When you play acoustic guitar, you have the advantage of a totally different, and much easier, kind of music notation. No more notes and staffs and time signatures. This is simpler and more intuitive. It’s acoustic guitar tabs, which are notations based on the positions of the instrument’s strings. The greatest advantage is not having to learn to read music the traditional way. A number of string instruments utilize tabs.
“Tabs” is short for tablature. Acoustic guitar tabs arelike a little picture of your guitar strings. The first row is the top string and the sixth row is the bottom one. On each of the rows, or lines, the numbers indicate the fret you’re supposed to be playing. A “0” (zero) is used to indicate an open string, while an “X” indicates a muffled string.
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If you’re not sure what a fret is, it’s the area between the metal bars on the neck, or the fingerboard of your guitar. Usually there will be somewhere between 21 to 24 frets on the acoustic guitar. The dots you see on the frets are simply a visual guide to let you see where you are.
Check out acoustic guitar tabs and you’ll notice that the numbers run all in one line, indicating which fret to use on the one string you’re plucking. Those numbers tell you that you’re supposed to be playing each of them individually. If there’s a number on each line and the numbers are on top of each other, then you’re supposed to play the notes simultaneously, strumming away on all six of your strings.
When you’re reading on up acoustic guitar tabs, a few other things are going to come up, like hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends and slides. The letter “h” indicates a hammer-on. For instance, you might see something like “7h9” on one of the lines. Pull-offs are indicated by a “p”, bends by the letter “b”, and slides by the notation “/” (that’s a slash mark).
After you’ve gotten accustomed to the notion of reading music by string position, search online for basic acoustic guitar tabs and find a tune you’re really familiar with to practice on. While the approach may be new to you, you’ll see that you can pick up its melody quickly this way now that you can read tabs.
You’ll pick up a tune much more quickly if you can also listen to it while you’re trying to learn it. You get more detail and an added feel for the beat, even with a song you think you know by heart. Acoustic guitar tabs make learning more enjoyable, and it won’t take long to have a small repertoire you can trot out at parties or just jam around with in the privacy of your own home.
