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Reading Tablature 1-1

Tablature is a kind of “musical shorthand” that has been around since the 14th century. All modern guitar players should make themselves familiar with reading it because it’s the easiest way to convey melodies and chords. To start reading tab, you’ll need to know the string and fret numbers. 

 

short low e to high e strat pic - copy1

 

tab_lowe_hie

 

*Remember that your Low E is the thickest string- High E is the thinnest. The bigger the string number, the bigger the string…

If the orientation is confusing, try laying your guitar down in your lap with the strings facing your chin.

tab on neck

TAB is as easy as reading a sentence from left to right. All we need to do is determine what string and fret to play.

FRET NUMBERS

tabexample1fixed

 

Low E STRING (6th)

We already know how the strings are laid out- the numbers placed on the lines (strings) tell us what frets to play. In this simple example we start off playing the 6th string/1st fret, 6th string/2nd fret, 6th string/3rd fret, 6th string/4th fret and finally 6th string/5th fret.

Notice how all the fret numbers were on the same line (the 6th string). You can look at this example and immediately see that we are only using the Low E string.

*How would you annotate an open string? With a 0 (zero). Think of it as “playing no frets” on that string. Some of my students find it easier to think of the zero as the letter O as in Open string.

Let’s try reading another example incorporating open strings and the other five strings.

epentgood

Start on your 6th string/Open, 6th string/3rd fret, 5th string/Open, 5th string/2nd fret, 4th string/Open, 4th string/2nd fret, 3rd string/Open, 3rd string/2nd fret, 2nd string/Open, 2nd string/3rd fret, 1st string/Open, 1st string/3rd fret.

Try to visualize TAB like you are connecting dots from left to right:

epentgoodredline

*Just remember that numbers will switch to different lines, BUT THEY ALWAYS READ LEFT TO RIGHT!!!

tablature-run

Can you write out chords with TAB? Sure, but just remember that the L-R movement is a reference for elapsed time. Single notes happen one at a time, but chords hit several notes at one time. To show that the notes occur simultaneously, they need to occur in the same “frame” in time. We notate this by stacking the numbers of the chord in a vertical line.

emchord and run1

The example above has you playing a common Em chord at the beginning and end. Because the numbers of the chord are stacked upon each other, they occur simultaneously.

emchord and run1fgfgf

If you see a collective of numbers stacked vertically, you know that you will be playing several notes at once- but just think of that group as just one more number in the Left to Right progression.

TAB does have many benefits (easy to read & write, plenty of TABS available online, etc.), but it does have a few major drawbacks. For one thing, we have no idea how long any of these notes are held. Most melodies have certain notes held longer for emphasis. TAB alone has no way to express this. If I handed you TAB from a song you have never heard, it would be impossible for you to get it right rhythmically.

Standard notation (sheet music) shows us the duration of each note you play, along with the note itself. It is common practice in modern guitar books to have Standard guitar notation with TAB printed directly below. The note values are aligned vertically with their respective TAB numbers so that, with a basic study of note values, you should have a pretty good idea of how long to hold each note.

grand tab example done

 

(*Later on you will find that TAB can contain more advanced information on technique, fingering and phrasing. You can find out more on the TAB GLOSSARY PAGE).

Introduction to Notes

The single most important thing to learn in music is the Musical Alphabet. Don’t move on until you have this memorized. Be able to recite it forwards AND backward without hesitation.

Let’s start simple. How many notes are there in music? Imagine all the songs you have heard in your life and consider all the stylistic and cultural differences. How many notes would it take to create this seemingly limitless body of music? THE ANSWER IS TWELVE.

12? That can’t be right…but it is. You can play any melody or song using a dozen notes.

Think of these 12 notes as increments on a ruler.number-rulerl

As we move to the right on a ruler, the numbers go UP. Move left and the numbers go DOWN.

If for some bizarre reason you had an unlimited supply of rulers, you could theoretically place them end to end (in either direction) to infinity. The 12 note sequence always remains the same. It just keeps starting over. The only difference is if you are going right (UP) or left (DOWN).                                                                                                     

                                                                    UP———————————————–> three_rulers2                                                                      <————————————-DOWN

This perpetual 12 note sequence is the basis of understanding music. The only difference is that in music we replace these numbers with letters.

