How to Read Guitar Tabs

Almost everyone uses Tab notation to share music on the Guitar. It’s incredibly easy to learn how to read guitar tabs and it allows you to tap into the thousands of tabs people put online.

Once you know how to read guitar tabs you’ll be able to learn new songs, licks and practice routines.

There are still some purists who will write in proper music notation (sheet music) and there are still very good reasons for doing so, but for where you’re at, learning tab notation is the best possible thing you could do.

Example TAB Staff

Here’s our Open D Major Chord again, but in TAB notation and arpeggiated.


e|----------------2---------------------------------|
B|-------------3------------------------------------|
G|----------2---------------------------------------|
D|-------0------------------------------------------|
A|--------------------------------------------------|
E|--------------------------------------------------|


We’ll use this as our example in reading TAB notation.

How to Read the Tab

Unlike the chord charts in our Basic Guitar Chords, the TAB Staff shows us a sequence of notes to play and we play from left to right.

Down the left hand side we have some information showing us where the strings are, starting with the High E string at the top, and finishing with the Low E string at the bottom.

Then we come to a 0 on the D string. This is telling us to play an open D String.

Next is a 2 on the G String, This tells us to put one of our fingers on the 2nd Fret of the G String and play the A note.

Then we push down on the 3rd fret of the B String and play the D note.

Finally we fret the High E String on the 2nd Fret and Play an F#

Notice that tab doesn’t tell you which finger to use!

This is why practicing the guitar chords for beginners first is so important. A beginner guitarist who has just learned how to read tab might use his Index Finger to play each of these notes. This is an ineffective way of learning the guitar. A student like you with the proper resources would know to form a D Major Chord FIRST, and then play each note.

Most of the easy guitar tabs out there will just be a sequence of numbers on a Tab Staff telling you which notes to play.

Your Secret Advantage

It’s incredibly rewarding being able to play from Tab Notation, it means you can now go through the multitude of guitar tab websites and actually know how to play your favourite songs.

Unfortunately this is where a lot of people stop.

The secret to getting the most out of this new ability is to use it for recording your ideas and spicing up your practice routines.

You probably don’t remember when you learnt your first language, but it probably followed a sequence that looks something like this:

1. Exposure to people talking in the language
2. Mimicking and beginning to talk using the language
3. Committing thoughts and ideas to paper using language.

It’s not so different for music. You probably started listening to music long before you played anything on your guitar, and then you started mimicking and making noises using your guitar.

Now you can commit your musical thoughts and ideas to paper to share with others, and have others share with you.

Back to how to play guitar guide.