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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → reading tabs
Hey, I've just picked up my guitar again after about 5 years (And i only ever learnt about 2 songs) and have been getting ready to start playign again. I go by tabs, but am wondering what numbers mean? 3, 5, 7, 9, seem to be appearing and i thought i had an idea of what i was doing!
im assuming its a fairly eeasy question! 
thanks!
Jordy.
When the tab indicates a number 1 placed on the top line, it means you have to press the bottom, thinnest guitar string on the first fret. The same goes for any other line and any other number between 1-6, which indicate the strings of a basic six-string guitar. A number ‘0′ indicates that the designated string should be plucked as an open string.
Hi 91jordy, and welcome to Chordie!
Reading and writing Tab is not that difficult and really is used as a substitute for those of us who don't read standard music notation as well as we'd like. This link might help you in your quest for more information:
www.howtotuneaguitar.org/lessons/the-basics/how-to-read-guitar-tab/
Welcome back to the guitar after your hiatus of five years and I hope you persist through the discomfort of those first few bleeding fingers! Visit Chordie often, ask questions, post comments and make yourself at home here among this global community of guitar (and other stringed instrument) players.
Friendships are forged with a simple hello..... Hello!
Have fun with your music... it just keeps getting better.
Take Care; Doug
Hello!!!!
Thanks alot
Off I go to bleed a bit haha oh well always worth it in the end.
Thanks again!
I will put something together for the chordie community so you can find your info here instead of always being linked to sites outside this great community of guitar players.
Think of the guitar as if it were laying flat in front of you on a table. Now imagine as if you were to pick the guitar up and hold it. Looking down on the guitar strings you would see the thickest string first. Each line on the guitar tab represents a guitar string.
The next example shows numbers on the guitar tab lines. These numbers indicate which fret(s) to press. The string number combined with the fret number tells you exactly which note(s) to play. You don't even have to read any music, just numbers.
The guitar tab in the example above shows which notes to play but DOES NOT show when and how long to play the notes. This is one of the problems with reading guitar tab alone. Standard notation conveys a lot more information but takes quite some time to read fluently.
I hope this helps.
Steve
Hi Jordy ... a good site for all the basics (besides here of course) is www.justinguitar.com ... excellent site for beginners and very easy to follow ... Justin includes video's, and tabs, etc.
Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → reading tabs
