The practicality of using guitar tabs for beginners

Strange but true, tablature is actually a very old way of recording music sheet music. It was already used in the Renaissance for lute music. The system used then was completely different from the one we know today and there were subtle differences in the way musicians from different countries applied it. It featured some indication of the timing of the music, something that today’s guitar sheet music no longer demonstrates. Back then, you could play a composition you’d never heard before correctly and independently with just tablature as a guide. Most of the guitar charts available today show only where notes should be played and not how fast or slow they should be played. For today’s guitar charts, you have to be familiar with a song to learn how to play it.

These are the basics of reading guitar tabs for beginners.

A tab staff is made up of 6 lines, placed horizontally, one to represent each string of the guitar. The highest line, the lowest line, corresponds to E, the note that has the lowest pitch. The next lines are A, D, G, B and E high respectively.

The notes are given with numbers, zero means open, one means the first fret, two means the second fret, and so on. So a 7, on the second line from the top, denoting the B string, means you play the note on the seventh fret of the B string.

If the notes are stacked directly on top of each other, they should be played together, like a chord. If they are placed diagonally across from each other, they must be played individually.

Guitar charts may also indicate the use of techniques such as vibrato, bends, trills, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, harmonics, and palm muting. In most cases, it does not show the rhythm or timing of a composition.

You can visit the portal site http://www.top100tabsites.com and see which of the websites listed there works for you. Some have single band or genre tabs, while others promise a wider variety of guitar tabs for beginners or more advanced players.

The website called ultimate-guitar is a great resource for guitar charts, with almost two thousand different artists listed on the website. It can be quite overwhelming to explore at first, but use the search bar to help you find the right bands or songs you’re familiar with.

The songsterr site differs a bit from most standard guitar tab sites, but it can be a great help for beginning guitarists. On the home page, the songs are listed as easy, intermediate, and hard. However, when you go to a tab, you can’t see the entire tab at once. The site has its own app that shows only two bars at a time. Clicking on the play button allows you to listen to the tabulated song.

If you feel ready to try something a little different, check out sologuitarist.net where you can find sheet music for some guitar works by classical composers like Johan Sebastian Bach, Ferdinand Sor, and JH Brahms. You can see the regular notation along with the guitar charts for each piece, which will make it easier to calculate the time.

Beginner guitar charts are a good step to start learning guitar quickly, but you will inevitably move on to learning to read music for further musical advancement.