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Many guitar players feel tablature is a simpler, more logical method of reading and notating music for guitar. Tablature is also used for bass, mandolin, banjo, and other stringed instruments. The system is similar to traditional music notation in that both use a graph to represent the notes a musician should play. Guitar tablature, often referred to as Tab, uses six lines to represent the six strings of the guitar. If you place a blank piece of tablature sheet music on the floor in front of you and look down at it, the line closest to you will represent the thickest string of the guitar. The lines represent, in consecutive order beginning with the line closest to you, E, A, D, G, B and E. Those are the open string notes on a guitar. These lines are given the numbers one through six, with the thinnest string being number one.

To indicate which notes you need to play, numbers are placed on the lines to represent frets on your guitar. A three placed on the sixth string means to play the note on the third fret of the sixth string. This is the simplest form of tablature. It tells you what notes you should play, but it doesn't give any indication of rhythm - how long to hold notes out. Using tab this way, you will need to know how the song goes rhythmically before you play it. If you want more accurate tablature, you need to include some of the elements of traditional music notation. Traditional music notes contain note heads and tails to distinguish between whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes,etc. These same note heads and tails can be attached to the fret numbers to indicate how long you should play each note.

Additional tablature markings for guitar include symbols to tell you other playing techniques. A line at an upward angle from one fret number to another tells you to play the first note and slide up to the next. A line slanted downward from one fret number to the next tells you to play the note and slide down to the next note. A small arrow curved up slightly with a 1/2 or a 1 beside it tells you to bend the note up a half or whole step. There are additional symbols used in tablature as well, including some of the more traditional music notation symbols.

Learning tablature or traditional music notation is fairly simple, at least as far as the concept goes, but to become skilled at reading and writing music in either form takes patience and practice. For in depth study of guitar tablature, try "How to Read Guitar Tabs."If you want to learn more about traditional music notation, try the DataDragon "Introduction to Reading Music."

Learn more about this author, Carl Hose.
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