Randy's Guitar Clinic
How to Read Tablature (TAB)
TAB can become a crutch. Make sure you analyze the fingerings and determine what key, scale-form and position you are in. Also, compare the TAB to what you hear on the CD of whatever song you are learning. Usually the person who wrote the TAB is NOT the person who performed on the recording, so there are often discrepancies. Many guitar parts can be fingered in more than one position and sound nearly identical. Amateurs who post TAB to the internet (God Bless 'em everyone) mean well but frequently make mistakes. Train your OWN ear to listen for these errors. Trust your ears, not your eyes. Pop music and Rock are hardly ever performed exactly as the scores are written. Even the pro's who TAB music out for magazines will once in awhile make an error because of deadlines or some well-meaning copy-editor.
The following GIF's may take awhile to load. They are worth it if you want to learn to read TAB.
Right-click and save as file. Print them out at your leisure.
If you left-click, use your back button to return here.
How to read TAB part 1
How to read TAB part 2
If you Google the name of any song followed by the word "TAB" you can search and download all kinds of TAB.
This is a free site, and everyone is welcome here. Now practice your guitar. :)
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