Guitar Tuning And Tablature

In this lesson I will introduce you to tablature, and how to tune your guitar.

Okay, the strings are numbered.

The bottom string on your guitar is the High E string.(often times written as a lower case 'e' in tablature.) It is the 1st string.
The next one up is your B string, the 2nd string.
The Next one up is your G string, the 3rd String.
The next one is the D string, the 4th string.
The Next String is the A string, the 5th string.
And the top string is the E string, Your 6th string.

Simple, starting from the bottom and going up, its 1,2,3,4,5,6.

Tablature is a popular way of learning to play songs, and writing songs for guitar, bass, and a number of other stringed instruments, as well as drums.

Tablature is written using numbers to represent what fret you play. (BTW: When you press down on a fret, push hard with the tip of your finger, close behind the next fret bar.) When you look at tablature, it is ussually written with the tuning on the left. Like so:

e--------
B--------
G--------
D--------
A--------
E--------

Notice that the top line is the bottom string, the 1st string. Now, if there is a number on the tab, it is the fret number where you put your finger.
EXAMPLE

e--------
B--------
G--------
D--------
A----7---
E--------

This means that you should play the seventh fret, on the A string, the 5th string.

If there are two or more notes in the same column, but different strings, you play them at the same time.
EXAMPLE

e---0----
B---1----
G---2----
D---2----
A---0----
E--------

In this example you should play the A string open(without a note being fretted), the D string at the second fret, the Gstring at the second fret, the B string at the first fret, and an open high e string.

That was a brief introduction to tablature, next lesson I will explain how to hold a pick, or how the fingers are numbered, and also go a bit more into tablature.
-Zack-