How to Play Guitar Music
Music written for guitar can be in standard music notation or in a system called tablature, often referred to as "tab," that many guitar players prefer. Along with standard music notation or tab, guitar players refer to symbols specific to guitar that indicate playing techniques for a particular musical passage. Learning to play guitar music well can take months or more of practice, but gaining an understanding of the basics can help you begin to play guitar music in a short time.
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Instructions
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Playing by Chords
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Play songs by chords if you simply want to strum rhythms and sing along. Most guitar music includes chord symbols written above the lyrics and music. Choose a favorite song, and look at the chord symbols. A chord symbol is a diagram representing the neck of the guitar. A letter will appear above the diagram indicating the name of the chord. The diagram is a combination of vertical lines representing six strings and horizontal lines representing the guitar frets.
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Place your fingers on the neck of your guitar where the black dots are located on the chord diagram. These black dots tell you which frets to place your fingers on. If you see a white circle written at the top of the graph, you include the string marked by the white dot, but without putting your finger on a fret. An "X" on any string tells you to mute the string so it doesn't sound.
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Strum the first chord on your guitar sheet music and sing along. Follow the chord diagrams written above the words to the song. The diagrams are placed at the location in the song where you should change the chord. Playing guitar music by chords is the easiest way to play a song, although it only lets you play the rhythm of the song and doesn't tell you how to play solos and other, more detailed guitar sections. To play a song by chords, you should already have an idea of how the rhythm of the song goes.
Playing by Tablature
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Play guitar songs written in tablature when you aren't familiar with standard music notation but want to play guitar solo and rhythm parts as written. Tablature is a graph featuring six lines that represent the strings of the guitar. Read the tab graph from the bottom line (representing the thickest string on your guitar) to the top line (representing the thinnest string on your guitar). Looking down at a piece of guitar tab music, the thickest string is closest to you.
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Read guitar tablature like you would read traditional music notation. A tab graph is drawn like a traditional music staff. Numbers on each of the strings tell you where to place your fingers to play the notes of the music. Symbols written by the number, such as a curved arrow with 1/2 written beside it, tell you how to play the note. In this case, the symbol tells you to bend the note a half step.
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Play the notes in your tablature one after the other if the notes are written one after the other. Play notes written in line with one another at the same time. This is typically a chord with the notes written out, as opposed to being in a chord diagram. Most tab doesn't indicate the rhythm of the song, so you may need to know the song you're playing, but some tablature incorporates traditional note stems to indicate how long notes are held when you play them.
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