The Tablature Staff represents the strings and frets of an instrument. A standard guitar has six strings and therefore guitar Tablature has six lines to a staff.

Numbers on the Staff represent which fret should be pressed by a finger. Tablature is read from left to right and the following example tells you to first put a finger on the second fret of the "A string" and play that note. After that you play an open note (open = no finger down) on the "low E string."


1. - Finger on second fret of "D string." No finger on "A string." - Play.
2.- Finger on second fret of "G string." - Play.
3.- Finger on second fret of "B string." No finger on "high E string." - Play
4. - Finger on second fret of "A string." No finger on "low E string." - Play
5. - Finger on second fret of 'D string." - Play
6. - Finger on first fret of "G string." No fingers on "B string" or "high E string." - Play
You might have noticed that with Tablature there is no way of telling what rhythm to play. This might not be a problem with familiar music but with unfamiliar music we need to show rhythm in one of two ways.
The first way of showing rhythm with Tablature is to show both standard notation and Tablature at the same time. This is very common in published popular music.


In addition to Tablature I recommend learning Standard Notation as it will greatly help with the learning of music theory.