We use the first seven letters of the alphabet (ABCDEFG) to name all 12 notes.

* I know 7 letter names doesn’t seem like enough to name all 12, but bear with me. This is one of those musical concepts that don’t seem to make sense at first.

7-letter-ruler

We can fill in the missing note names by using something known as sharps (#) and flats (b). Sharps and flats can be likened to “generational suffixes” that add “Jr.” or “Sr.” to someone’s name to distinguish them. We’ll add sharps and flats to the existing letters to finish naming the 12 notes.

Sharps (#) raise the pitch of a note- moving it one space to the right.

Flats (b) lower a letter one space- moving it one space to the left.

The space between A and B could be considered one space higher than A (making it an A#) or a B lowered one space (making it a Bb). Both names are considered correct. This is what is referred to as enharmonic equivalents. This means that A# and Bb are the same note expressed differently. Later you will find that one name or the other will be preferable in a given situation.

Let’s try to fill in all 12 notes now.

chromatic_ruler

Notice how we don’t have spaces between B to C and E to F. The reason is we only needed 12 names for our alphabet. If we added a sharp to all 7 letters, we would end up with 14 names. We only need 12, so B and C will always be adjacent to each other. The same thing goes for E to F.

3 chromatic rulers in a line ! and @ OCTS

 Most people are familiar with the layout of a piano. It’s a great visual aid to see how our musical alphabet lays out. The original 7 notes of the alphabet that we used to name notes are always white keys. Black keys are for sharps/flats.

Here is the complete 12 note sequence on the keyboard (NOTE that B goes right to C and E goes right to F with no black note between them):

lil-keyb_w_staff

Here is what that 12 note sequence repeated on a keyboard looks like:

big-keyb_w_staff

*Note that every letter has a sharp or flat after it EXCEPT B-C & E-F!!!

To find out how these notes appear on the guitar, check out the “Notes on the Guitar” page.

Notes on the Guitar

notes on the guitar header

As we learned on the Introduction to notes page, music is comprised of a sequence of 12 notes that repeat as many times as your instrument can manage. Think about a standard piano keyboard with 88 keys. These aren’t all different notes, rather the 12 note sequence has been repeated 7 1/3 times. The guitar isn’t mapped out as visually as the piano (with its symmetric pattern of white and black keys), but we still follow the same sequence of twelve notes.

On a guitar, the more frets you have allow you to play more notes of the sequence. All guitars have at least 12 frets, so we know that they can hold at least one octave worth of music. A standard 22 fret neck goes 10 notes higher in the sequence.

Do you remember the string names from the Using a Digital Tuner page?

good low e to high e strat pic - copy1

                                “Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye, Eddie!”

                                (6th)  (5th)(4th)       (3rd)  (2nd)(1st)

                            (LOW/thick strings)     (HIGH/thin strings)

dynamite plate

Let’s try to figure out the notes up the Low E (6th) string. We start on that note and count through the next note in the chromatic sequence. You can use this chart as a reference:

—————UP————->

A

A#/Bb

B

C

C#/Db

D

D#/Eb

E

F

F#/Gb

G

G#/Ab

Starting here and counting “up” >

*Remember- it doesn’t matter where you start in the sequence. Just keep counting from one note to the next. (When you get to G#/Ab, the sequence starts over again on A).

If we count up (going L to R in the sequence)from the letter E, we get:

E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E

Here is how it would look on the guitar:

e string chromatic with string nos.2

*You can find the rest of the notes on the Low E string by simply continuing the sequence until you run out of frets. You can fill in this chart using the same method that we used for the Low E string. Simply find the open string letter and count up the sequence from there. You will know you did it right if the 12th fret (the double dot) reads EADGBE again. We know there are only twelve notes in music, so wherever you start on a string, you can count up 12 frets and be on the octave of the same note you started on. (We don’t count the number we start on-that’s why you don’t end up with 13).

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