What is a tablature, or how to play the guitar without knowing the notes?

Are you hanging in one place? Tired of playing guitar with chords only? Would you like something new, for example, to play interesting music without knowing the notes? I have long dreamed of playing the intro to “Nothing else matters.” Metallic: the notes are downloaded, but somehow there’s no time to sort them out?

Forget about the difficulties, because you can play your favorite tunes without notes - using the tablature. Today we will just talk about how to play the guitar, without knowing the notes, and how the tablature will be useful in this matter. Let's start with the banal - do you already know what tablature is? If not, then it's time to find out about this way of recording music!

What is a tablature, as it stands for?

Tablature is a form of schematic recording of playing an instrument. If we talk about the guitar tablature, then it represents six lines with stamped numbers.

Reading guitar tablature is simple - six lines of the scheme mean six guitar strings, with the lower line being the sixth (thick) string, and the upper one being the first (thin) string. The numbers in the ruler are nothing more than a numbered fret from the neck, while the number “0” means the corresponding open string.

In order not to get lost in the words, it is worthwhile to move on to the practical side of decoding tablature. See the following example of the famous "Romance" Gomez. So, We see that a common feature here is the music staff and the duplicate schematic notation of notes, simply - tablature.

The first line of the scheme, meaning the first string, bears on itself the number "7", which means the VII mode. Together with the first string you need to play bass - the sixth open string (the sixth line and the number "0", respectively). Next, it is proposed to alternately pull two open strings (since it costs "0") - the second and third. After, the movements from first to third are repeated without bass.

The second beat begins, as well as the first one, but changes occur in the second three notes - on the first string we need to press V first and then III mode.

A little about the durations and fingers

Surely the essence of reading the notes on the tablature you already understand. Now let us dwell on the durations - at least their basic knowledge is nevertheless necessary here, after all, in the tabulature durations are indicated, as in the notonerose - by calms.

Another nuance is the fingers, that is, the fingering. You can talk about it for a long time, and still try to bring the main points, so that the game on a tablature does not give you great inconvenience:

  1. For the bass (most often 6, 5 and 4 strings) corresponds to the thumb; for the melody - index, middle and nameless.
  2. If the melody is a regular or broken arpeggio (that is, alternate playing on several strings), then keep in mind that the first string will be responsible for the ring finger, and the second and third - middle and index finger, respectively.
  3. If the melody is on one string, you should alternate the index and middle finger.
  4. Do not play several times in a row with one finger (this action is allowed only by the thumb).

By the way, we present to your attention an excellent video lesson on reading guitar tablature. It's really very simple - see for yourself!

Guitar Editors Tablature: Guitar Pro, Power Tab, online tablature players

There are some good music editors in which you can not only see the notes and tablature, but also listen to how the play should sound. Consider the most popular ones.

Power tab It is considered the simplest editor of the tablature, although it is possible to record notes in it. The program is completely free, and therefore quite popular among guitarists.

Although the interface here is in English, program management is quite simple and is carried out on an intuitive level. The program has everything to work on recording and viewing notes: changing tonalities, affixing chords, changing metro rhythms, affixing basic game techniques and much more.

The ability to listen to the melody will allow you to understand whether you have dealt with the tabulature correctly, in particular with the durations. Power Tab reads files in ptb format, in addition, the program contains a guide to chords.

Guitar Pro. Perhaps the best guitar editor, an important feature of which is the creation of a score with parts for strings, brass, keyboard and percussion instruments - this makes Guitar Pro a full-fledged musical editor, comparable to Final. It has everything for convenient work on music files: the chord determinant, a large number of musical instruments, the metronome, the addition of text under the vocal and much more.

In the guitar editor there is the possibility of turning on (off) the virtual keyboard and guitar neck - this interesting feature helps the user to understand better how exactly the game of this melody looks on the instrument.

In the Guitar Pro program without knowing the notes, you can record a melody using the tablature or a virtual keyboard (fingerboard) - this makes the editor even more attractive to use. After recording the melody, export the file to midi or ptb, now you can open it in any music editor.

The exceptional advantage of this program is that it has a lot of sounds of various instruments, guitar lotions and effects - this allows you to listen to the melody as a whole, in the sound as close as possible to the original.

As you can see from the figure, the program interface is in Russian, the control is very simple and is performed intuitively. The program menu is easy to adjust to your needs - display the tools you need or remove unnecessary ones.

Guitar Pro reads gp formats, besides there is the ability to import a file midi, ascII, ptb, tef. The program is paid, but, nevertheless, download and find the keys to it is not a problem. Keep in mind that the latest version of Guitar Pro 6 has a special degree of protection, if you want to work with her, then get ready for the fact that you have to buy its full version.

Online tablature players

In the World Wide Web, you can easily find sites that offer online playback and viewing tablature. They support a small amount of guitar lotions and effects; some of them do not have the function of scrolling the play to the right place. And yet it is a good alternative to editors - there is no need to install additional software on your computer.

Downloading notes from tabular decoding is quite simple - on almost any guitar notes website you can find several collections with diagrams. Well, the gp and ptb files are in completely free access - you have the opportunity to download one piece as well as entire archives, including plays of the same group or style.

All files are laid out by ordinary people, and therefore be careful, not every music file is made with special care. Download a few options and choose one that has fewer errors and is much more like an original song.

In conclusion, we want to show you another video lesson from which you will learn how to read tabs in practice. The lesson understands the famous melody of “Gipsy”:

P.S. Do not be lazy to tell your friends about what is tablatureand that how to play the guitar without knowing the notes altogether. To do this, under the article you will find the buttons of social networks - with one click you can send a link to this material to a contact or to your pages on other sites.

Watch the video: How to Read Guitar Tab Tabs Tablature for Beginners Lesson on Guitar Notation (March 2024).

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