The Notes of Guitar



Guitar Notes



Note: The notes repeat after the 12th fret! So the 13th fret would have the same notes as the 1st fret and so on.

Guitar parts



Acoustic Guitar - parts



• The large wooden part of the guitar is referred to as the “body” while the thin piece that is connected to the body is called the “neck.”
• The strings run from the “bridge” which is on the body of the guitar (near the hole in the body) and connect to the “tuning pegs (or) tuning heads” which are on the “head” of the guitar.
• The metal pieces that lie along the neck at seemingly random intervals are the “frets” and the neck is sometimes referred to as the “fretboard.”
• The six strings are pressed onto the fretboard by the player’s left hand, which shortens the part of the string allowed to vibrate when plucked, which changes the pitch of the string.

Reading Guitar Tablature

The following tutorial will help to explain to you the basic concept of reading guitar tab. Although it may seem complex, learning to read tab is quite simple, and you should find yourself reading tab easily in no time.

Guitarists are a unique breed. Chances are, if you play guitar, you are either self-taught, or have taken a small number of lessons via a friend or guitar teacher. If you were a pianist, however, you almost assuredly would've learned to play the instrument through years of private study, which would include both music theory lessons, and heavy focus on sight reading.

Nothing wrong with taking the more informal approach to learning music, but it does create some inherent problems when it comes to laborious duties like learning to read music. Learning to sight read takes a reasonable amount of work, without immediate benefit, and it is these sort of duties that self-taught musicians tend to avoid.

It's never too late to learn to read music... if you want to get serious about a career in the music industry, it really is essential. However, guitarists have created their own method of music notation, guitar tablature which, while admittedly flawed, provides a simple and easy to read way of sharing

E--------------------------------------- (1st string)
B---------------------------------------
G--------7-----------------------------
D---------------------------------------
A---------------------------------------
E--------------------------------------- (6th/last string)


tab staff for guitar has 6 horizontal lines, each one representing a string of the instrument. The bottom line of the staff represents your lowest "E" string, the second line from the bottom represents your "A" string, etc. Easy enough to read, right?
Notice that there are numbers located smack dab in the middle of the lines (aka strings). The numbers simply represent the fret the tab is telling you to play. For example, in the illustration above, the tab is telling you to play the third string (third line) seventh fret.

Note: When the number "0" is used in tablature, this indicates that the open string should be played.

This is the concept of reading tab, at it's most basic. Now let's examine some of the more advanced aspects of reading tablature notation, including how to read chords in tab.

Tab for E major chord

E------0--------------------------------- (1st string)
B------0---------------------------------
G------1-----------------------------
D------2---------------------------------
A------2---------------------------------
E------0--------------------------------- (6th/last string)