| | | Hey Friend,
Continuing with common questions from the passengers on the S.S. Learn To Play Rock Guitar, Nikola wants to know more about reading tabs and understanding notation.
One of the challenges we face when we begin playing guitar is learning to read tabs. Tabs is short for tablature, and tabs can be seen as a few different things, depending on who's talking.
Let's clear up any confusion right now.
It's easy to understand why the term "tabs" can be so confusing. I've seen lyric sheets with just chord charts called tabs. I've seen straight-up sheet music in standard notation referred to as tabs. And then when you look at them online or on a sheet of paper, tabs usually paired with standard notation and chord charts.
So what exactly is the definition of tablature?
Tablature shows you fingering - where your fingers go on the fingerboard. They're meant to give you a visual representation of where to locate your fingers on the fingerboard in order to play through the music.
Standard notation is what we commonly call sheet music. Sheet music shows the pitch and rhythmic value of the notes being played. It is the accepted form of notation for every musical instrument. But you know we guitarists (and bass players) are special and need our own way to notate music (because frankly, the vast majority of guitar players can't read standard notation - even your favorite artists)! ;-)
There you have it - two different approaches to representing the music to be played. They both achieve the same end goal - written documentation of the music.
The Path to Enlightenment
When I became aware of tabs (it wasn't that long ago), I found them hard to understand because my background with printed music was standard notation. I was used to the standard score with five lines, the dots and squiggles and basic chord charts to tell me where the chords belong. Yes, I can read music, but not quickly and certainly not by sight.
Tabs were a challenge because I kept translating the lines back to the score in standard notation. I had to wrap my head around there being SIX lines representing each of the six strings of the guitar. I also had to get clear on what the numbers on the strings meant. These are the frets that you place your fingers on to play the note.
Another challenge differentiating between the two methods is that the lower string pitches don't show up on the five lines of a standard notation score. You have to drop the notes lower into a bass clef score. See what I mean? Confusing!
It didn't take too long to make the distinction, but once I was clear on that, tabs lost most of their mystery. I did have to mentally disconnect the number on the line with which finger to use. It's probably more obvious to you, as you don't have a 9th finger! But like I said before, I'm not always the brightest light bulb in the pack...
So each line in tablature represents one of the guitar strings.
The top line is the first string (high e). The easiest way to remember this is the highest pitched notes are on the top line and the thinnest string. As you drop down the lines, the lowest pitches are on the sixth line and sixth string (low E).
That's the major benefit to tabs - it's the visual representation. Put finger here on this string at the third fret.
So here are the differences again:
- Notation shows pitches and rhythm, tabs show fingering
- Notation has 5 lines, tabs have 6 (or 4 if you're looking at bass)
- Both notation and tabs can show chord charts on them
- Both require your guitar to be tuned properly, but only notation requires you to remember the pitch of each string (so you know where you are on the guitar)
One thing tabs don't show you is chord fingering. You do have to either know the five basic chord shapes or have the chord charts available to you. That's one of the reason chord charts are usually included on tabs.
When you have both standard notation and tabs, you get the best of both world. Tomorrow I'll tell you why you really should learn both.
When you have the tabs in front of you, it helps to also have a recording of the song available so you can hear the rhythm. But what do you do if the song you're learning is too fast and you need to learn it first before you can play it up to speed? Song Surgeon to the rescue!
Song Surgeon allows you to take that audio file and slow the tempo down so you can learn the song. It allows you to create custom practice loops so you can really focus in on the parts you need to work the most on. For serious guitar students, Song Surgeon is a tool that will help accelerate your learning and mastering of guitar.
Try the demo. If you decide to buy a copy, you still have a 60-day money-back guarantee. Check out Song Surgeon today.
Peace~
Dave
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