The first system of music notation for Guitar, that we are going to talk about, is tablature. Or some people just call them tabs. Tabs are pretty great in that they tell you the string, and the Fret that you need to press down on. The whole system is arranged like a timeline, where you can visually see the order that things happen in. You play this, then you play this, then you play this. It is pretty straightforward, pretty simple and direct method to learning how to play a piece of music. Let’s bring up a tab staff here, so we can see what we are talking about. As you’ll see here [Shows the tab staff on screen], what we have is six lines laid horizontally. The way it works is that every line represents one of your guitar strings. To the left, what you are going to see is, the string names, next to the lines on the tab staff. Let’s remember, our guitar string names are E, A, D, G, B, E. That’s Elephant And Dogs Got Big Ears thing. The bottom line of the tab staff, that’s got an E next to it, that is your thick E string, that is your number 6, E string. Right above is your A string, and so on and so forth. Let’s see the tab staff in action here. The way it works is that you write a number on a line, and that number is the fret that you’re pressing on. The thing you have to remember, for example, is: the 6^th guitar string has a 6^th line on that tab staff. So, when you write the number on the 6^th line, you’re talking about the 6^th string. For example, I am going to go 6^th string, 3^rd Fret. Let’s play this note [Plucks the string]. Let’s see what it looks like on the tab staff. On the tab staff, you see a 3 on the bottom line. Again, that is the 3^rd fret, and it’s written on the 6^th string or the 6^th line. This is now a little details here. That has nothing to do with your fingers, that is not your 3^rd finger, or anything like that. It’s just the fret number. Let’s build upon this, and see what it’s going to look like, if we play an excerpt of our spider exercise. I am going to do the 3^rd fret here, starting on this E string, this 6^th string E. I am going to do the four finger version of the spider, and you can play along if you like. I will go a little bit slower, but if this feels fast just have patience. The spider takes a little bit of time to develop. Here we go, starting on just the 6^th string. 3^rd fret [Plucks the string], 4^th[Plucks the string], 5^th[Plucks the string], and now the 6^th fret [Plucks the string]. It’s all on the 6^th string. Let’s take a look at the tab staff [Shows the tab staff on screen]. You can see, you’ve got your 3, 4, 5, 6. Those are the Frets. Notice it is kind of like reading a book, left to right. That is the order that those notes got played in. First you played the 3^rd fret, then the 4^th fret, 5^th fret, and the 6^th fret. It gives you a sense of what to play first, then what comes after that, and so on and so forth. The thing with tabs is, since every Guitar string gets its own line, I can take those numbers and put them on the different lines. Lines and strings are start becoming the same thing. That is the idea in tab. Let’s look at the spider exercise on the 5^th string. We are going to start at the 3^rd fret again. Same thing, but just 5^th string. So, here we go... 3^rd[Plucks the string], 4^th[Plucks the string], 5^th[Plucks the string], and now 6^th fret [Plucks the string]. Let’s go back to the tab staff [Shows the tab staff on screen]. And now you can see it’s on the next line up. For a minute here, let’s just pause, and think about the sounds that we are making when we play the spider. Let’s review the two strings that we just played, starting with the 6^th string. So, here I go... 3^rd fret [Plucks the string], 4^th[Plucks the string],  5^th[Plucks the string],  6^th[Plucks the string]. Now I am going to change to the next string [Plucks few strings one by one]. You can hear how the sounds keep getting higher and higher and higher. When you go back and look at the tab staff, the material is organized to reflect that, as you go string to string from the 6^th string to the 5^th string, or the E to the A to the D string, to the B string. The sounds would keep getting higher. Remember that these numbers are also Frets, so you can make pitches get higher and higher by going higher and higher with the fret. Let’s go back to our Guitar, and let’s play the full spider exercise on the 5^th fret here. I am going to go 6^th string, 5^th fret, and I am going to do four finger exercise. Let’s play it together here, nice and slow. And...

