002 Tablature

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Reading and Writting Tablature


The basics of tablature are very simple: A horizontal line per each of the strings on the guitar. Numbers on the lines represent the number of the frets.

So, in guitar tablature we have six lines, because we the guitar has six strings.



The top line represents string 1, and from there we go string by string progressively all the way to string 6.



Now, that we know which line is each string, we proceed to add numbers. Let’s see a three examples:



The tablature above is telling us to play string 2 on fret 3. So, what we have to do is gently press that string on that fret and play only that string. We only play the strings that have numbers on them. If the line doesn’t have a number, then we don’t play it.

In the following example we have seven numbers, one after another. What we do here is play each note individually, one after the other, going from left to right; and, as always, we only play the string that has the number.



I’ll write the information provided by the previous tablature in the form of a list, going in order:

  1. Play string 3 on fret 0 (“0” means tells us to play an open string)
  2. Play string 3 on fret 0, (yes, again; we play it twice because there are two zeros)
  3. Play string 2 on fret 3
  4. Play string 2 on fret 3
  5. Play string 1 on fret 0
  6. Play string 1 on fret 0
  7. Play string 2 on fret 3


In our last example we have multiple numbers again, but this time the numbers are stacked on top of each other.



When two or more numbers are stacked on top of each other, we need to play them simultaneously.

And this is it. This is all you need to know to start reading tablature. There are a few more symbols that we use to indicate different effects, but we will see those symbols when we talk about the corresponding effects that they represent.

Hope this has been helpful. Happy practice 😊