How to Read Guitar Tabs

Hello again! Still busy memorizing Jesu. I'm slightly addicted. By day three I expected to go stark mad over the repetitions. I didn't expect that the more I played this one, the more I'd learn to love it. Now here I am, head over heels - or rather, finger-tied. At some point a day ago, I had to quit because of a lingering pain above the wrist. I think it was because of the pressure I placed on the pinky whenever I played Romance/Jeux.

Today the pain is slight, but it's still there. Rest rest, but I can't because Jesu sound just so right :)

***end of introduction

SO! This post is about how to read guitar tabs. This comes as a reply to a friend who mentioned that tabs looked complicated. In all fairness, I felt the same way. I still remember how I read a barre chord erroneously, thinking it was impossible to press all 6 strings at once. I thought the barre itself went something like, choose one of the 6 strings. But no! All strings in a barre must be pressed... the biggest shock of my life! I almost wanted to stop playing then. I actually hate barring because it's painful and tiresome to play. Nakakangawit. But it can't be helped. Two of the major chords are played with a barre (F and B). Power chords are in barre (except if the shortcuts are used).

Before starting with chords, here are a few guidelines.

Names of the strings. Yes, they have names. The thickest, the one closest to the player's face when the guitar is at playing position, is called the 6th string. The thinnest is the 1st string. So from the player's point of view, from thickest to thinnest, the string names are: 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st. Not bad, huh?

Guitar Standard Tuning. The standard notes of each string follows thus:  E-A-D-G-B-e. In the absence of an electronic tuner, guitarists can tune the strings by ear (or oido, a music savant who can identify tones by ear), using this nifty site.

taken from http://www.start-playing-guitar.com/

Fret. The parallel lines on the fingerboard that are perpendicular to the strings. When a number precedes the word "fret," this means a particular spot between frets. Markers on the fingerboard help guitarists pick out higher frets with a glance. These are placed in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th frets.

Left hand finger names. Yes, they have names too! Unfortunately! They are also designated by numbers! They are 1: pointer, 2: middle, 3: ring and 4: pinky.

Open strings. Strings that are played without pressing on the strings. Denoted by the symbol 0 (zero).

Palm mute. Strings that are played muted or not played at all. Denoted by the symbol X.

Reading Guitar Tabs

Let's take the major chord C. This is how it looks like in real life:

Front view. Taken from http://www.guitar-beginner.com/

Guitarist's point of view. Taken from http://www.1stpersonguitar.com

Notice where the fingers go. There are three things to take note: the string pressed, the fret where the string is pressed, and the finger that does the pressing. For C chord, the strings are 5th, 4th and 2nd. The frets are 3, 2 and 1 respective of the strings. The fingers used are 3, 2 and 1 respective of the strings.

Chords are notated in different ways. We'll examine three of the most common types for this exercise.

One of these is the horizontal notation*, like so:

taken from http://www.pengustudios.com

This is the easiest to read. This follows the guitarist's point of view, the bottom horizontal line designated by uppercase E being the 6th string and the top horizontal line designated by lowercase e being the 1st string -- remember standard tuning? The leftmost line is the nut (the thickest fret, the leftmost in the fingerboard) and the succeeding vertical lines are the frets. The black spots indicate the points that are to be pressed, and the numbers on the mare the fingers to be used. X means that the 6th string should not be played.

The next notation is vertical*, like so:

taken from http://www.cyberfret.com

This one's pretty similar to the previous, except it doesn't follow the guitarist's point of view and the grid lines have been reversed (horizontal lines = frets, vertical lines = strings). Instead of the finger numbers placed inside the black spots, they're placed along the vertical lines. 0 means that these strings are played without pressing the strings, as indicated by the absence of black marks on the respective lines.

Horizontal and vertical notations are used in chord books and playing guides. The following two are called the linear notation*, the root of all complications. These two are favorites among Ultimate-Guitar users, so there's no escaping learning them.

The first one looks like a phone number to some lonely telephone booth. The other looks like a code for some confidential military report. Granted, they don't give as much information as the first two notations, but they're faster to read once the guitarist has mastered the basics.

This notation looks a lot like the vertical notation, doesn't it? Actually, the numbers designate which frets to press, not which fingers to press with. The numbers are also arranged from 6th to 1st string, so that we have 6th string = X, 5th string = 3, 4th string = 2, and so on. For F, the notation would be: 133211, reading 6th = 1st fret, 5th = 3rd fret, 4th = 3rd fret, and so on. Which fingers to press with? That's up to you! Finger names are not indicated, which makes this notation a kind of a level above the first two notations.

