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Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Acoustic Guitar Tabs - Know Them And Play Better

By Mark Thompson

In order for you to play the acoustic guitar properly, you need to understand a little bit more about guitar music. Firstly, the musical notations used for when playing the guitar or any other stringed instrument are different from those used for other musical instruments. Where as other musicians use staffs, notes, note values, ledger lines and key and time signatures in order to play music. A guitar player will only use musical notations referred to as tabs. The main advantage to be had from using acoustic guitar tabs is that you can learn to play this instrument without actually having to learn to read music as well.

All of acoustic guitar tabs are a form of musical notation, which is known as tablature. However, when you look at an acoustic guitar tab, you will actually be looking at a diagram showing the strings on the guitar. The lines on the diagram represent the strings, with the first string being at the top and the sixth string being at the bottom. On the lines, you will also see numbers that represent which fret you are actually meant to play. When a Zero (0) appears on the lines this indicates an open string, whilst an X represents a muffled string.

If you are unsure as to what we mean by the Fret, this is the area that is located between the two metal bars that are on the neck (fingerboard) of the guitar. Normally a good quality guitar will have between 21 and 24 frets on it. In order to know which fret you need to place your finger a dot appears on the diagram in front of you.

When you look at an acoustic guitar tab and the numbers are placed one after the other, on the same line it is these numbers, which show you that fret to use on a particular string, and then you pluck only that string. In addition, because the numbers are noted one after the other this further tells you that you play one note at a time.

Yet if you find that as you, look at the diagram there is a number located on each line and they are then above one and another, this tells you that you must play all of these notes together. In order to do this rather than pluck at the strings you need to strum all six of them at the same time.

As you learn to read tabs, you will also come across things such as Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, Bends and Slides. The Hammer-ons are clearly indicated on the tab diagram by the letter "h". So for example, you may see the 7h9 notation on a line. As for Pull-offs these are noted by the letter "p" in the same way as the Hammer-ons, whilst Bends are indicated by the letter "b" and Slides are noted by a "/" (slash).

However, once a person has learnt a bit about reading acoustic guitar tabs they need to start learning how to play them on a guitar. A great way to get hold of some very basic lessons for learning how to read guitar tabs is by going online. But when carrying out your search go for those songs that you know well and then start to play them in order to practice your tabs. But be warned it will take you some time to get use to reading and playing tabs properly. Yet once you can you will be amazed at just how quickly you can pick others up and play these as well.

If you can when practicing, the tabs for a particular song listen to it at the same time. By doing, this you will find actually, learning acoustic guitar tabs becomes much easier, even if you think you know the song already. Being able to listen as well as read the tabs at the same time will make the process of learning them much easier, but you will be able to better understand the detail and rhythm of the song that you are playing.

Using acoustic guitar tabs to learn to play the guitar can be a great deal of fun and before long; you will be able to play several different songs. Which you cannot only play for your own pleasure but also for impressing friends and family at parties as well.

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