Question About Learning Guitar Tabs?
Alright so I’ve been trying to learn to play the acoustic guitar via this book my grandma got me. The book is fine but when trying to learn from a book I get bored real right quick and set it off to the side. Any who I mentioned to a co worker of mine that I’m trying to learn to play he suggested that I just learn to read tabs and then find a simple song I want to learn and start there. Imma go ahead and try out this method because I think if I was actually trying to learn a song and not just repeating the same three boring chords over and over I’d probably be able to get some real practice in. So uh wheres a good place to learn tabs and how long do you think it’ll take? Thanks for the feedback yo.
Tagged with: About • Guitar • learning • question • tabs
Filed under: Uncategorized
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
My
name is Fred Paterson, I am currently living in Oregon with my wife and 2
kids. I am a guitar lover!!
3 comments
The good thing about tabs is that you don’t really have to learn anything to read them and play a song. It tells you exactly what fret to hold down and what strings to pluck or strum.
Tabs for a six string guitar will have six lines, so each line represents a string. The bottom line is the heavy E string, and the next line is the next string which is A, and so on. (If it’s your first time reading tabs it may seem backwards, but it’s made to match what the fret board looks like looking down while holding your guitar)
There are many sites that have free tabs of most popular songs. They’re not perfect because they’re written by randoms, but there is usually at least one decent version if the song is well known. One of my favourites is ultimate-guitar.com. You can also buy a book of an album or collection if there’s a particular band you want to learn songs for. These would usually come with tabs and would be much more reliable.
The only thing that might trip you up is the notation some people use. I explained several of the most common symbols you’ll run into in an answer a few months back:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Am.j4oD6wQa4PXiP.akLmD7ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20081229231150AAL5lGM&show=7#profile-info-XHQUCe2qaa
If there’s anything I left out or was unclear about, I’d be glad to help.
Hi Burningx,
The easy answer is to search on the web for the title of the song you want to learn and then the phrase “free tab”. There are loads of tabs written out for all sorts of songs available free on the web.
Try to find a really easy song that you like. Tab is really easy to learn as it shows you exactly which frets to press for each chord, but it doesn’t teach you how to play, so keep it to simple songs first.
You’ll be amazed how quickly you can pick up a basic song from reading the tab.
Enjoy,
Ed
I would suggest using “http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/” it has tabs for pretty much everything. Now the second question can be tricky. It all depends on your age and a bunch of factors. I started playing last summer and it didnt take too long for me to learn how to play very well. But i would suggest using online lessons/ a teacher(perhaps your coworker)/even youtube can show you some pretty nifty tricks. I woul suggest holding on to that book though it can be a lifesaver.