Saturday, May 24, 2008

Guitar Tabs: Stairway to the Rock Gods

By Fabian Toulouse

Got great dreams of taking the stage with a guitar and inciting screaming fans into convulsions and mesmerized teens into virtual hero worship? It's a hard road to the top, but every rock star started with that same dream; they all had to begin at the beginning when it came to learning music.. Guitar tablature, or tabs, is a type of universal music notation for stringed instruments.

Unlike traditional music notation for piano and wind instruments, picking up guitar basics is not that complicated. Tablature is more visually representative of the instrument, for one thing. Think of it as shorthand compared to dense written prose. Once you understand how to translate the style of notation, guitar tabs make it easy to pick up the music you love most. Later, when your own creative juices start flowing, this style of notation makes transcribing your own music simple and painless.

For guitar purposes, tablature appears as six lines, each one indicating a string on the guitar. The top line stands for the first, or thinnest string; the bottom line is for the sixth or thickest string. Between the lines are little numbers. These tell which fret should be pressed upon when playing that note. Sound simple? Once you put it in practice, it is a piece of cake to figure out.

After you understand the basics, the sky's the limit. Lots of guitar tabs for awesome songs are found online. There are lessons from real pros, videos of all sorts of groups and rock star dreamers, and detailed instructions on how to perform lots of guitar licks. You can even submit your own tabs, if you want.

Nothing compares to the thrill of finally mastering a favorite song, even if you never perform in front of hundreds of rabid fans. Rocking out in your own garage is pretty satisfying, too, and it has never been easier to pick up guitar than now, with the help of the internet.

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