How to read guitar Tab

How to read Guitar Tab

Guitar tablature is much like note reading but made easy! If you want to learn how to play guitar you don't ever have to learn to read those little black notes, you can simply read this tut and be on your way.

Standard guitar tab is set up like this

|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
|---------|

The lines represent the strings starting with the highest one (high E) at the top an working its way down

E|---------|
B|---------|
G|---------|
D|---------|
A|---------|
E|---------|

It is sort of upside down but you'll get used to it. Next there are numbers put on the lines like this...

E|---------|
B|---------|
G|---------|
D|---------|
A|---------|
E|-0--3--5-|

Those stand for the fretts to be played. 0 means the string is played open, 1 means the first fret is played, 2 means the second and so on. Now you can play more than one note at a time which will make up a chord, like...

E|--0-------|
B|--0-------|
G|--1-------|
D|--2-------|
A|--2-------|
E|--0-------|

This makes and E chord. Aside from this there are also letters that are put on the strings that mean various things such as, bend, slide, vibrato, hammer on, pull off.. ect. usually the tabber specifies at the top of the tab what each symbol means, but here is a small index.

h - hammer-on
p - pull-off
b - bend
pb - pre-bend
r - bend release
/\ - slide into or out of
s - legato slide
S - shift slide
<n> - natural harmonic
[n] - artificial harmonic
n(n) - tapped harmonic
~ - vibrato
tr - trill
T - tap
TP - trem. picking
PM - palm muting
\n/ - tremolo bar dip
\n - tremolo bar down
n/ - tremolo bar up
/n\ - tremolo bar inverted dip
= - hold bend; also acts as connecting device for hammers/pulls
<> - volume swell
x - on rhythm slash represents muted slash
o - on rhythm slash represents single note slash

There are a bunch more but if you know the basic concept than that's pretty much enough

Enjoy!