I’ve been looking around for some videos on how to read guitar tabs and found this one. Pretty simple, but you get the idea of how strings relate to musical notation.

As an amateur guitarist, I’m always alert to news about how to read guitar tabs, or how to play by ear.

An article today at Learning Guitar Inspection talked about how easy it is to read guitar tabs, as long as you learn a few main principles. Apparently, according to the article, tabs were created by guitarists who didn’t read “real” music but still needed a way to graphically display which notes they were playing.

In brief, each line in the tab represents a string on your guitar. The top line of the tab represents the bottom string of the guitar. The note (or chord) played is indicated by a number next to the string/s, i.e. A-5. This means the fifth fret of the A string is depressed.

Once you understand that the lines correspond to the strings of your guitar, and the numbers correspond to frets, you’ll soon be on your way to reading guitar tabs like you’ve been doing it all your life.

I read an article today about Jamorama’s learning system and their claim that not only can they teach you how to read guitar tabs, but they will also teach you how to play practically any song you hear. I know that sounds like bunk, but I’m living proof that the system works. As soon as I get my new audio program set up I’m going to post some of my “before” and “after” playing so you can hear for yourself. Forewarned, though – the before totally sucks.

The guy teaching this online multimedia course also gives you thousands of lines of TABs, and teaches you the skills you need to be able to play virtually ANY song you can find written out in Guitar TAB. See, we knew learning how to read guitar tabs would come in handy!

The guy who put together this program (Ben Edwards) was once lead guitarist for the band Degreesk. His program progresses you rapidly in small chunks–making it really easy for beginners to instantly catch on to the system, and practice as fast or as slow as you want.

What I liked best were the video lessons; for me being able to actually WATCH someone show you how to play rather than TELL you made all the difference. He also threw in a couple of never-seen-before guitar computer games that help beginners and even non-beginners learn how to identify different guitar chords.

Want to learn how to read guitar tabs? And learn to play virtually any song you hear? I think Jamorama is the ONLY online system that can make these claims.

I was recently hunting for news on how to read guitar tabs when I ran across an article from Cybergrass.com about new tabs being added by bluegrass musician Ron Block on his site.

It seems the tabs are from the Traditional Guitar Workbook and Traditional Banjo workbook.

Tabs from The Traditional Guitar Workbook include tabs by Larry Sparks, Don Reno, and other great guitarists. As of this writing, the site includes 22 tabs.

If you’re not familiar with Ron, his latest album was released in June, and introduces many first-time listeners to the man who played banjo and guitar for Alison Krauss and Union Station.

Although it took me a long time to learn how to read banjo tabs (even though I had an in-person teacher), I learned guitar tabs pretty fast during an online class I took from Ben Edwards. I still need a lot of practice, but at least my playing doesn’t suck!

Because I’m always looking for news on how to play guitar tabs, I was curious about an article at jambuzz that relates how many new guitarists have a hard time reading tabs because they are self-taught–and their self-teaching doesn’t include lessons on how to read guitar tabs!

According to the article, tabs have six horizontal lines, one for each string, starting at the bottom line and working their way to the top line (i.e. E, A, D, G, B, E). The numbers next to the string indicate which fret to hold down. For example A-2 means you hold down the second fret on the A string.

The article goes on to say that one of the problems with guitar tabs is the inability of the simple tablature to convey rhythm and timing. That means if the song is new to you, you may have problems playing it because you don’t have a clue what it should sound like.

Of course, a good course will teach you the intricacies of how to read guitar tabs, including other more advanced notations.

In an effort to provide the latest news on how to read guitar tabs, I’m writing an overview of an article from MacWorld about Notion Music.

Recently, Notion announced a Mac-only application called Progression. Progression is a tab and playback app to be released in September of 2007. This app allows the user to enter either tab or standard notation using a keyboard or mouse. Guitarists can also play directly into the app using either a MIDI guitar or keyboard.

For musicians who want to create guitar tabs and/lead sheet/or sheet music, plus importing and exporting MIDI files, Progression seems like a dynamite application.

Users have the ability to create guitar tabs, lead sheets and standard sheet music, as well as import and export MIDI files. Audio files can also be exported in WAV format to share when your composition is complete. This app will cost about $150 when available in September.

Even if you already know how to read guitar tabs, it sounds like this app is killer.