This following is causing hyperventilation among newbie users of Ultimate-Guitar, but this is actually highly entertaining to read. This reads like the horizontal notation, except that the numbers designate the frets that must be pressed. Numbers that appear in a single column should be played together. In the notation above, 3 and 0, 2 and 1, and 3 and 3 must be played together, like so:

This notation is played from left to right. The notation above is played so:

3&0 (at the same time) - 0 - 2 - 0 - 2&1 - 0 - 2 - 0 - 3&3. This is Fernando Sor's Study in C (35, 13). This particular part is from 0:06-0:08 of this video. Like the other notations in this post, it's also based on the chord C - see how it uses almost the same fingering as the others, except the notation is fingerstyle.

Questions?

* The terms used here are mine, for ease of narration :)

* Horizontal and vertical notations, referring to the fingerboard position respective to the ground.

On Learning a New Piece

I've finished Jeux Interdits (which, btw, I learned was also called Spanish Romance or Romance) a few days ago. The piece needs more polishing, especially part two. Also, not enuf feels yet. But I lala-love the song :)

My next piece is ... Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. At last, at last! I'm using a cheat sheet though. I really shouldn't because I haven't been practicing reading notes. Part of the consequence is I've forgotten to play Adelita, and I haven't reviewed it yet. If it weren't for muscle memory, I swear I wouldn't budge one finger to review Carulli's Andantino in G and Waltz in Em again, which are the first classical pieces I ever learned to play.

Right now I'm still at the fourth bar of Jesu, and now that I've picked up a new piece after a few months of sabbatical I thought I should write something about how I learn a new piece.

I can't really say that there's a step by step process because at some point my fingers and memory fail me and I have to start over. But here's my best explanation:

1. Get sheet. If I can't find a downloadable copy of the piece I search for tabs in Ultimate Guitar. But I usually go straight to UG if I'm too lazy to read sheet music (which is most of the time). There are a few advantages when using sheet music though. Some sheets notate left hand fingering. I also find that when I read tabs I get impatient because the songs seem very long. Since sheet music notates those parts that are just repeated, they read pretty concise.

2. Read sheet. Now, I'm not a savant who can see notes and then automatically translate them to tones in my head. This is for me to get a general idea of the fingering or how many frets I have to traverse. I check if the distance between notes is sane and within the reach of my puny fingers. If I find it too difficult for my level, I put it aside and set my sights on other pieces.

3. YouTube. My best friend. I search for other guitarists and take note of their playing speed and how they phrase the song. A note about YT: It was by searching various interpretations that I realized guitarists have the liberty of changing the lengths of a few notes, creating their own... cadence of sorts. Some formalists may frown at how liberal an interpretation may be. But hey, who's playing?

4. Play sheet. This is the hard part. This is the true test of my patience, tolerance and interest in a particular piece. I usually go bar by bar, repeating more than once after I memorize the succession of notes and their corresponding fingering. A tab is more helpful in this case, since all I have to do is to look and then I'd know where I should place my fingers. A bad practice actually, since I am not training myself to read notes and base my fingering on them.

After I memorize a group of bars, I repeat the phrase as often as I could. By "often," I mean until my brain and muscle memory fail me. When I get too distracted, I rest. I found out that resting is a very important ingredient in learning a new piece. It's just as important as the literal rest notes on the staff. I feel that when I take a break, the nerves in my fingers and brain use the opportunity to make new connections, and really stamp the movement of my fingers deep inside my head. Muscle memory.

I realized that I often play with my guts and rely on muscle memory more than brain memory. When I use my brain, I get more distracted. I dunno. Focus is a matter of how people are used to lose themselves on a task. When I play, I literally lose myself. In moments of self-consciousness, I find that my brain has shut down and the lights are off. I don't think about what I play, I don't process what I sense. I feel I am the music that just has to come out of the instrument.

Haha, andami kong nasabi. That's it for now. El Dia's getting cold.

Something New II

A friend linked me to this post. Now I'm done with Part 1 of the piece, courtesy of a very convenient cheat sheet (I really don't have time to read notes right now @_@).

I could play Part 1 forever. It's one of those progressions where I could just linger and float and keep on playing.

I was sure I have heard the song somewhere, the progression was familiar anyway. Now, how to add a violin to the arrangement?

Making Progress: Right Hand Sixteenths

At last, I'm making good progress on this song I've been trying to learn since forever. When I wrote that blog post, I was stuck with the sixteenths. My right hand (P I M) just can't keep up with the movement and speed. Now I'm very proud to say that that part is done! I'm anchoring my ring finger on the sounding board though; I don't know if that's right by classical playing standards (I don't think it is, but it's working for me). I'm hoping that this exercise will help me when I get to tremolo (in 10 years, maybe). I'm moving on to practicing making a smoother transition between the left hand positions. The transitions from 1st to 2nd position, and from 2nd to 3rd position are the most difficult.

