How to read tablature and chord charts
When you’re starting out playing guitar, tablature and chord charts can look like another language. They’re fairly easy to learn and understand – and they’ll make playing guitar so much easier for you.
Chord charts
In a chord chart, the six vertical lines represent the guitar strings, from low E on the left to high E on the right.
The horizontal lines represent the frets, starting with the second one from the top (the top of the fretboard is called the nut).
There will be circles on the fretboard that represent where your fingers go. Sometimes, they will include numbers. Each number corresponds to a finger – 1 for pointer, 2 for middle, 3 for ring, and 4 for pinky.
At the top of the chart, you’ll see Xs and Os. They don’t stand for “kisses and hugs” – they tell you whether or not to play the strings that are “open” – not fretted. X stands for “don’t play” and O stands for “play”.
A sidebar on barre chords
If you see a horizontal line over more than one fret, it represents a barre chord, where you put your pointer finger horizontally across the fret and hold down however many strings are indicated. Sometimes, there will be letters on the right hand of the diagram that says “[number]fr”. This indicates that the barre is played on a certain fret – in this case, the fourth fret, and the circles underneath it are played on the sixth and fifth frets.
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Barre chords can be challenging, so don’t worry if it takes you a while to master this skill!
Tablature
Tablature makes it easy to play solos, riffs, and other song parts without having to understand sheet music.
Also known as “tabs”, tablature is easy to find for many songs (including in the Fret Zealot app).
A tab consists of a graph with six horizontal lines, each representing a guitar string. The bottom line represents the low E string and the top represents the high E string. Numbers on each line indicate that the string is played, and the numbers correspond to each fret. A zero means that the string is played open.
Tabs are read from left to right, and when multiple numbers are stacked on top of each other, that indicates a chord.
Tablature makes it possible to learn even the most complicated riff simply by reading it.
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