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Reading basic guitar tab is so easy, and you don't need to have a degree in music theory in order to understand it. There are many sites on the net where you can download and view the guitar tablature and chords of many popular songs. The most extensive site for music is the OLGA, or On Line Guitar Archive.
Tablature is written as if you were looking at the fret board of the guitar from the top. Each string is displayed as a line, and the fret number that needs to be pressed is also indicated. It looks a little funny at first, but once you learn how to read it, it'll make perfect sense to you. For example, the tablature for picking a G chord would be written like this:
6th string E ----3----
5th string B ---------
4th string G --------- Your basic G Chord
3rd string D ---------
2nd string A ----2----
1st string E ----3----
Now, study the above diagram for a few moments. If you know to play a G chord, then it should make sense to you. On the first string (E), you place your finger on the 3rd fret. On the 2nd string (A), you place your finger on the 2nd fret. On the bottom string (E) you place your finger on the 3rd fret. So, according to this tab, you would only pick 3 strings on the guitar - the 1st, 2nd, and 6th.
On a similar G-chord tablature, it would be a little different if you were supposed to pick every string from top to bottom, or slowly strum the chord. In this example, a 0 represents and open string. An open string is one that is picked without holding down any of the strings.
6th string E ----3----
5th string B ----0----
4th string G ----0---- Your basic G Chord
3rd string D ----0----
2nd string A ---2-----
1st string E ----3----
Most tablature found online will tell you if there are any special instructions to playing certain songs, and there sometimes will be. A good many of them feature a little index for you to reference, such as how to do slides and hammer-ons.
A slide is when you press and hold one string on one fret, pick it, then slide to another fret while still holding the string. Picking a string on the 2nd fret and sliding to the 3rd fret would be represented as:
--2~3-- or –-2^3--
A hammer-on is when you press and hold one string on one fret, pick it, then use another finger to quickly press and release the same string but on another fret. It causes the string to make a quick wah-wah sort of sound. The opposite of a hammer-on is a pull-off, which is when you lift your finger from one fret, while still holding down the string on a different fret located further up the neck of the guitar.
For example, picking a string on the 2nd fret, then quickly hammering the 3rd fret and releasing it, would be represented as:
---2h3p2---
That will get you started with learning how to play or even write your own music. Reading guitar tablature does involve a slight learning curve, but so does playing a guitar! You should start trying to learn songs that you are very familiar with, and you will eventually be able to see what the music sounds like.
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