Easy Guitar Tabs

Question: Is there such a thing as an easy guitar tab? There are those that would disagree. Personally I love guitar tabs, and I think it is a fantastic idea for notating guitar songs. But others are indifferent - countless times I've seen someone pick up an easy guitar tab (tab is short for ‘tablature'), and get confused by "all the numbers".

I must confess, I cannot read music. Never have, never tried, and never likely to. Not as long as there are easier ways of reading music such as guitar tab. Give me a number 2 on the B string over a semi quaver any day of the week.

So, what does a guitar tab look like? Something like this:

----------------------------------2-------3--------0--------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------4---------------3-----------2-------

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Now, the 6 lines before you represent each string on the guitar. The low E string is the bottom one on this diagram (and represents the string at the top of the guitar as you're holding it).

The numbers, which incidentally, are not at all confusing, represent the fret that you need to play that string on. So, the ‘2' on the high E string, is showing you that you need to put your finger on the 2nd fret of this string, and play that string only.

But what if you see a tab that look like this?

------------------------------------------2------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------3------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------2------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------0------------------------------------------------------

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Well, this works on the same principal, and simply requires you to place your fingers on the relevant frets described in the tab, and play all 4 at once. The above tablature shows you a D Major chord in tablature form.

So where can you find easy guitar tabs? Well fortunately, there are many many excellent guitar books out there, written in tablature form. But if tab isn‘t your thing, they usually have the notes written too. Hey, and often the lyrics will be there too, should you happen to be skilled in singing and playing the guitar at the same time. I'm currently writing a guide on how to master this skill, so check back here in the near future for news on this.

In the meantime, if you fancy searching for your favourite easy guitar tabs, try here:

Musicroom.com - Online music store

I hope this page has been helpful, and rest assured, we will be adding to it over the weeks. Check out How to Play Guitar and Sing at the Same Time. And finally, below is a list of FREE Ebooks you can download (in pdf format):

Easy Guitar Tabs