How to Read Bass Tabs

Bass tabs are a form of bass guitar notation that is popular on the Internet. It is different from standard musical notation, and does not require prior knowledge of scales, notes, or any other specialized symbol. Instead, it uses they keyboard's symbols to replicate the bass guitar neck, allowing beginner bass players the ability to play specialized riffs without even knowing what key it is in.

Bass tabs are inherently limited by their nature, but allow for experimentation with bass lines that would otherwise be beyond ones reach.

Bass tabs are essentially four horizontal lines that represent the four main strings of the bass guitar. Each is usually labeled with the standard tuning of the bass guitar, E, A, D and G. The E string is on the bottom, and the G string is on the top so that looking at the tab on the screen, or looking down at the bass's neck in your lap the perspective is the same.

G|--------|--------|--------|--------|
D|--------|--------|--------|--------|
A|--------|--------|--------|--1-3--|
E|--------|--0-1--|-1--3--|--------|

How to Read Bass Tabs

Reading bass tabs is pretty easy once you get a basic understanding of what everything you see means. To begin, you will notice that the majority of the tab is made of up lines. Horizontal ( - ) and vertical ( | ). The horizontal lines represent space, or nothing. They are simply there to fill in where you do not play. The vertical lines are representative of "bars", typically a four count of 4/4 time. Most of the time, simply listening to the song will reveal the timing of the notes being played, so if you do not know how to find time signature of a song, do not worry.

Next, you will see a series of numbers on the bass tab. These numbers represent which fret the note is represented by. The number "0" represents playing that string without any fretting, also known as an open string. The number "1", for example, on the E string, would represent playing an "F", and the number "3", would then be an G.

The timing of the note being played is the most difficult part of bass tabs, as it is often inconsistent, and often wrong. The best way to learn the timing of the necessary notes is to listen to the song itself. However, some song tablature will give you hints to the rhythm. For example, if there there are 8 G notes played on the E string for the second and third bars, then this would mean that in one bar, you must play 8 times, or eighth notes.

Tips for Bass Tabs

For a lot of bass tabs, this is all the information that you need. There are more advanced forms of notation that are dependent on more complicated and complex rhythms. For example:

"h" - hammer on. Ex. 7h8
This would be where you would play the 7th fret normally, and then use another finger on the fretting hand to "hit" or "hammer" the next note by playing it only with that finger, not by strumming or plucking at the same time.

"p" - pull off. Ex. 8h7
This is similar to the hammer on, in that it is dependent only on the fretting hand. This time, after playing the 8th fret normally, you would release, or "pull off" the 8th fret while already holding the 7th.

"/" - slide up. Ex. 2/10
In this case, the second fret would be the initial note. After it was played, you would slide the fretting finger up the fret board until you reached the tenth fret.

"\" - slide down. Ex. 10\2
This is the same as the slide up, instead the direction of the slide would be reversed, from the tenth to the second fret.