• E string, 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string].
• Next string (A), 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string],  8^th fret [Plucks the string].
• Next string (D), 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string].
• Next string (G), 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string].
• Next string (B), , 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string].
• And finally, last string (E), 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 6^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string].

Don’t be discouraged if we are going a little bit fast here. The most important thing is just to understand how the tab works. Let’s go back to the tabs [Shows the tab staff on screen], and as you can see the 5, 6, 7, 8, those are our Frets, and it is laid out, string by string. And the timeline thing is still in effect. The very first thing we played is down at the low left corner. That is that 5^th fret. Then we had 6^th, 7^th and 8^th. And then we moved to the next string, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th. So on and so forth. The idea with tab here is that, when you have a series of notes, whether they are on one string or multiple strings, you always arrange them like a timeline, moving left to right. And the numbers are frets you press down on, and every one of these lines is one of your Guitar strings. Thus far, we’ve really just been playing melodies. Melodies is like a series of notes, one after the other. But as we previously stated, the guitar can play chords, or basically a bunch of strings at the same time. For example, I am going to take my six strings here, and play them all at the same time. [Strums over all six strings]. How would I write that in tab? Let’s take a look at the tab staff [Shows the tab staff on screen]. The first thing is, we are playing Open Strings. We are not Fretting Notes. The way you write that in tab is with the zero (0). A zero is an open string. If you look at this example, all 6 strings have zeroes on them, and the zeroes are all written one on top each other. Again, it’s like a timeline, so what the timeline is telling us is, all six of these notes happen at exactly same time. Let’s take an example of when we can fret notes, but also make a Chord. Random example here, I am going to go up to the 7^th fret, lay my finger down across all six strings, press them down [Strums over all six strings], and play them all. What would that look like in tab? [Shows the tab staff on screen] In the tab staff you can see here that that is 7, or whole bunch of 7’s, that is for the Frets, 7^th fret. That is where I am on the guitar. Timeline wise they’re all happening at the same time, stack one on top of each other. Here is that sound one more time. [Strums one more time]. That’s six 7^th fret notes being played at the same time. Let’s go back to the Guitar here again. Let us say you only want to have two strings ringing at the same time. Here’s an example, I am going to go to the 3^rd fret on the bottom two strings of my guitar. Maybe I’ll use two fingers for this one, push them both down, and I am going to play just those two strings. B string and the E string, both being fretted at the 3^rd fret. Here it is. [Strums the two strings]. In tablature, [Shows the tab staff on screen] that is going to look like two 3’s stack one on top of each other. Those 3’s, those are your frets, remember? Notice how they are the highest lines on the staff, that’s because those are the strings that give you your high pitch notes on the Guitar. Let’s talk about an example, combining this idea of melody notes, fretted notes and Chord notes. Sounds like a lot, but it is actually easier than it sounds. Here is what I am going to do, I am going to take my index finger, go to the 3^rd fret, push everything. I am going to pluck my E-string, A-string, D-string and G-string, that is 6, 5, 4, 3. Those will be plucked one after the other. My bottom two strings, I am going to pluck those at the same time. Guitar to guitar, if you want to play along here. Here we go.  [Plucks the string].

• Next string [Plucks the string].
• Next string [Plucks the string].
• Next string [Plucks the string].

