Hey how you doing? Justin here back with you on your beginner journey and today we're going to talk about a thing called guitar tab which you've probably heard of before Right? It's the way that we write down
guitar music Many of you are probably aware that there's a thing–traditional notation what we often call "dots" Which is actually really difficult to read
on guitar principally because on guitar we can play one note lots of different ways So like the top space on a guitar stave can actually be played on a guitar here– the thinnest open string, the fifth fret on the second string, the ninth fret on the third string, the fourteenth fret on the fourth string, the seventeenth fret on the fifth string, and if it had a 24th fret we could play it
on the 24th fret on the thickest string So potentially six different ways of playing the same written notation And that can make it a little
bit difficult In guitar tabs instead of having five lines like we have in normal–dot
notation–traditional notation, we have six lines and those six lines represent the six strings on the guitar Okay? The thickest string is at the bottom and the thinnest string is on the top So for me I look at it if I lie the guitar
strings down like that then I can see the bass strings
at the bottom and the treble strings at the top You'll often see on guitar tabs, TAB is written as well at the beginning
of the tab and you'll see the T is at the top where the Treble strings are the treble is the high sounds and the bottom–the B–the Bass is where the low strings are–the
bass strings So that can be a nice way to remember as well that the treble, the thin
strings–the top sounds are the top and the bottom strings–the bass stings are written at the bottom of the
guitar tab Now, on those six lines are
written numbers and the numbers tell you where to
put your finger They don't tell you which finger for that you have to use a little bit of
logic, or figuring it out, or being told or just– there's lots of different ways that
you approach figuring the fingering out But what the number tells you is the fret that you need to put a finger Okay? So let's have a little look at a couple of examples here First of all we'll play the fifth fret
on the thinnest string So to 5 on the top line of the tab So the top line we know well that's
the thinnest string It's the fifth fret so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 So if there's a five on the top
line of a tab, we would play that one note If you see a zero, that means that you're going to play a string open i.e.
With no fingers on it So if you saw the 3rd from the top line
was a zero so like nothing, nothing, nothing, 0,
nothing nothing on the six lines, that would be an open
third string So the third string with nothing on it so you'd just be playing that If you see notes that are written on top
of one another, they're played at the same time Okay? So if you were playing a chord let's say an E chord like this: this would be written in the tab with a 0 on the bottom line to say that
string was played open then a 2, then a 2, then a 1, then a 0, and a 0 So the top two lines, the highest two
lines would both have zeros on it the next line down would be a one then a two, and a two, then an open
at the bottom the lowest line would be that open,
thickest string There isn't any rhythm shown on guitar tab now, it is possible to add rhythms if
you want Sometimes I find that I do that on my own
transcriptions if I'm writing a tab But at the beginner stages, rhythm reading is often far too
complicated and it's a lot easier just to listen to a riff or a song or whatever and figure out how to play a riff that way
rather than reading the rhythm I will be explaining some basic rhythm
patterns particularly for the ones where we're
strumming so you get an understanding of what rhythms look like when you're
strumming that's a very helpful thing But particularly for any more complicated
solos you find that they look way more complicated and if you actually just listen to it you'd be able
to play it Looking at the rhythm would probably
freak you out most times I would recommend that you get used to
reading tab as soon as you can it's definitely definitely one of those skill sets that you're going to find