How to Read Rhythm on Guitar Tab

Guitar tablatures show notes just as they are played on the fretboard. Instead of those weird little round notes on a musical staff, you have your six strings drawn out and all of your notes written on as positions on the fretboard. Tab is terrible for rhythm. You can't technically see rhythm on tab, unlike sheet music where note types show length of a note, so you have to guess.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Use spatial judgment. In tab, the space between notes is "generally" a good guide to the rhythm of play. This primitive display of rhythm shows the limits of tab. You'll have to think back to elementary school music and pound out your rhythms by looking at the space between each note.

2. Recognize strummed chord structures. In tab, when you strum a chord, the tab shows all of the notes on all strings in a vertical "bar." This makes it easier to do rhythm with strummed chords (even with some plucked notes in between).

3. Look for scattered chord structures. Another popular style represented in tab is the plucked chord, where each note is struck at a different time. On tabs, this will look like a repetitive design of notes laid out in a progressing pattern. Get an eye for these plucked chord patterns, and it will help you with the overall rhythm of the song.

4. Utilize tabs for songs you know. One strength of tabs for guitar players is that if you already know the song but can't follow the guitar player's fingers, tab acts as a visual aid to help you find fingering. If you already know the song, you don't need the rhythm; it's already in your head.

5. Find audio versions of tabbed songs you don't know. With new songs, a sound recording can go great with tabs. Again, you'll get the rhythm and overall sound from the recording, and the tabs will help you do the detective work on how they got those sounds on the fretboard.