Here’s my last two strings together [Plucks two strings]. [Shows the tab staff on screen] Let’s look at that on the tab.  What you can see is, you’ve got these couple 3’s, four of them, really, that happen one after the other. They form a diagonal line.  Because here you are going like the timeline, but you are changing strings. The 3’s are all Frets, that is the 3^rd fret, 3^rd fret, 3^rd fret, 3^rd fret. At the end, you’ve got two 3’s stack one on top of each other. Those are meant to be played at the exact same time. To summarize, tablature gives you a sense of the order of events, really, what happens followed by what happens. Where to fret, what string to play it on. Remember, it is not telling you what finger to use. Experience and your own studies will give you and idea of what a good fingering would be. What we want to do here, is give you actually a new scale to work on. Thus far you’ve been practicing your spider exercise, and that is going to come in really handy here. The next Scale that we are going to do is called the A minor (Am) pentatonic scale.  Kind of a long name. Pentatonic minor scales are super popular in rock and blues. It is usually the first scale any guitar player learns when a friend just says... Here, play this. And you learn a scale. I’ll break it down at the Guitar, and then, we’ll take a look on the tablature, to see what that is going to look like. I am going to start at the 5^th fret, 6^th string, and real quick, string to string, here is how it’s going to look. I am going to go 5^th fret, then 8^th; then on my next string, 5^th fret, then 7^th; next string is the same, 5^th, 7^th; on my third string it’s 5^th, 7^th; my last two strings, bottom two strings of the guitar are 5^th, 8^th; and 5^th, 8^th. Some people call it the box scale, kind of make the box-like shape. Anyway, let’s play it together, I will call out notes as I play them.

• Starting on the 6^th string, 5^th Fret. It is my low E-string, but up at the 5^th fret.
• 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string];
• next string is 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string];
• same thing on the next string, 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string]; another 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 7^th fret [Plucks the string];
• now second string is 5^th fret [Plucks the string], 8^th fret [Plucks the string];
• last string is 5^th fret [Plucks the string],8^th fret [Plucks the string].

[Shows the tab staff on screen] Let’s take a look at the tab here. As you can see the notes are laid out, 5-8, 5-7, 5-7, 5-7, 5-8, 5-8. Remember you always read tab from left to right, and then you have to consider the sort of up-down vertical thing. Just start with whatever is on the left, farthermost on the left, and then just read your way from left to right, like reading a book. That minor pentatonic Scale, as I was saying, you know, rock, blues [Plays rock riff]. Super common, all the classic blues [Plays blues riff]. Banding, whatever. You can have a lots of fun with that skill, and everybody uses it. It is a great one to learn, you definitely want to spend some time practicing it. Be patient, just like with the spider, it takes some time to develop, but it’s a classic scale to know. Anyway, in summation, tablature is great for simple and direct way of learning, and it’s the kind of thing you use when you have a sound that you know, or song that you love, and you just want to know how do I play that. Like right on the Guitar. Boom! It explains what Frets, what strings, and gives you an idea of what order to play the things in. And then you basically match up the sounds to the sound in your ear or the sound on the record, or what not. It’s an excellent and simple way to teach guitar, learn guitar, and just spend some time with it. If you want to take a piece of paper, right out six lines, and practice, for example, writing the spider exercise, or the pentatonic minor scale, or make up your own melodies. It is a great way to sort of really ingrain it, it kind of needs to be a habit. Just have some patience, you’ll develop it, and we’ll see you next time.

What should I do if I'm having trouble learning how to read guitar tabs? The first thing you should do is make sure you understand the basic principals of tablature. As this topic is somewhat complex you may want to watch our video that explains the basics about tabs a few times. Once you've brushed up on the principals of reading a guitar tab, start with very simple exercises. You also shouldn't just read tabs that are already written out... make your own!  Start simple and try writing a short series of notes on a 6 note tab staff, and then play it.   Why does tab read like it's upside down? Think of the sounds the guitar makes when you strum the strings in a downward motion: the tone "goes up" as you strum each string. This being the case, the bottom string of the guitar actually makes the highest tone. That is reflected in the tab staff, which has the highest line of the staff representing the string that makes the highest sound.   Are the tabs I have found on the internet wrong?  Probably. Internet tabs are often written by armatures so they are inaccurate or simplified. However, even if these tabs are inaccurate they can still help you to play something similar to the song you are trying to play. While internet tabs aren't the most trust worthy thing in the world they can still be useful and are great for training your ears.