Basic Tips for Easy Guitar Tabbing

Basic Tips for Easy Guitar Tabbing - When you're just starting to play the guitar, whether you take lessons or learn by ear, one of the first things you learn is the power chord. These very simple, two fingered chords are the foundation for the almighty guitar riff. The power chord is the reason why every kid with 3 weeks and a guitar can play "Smoke on the Water" and "Iron Man" like rock stars.

Once you've conquered the basic riffs and are progressing further down the path of the guitar gods, you want to get a little more complicated. Rather than be stuck in the back playing rhythm, you want to take that next step and start playing lead. This search for lead guitar greatness takes you to the guitar tab.

Guitar tabs are an incredibly easy way to express and learn guitar parts. Tabs look like sheet music, but rather than have musical notes on the lines, numbers appear. Simply put, the lines represent the strings on the guitar, the bottom string being the low E, and the number represent what fret to play on that particular string. While it's not uncommon to see power chords or other riffs expressed in tab, the most common use for them is expressing solos, intro leads, or other more complicated guitar licks.

Guitar tabs make it very easy to learn to play almost anything on the guitar. It takes the work of playing by ear out of it, leaving you to concentrate on strengthening and stretching your fingers. Tabs are to the guitar like calculators are to math. Just learn to use the instrument, and you'll be fine.

However, like actually learning long division or your times tables is vital to your math success, so is learning basic tabbing skills to your guitar success. Here, I'll give you a few very basic tips on tabbing your own guitar parts. While these tips won't turn you into Steve Vai, I'm willing to bet that Vai started here many years ago himself. Take from here what works for you and keep at it!

Tip #1: Listen!

This seems so basic, but I'll restate it here anyway. When you're trying to tab a specific part of the song, listen to that part repeatedly. I like to grab my stereo, put on the headphones, grab my guitar, and lock myself in my music room. Eliminate the distractions so you can focus.

Tip #2: Know the basic chord progression

If you know how the song goes, it makes it much easier to figure how what notes are probably in the lick you're trying to tab. If the chord progression of a song is G-D-C, it's not very likely that the lick is going to be in an Eb (flat) scale. Of course, the best guitarists play variations upon variations of scales and make it work so the more complicated the lick or song, the tougher this becomes. However, for basic intro licks, simple solos, or fill leads, knowing the key of the song or the chord progression gives you a starting point. For that G-D-C song, starting playing a simple G and play the G note on different places on the fret board, you'll probably find a common note to the riff by just doing that. This step isn't vital, merely helpful.

Tip #3: Listen for Patterns

Simple solos, especially intros typically revolve around a pattern of notes. Sometimes this pattern is easy to hear; sometimes it's tough to hear. Occasionally you may have to slow the track down or listen to it several times in a row to try and hear the pattern.

Tip #4: Break it down

Once you've found some type of repeatable pattern, break it down into smaller parts. Focusing on it one part at a time makes it easier to learn and piece together.

Tip #5: Focus on 1 string

On your typical 22 fret guitar, there are 132 individual notes you can pick. Rather than finding where the lick fits on the on entire fret board, focus on 1 string only and find where your pattern sections fit on that one string. I will typically start with the G-string and slowing fill in the other strings from there. Since patterns will typically area around a local area on the fret board, finding notes on one string makes it very easy to fill the rest in.

Put it all Together

Okay, so you're sitting in your room, alone with no distractions and you're listening to the lick you want to learn. Listen hard for a simple pattern you can pick out. Got one? Alright, now break that pattern down as you listen to the lick and find one note in the pattern on one string. It may take a few minutes but you'll get there. Once you've found the note, you now know where on the fret board this lick takes place, typically within 4-5 frets of each other. Now, fill in the other notes on the pattern with different strings until you've got it. Then, move on to the next part and the next part until you've got it tabbed out!

Summary

These tips certainly aren't the only way to figure out your own guitar parts, and they will probably not work for everyone. This is simply the basic process I use. I play guitar with a worship team that focuses on alternative rock, so almost every song we play has some type of into lick, simple solo, or fill lead that I have to tab out myself, and this method works pretty well for me. Hope some of this helps and above all, just don't give up!