But after the sixteenths, everything else seems so much easier to execute. I am anticipating another plateau once I get past left hand transitions and on to the second movement of the song, the part where everything else is played one octave higher. I'm not very good past the 12th fret; I'm having difficulty pressing and sustaining a note. But I'm so glad I'm using a classical guitar now. I would have given up a long time ago if I was still using an acoustic.

As for the other parts, I'm doing fine. Still need more practicing though. With the rhythm, I'm trying to slow down for better expressivo. As for the melody, I'm trying to memorize the notes. My hammer-ons suck, sooo I have a long way to go with Tarrega's Adelita. I'm still using the 2-guitar version, but maybe I'll try melding the two, like in the video. Try searching for Comptine d'un autre ete lapres midi on YouTube and you'll find that almost no 2 guitarist play this song the same way. Not that that helps, but at least it's saying anyone can tab this song. With enough patience, anyway. I remember a period when I did have patience and transcribed this song, both melody and rhythm, based on the 2-guitar version I linked above. But I can't remember if I did write the notes down before my patience finally ran out. Oh well.

Regarding my progress on classical pieces... well, I haven't really made much since I've finished Adelita. I promised I would do Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, but I can't seem to convince myself to write the sheet music down on my notebook.

Homework (credit to)

Gaah! I really hate reading sheet music. But I must if I want to learn this. Just gimme a few more days to sulk then I'll carry my a**, thank you very much.

March 13, 2013. Uploaded video. Trying to play the sixteenths without resting my ring finger on the sounding board. But I just had to in this video. And still sulking through sheet music.

The Big G

The first classical guitar piece I learned was Minuet in G by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The sheet I used covered the basic melody of the piece, sans the bass notes (rhythm). I worked from the 5th fret onward. Very easy to memorize and great for practice: the notes span up to 5 frets, so the pinkie and all the left fingers are stretched. All six strings are also covered, so the PIMA right hand can be practiced.

Minuet in G is my stretching slash warm-up piece. I play it every day, every time I pick up my guitar. I like speeding it up for better flexibility and accuracy. I used to play it non-stop, and until now I haven't tired of listening to it.

I moved on to the more complicated melody + rhythm version about a month after burning the first version. I immediately fell in love with the sound of the bass notes along with the melody. This version takes up til the 9th fret, so I can practice moving through the fingerboard. The addition of the bass notes complicates the left hand positions, but they're manageable. The sheet I linked does not have a notation for 1234 and PAMI (except the 0s there), but I use all of them... figure it out :)

My crux is always on the 19th bar. My index finger tends to look sooo out of place and awkwardly apart, and the rest of my fingers (2 and 4 especially) go crazy when I press the strings. I tend to slow down at this portion. I can swing it when I position my left hand closer to the fingerboard, but that index just shoots up sometimes I couldn't control it! Oh well, time and practice.

This piece was also my (re)introduction to sheet reading. The two sheets don't have tabs, so I was really forced to read notes. Both versions are very basic though.

I eat Big G for breakfast, lunch, merienda and dinner. Lemme know how this piece figures in your repertoire. If you use other warm-up pieces, feel free to share.

Mar 11, 2013. Just uploaded this video. Sorry for the poor audio -- I didn't use a mic when I recorded. Didn't have one. Anyway, my messy fingering clearly says this rendition sucks. As usual, I had a difficult time through the crux. My left hand fingers are also still awkwardly apart. Wild vibrato action there too. Hmmm, when in doubt record your practice sessions. Any specific pointers on improvement?

Misplaced Notes, Missing Lyrics

Have you ever experienced pausing midway of a song and trying to grab on to nothing?

I often find myself suspended in that limbo. No matter how many times I play back a song, no matter how many times I practice, I forget the words or where to place my fingers. This is why I don't trust myself to perform solos. No way. Or at least not now.

I read somewhere that such forgetfulness is borne out of distraction. But in my case, no. I do not think of anything else when I play. Well... I do not think of anything at all. Not even the piece. I don't run pieces in my head when I play, like watching a dummy board when talking in front of cameras. I tend to rely on hard wired muscle memory, using the succession of notes to cue me in on the words.

I tried playing with a dummy board in my mind, but found myself more prone to mistakes. I tried reading words and sheets while playing. I paused more often than necessary. With memorization, I play (relatively) smoothly and more tranquilly. I hate dependence on the sheets and papers.

But there's a point where a song just stops. It doesn't want to work with me. And I'm clasping empty air, missed notes and lyrics. I rehash the song from the beginning and find myself pausing at the same moments, losing more as I trudge along. Falling on quicksand. Another song has moved beyond me, not wanting to cooperate.

In due time, my head and hands finally get it. But it's never the same magic.