—- or E —3h5—- or E —3h5—- or E —3h5—- or E (low)
The first note is plucked for a hammer-on, but the second is achieved by slamming down hard on the neck with the chording finger in the second position.
The second note will be lower for pull-offs, as in 53. Alternatively, a p could be used, as in 5p3. When performing a pull-off, the first note is plucking normally, then the second note is plucking with the left or chording finger by pulling the finger off the string in a downward and outward motion away from the guitar. Slurts are also known as pull-offs and hammer-ons or hammers.
The chord being played is usually included in the guitar tablature. This will be indicated by the chord’s name and, more often than not, a representation of it. The horizontal lines in this case represent the guitar strings, while the vertical lines represent the frets on the guitar neck, with numbers indicating which fret the chord should be played at. On the strings, dots will appear in the positions where the fingers will form the chord.
Guitar tablature is an excellent way to learn new songs and expand your repertoire. If you’re new to tab, go to a search engine and type in the title of your favorite song plus “guitar tab,” for example: “my favorite song title” + “guitar tab.” Then get an empty notebook and a 3-hole punch and warm up the printer.