I have a very nice hand-me-down acoustic guitar. I have been taking lessons for quite a while.
I don’t how how to play any songs. I have looked up the tabs to some of my favourites and they may as well be in Japanese. I need a slightly more experienced musician to explain it in simple idiot terms before I go mad again.
OK, tab is very simple.
You’ll have a bar of six lines:
Each one of those represents a string. When a number appears like this:
That means play the fourth fret on that string.
You can see a set like this:
That would mean play the 4th fret on the 4 string, then the 2nd fret of the 3 string, then the 1st fret of the 2 string, then the 2nd fret of the 4 string then back to the 1st fret of the 2 string.
Since you’ll know the song you’ll be able to figure out the timing pretty easily. Tab ignores time signatures and just gives you the string/fret combination.
And I like the On-Line Guitar Archive for tabs
Well, thanks. That’s pretty much what I needed to know.
Nice job Jonathan Chance.
Princess Ana, I am somewhat concerned that you say you have been taking lessons for quite a while, but don’t know how to play any songs. What’s going on in your lessons? What are you studying? Scales and stuff? Sounds to me like you might need a songbook with some easy chords to help you over the hurdle of learning your first complete song.
There is another thread along these lines called ‘guitar playing.’ I’d put a link to it but I don’t know how.
I live to serve. The thread: Guitar Playing
It is odd that you’ve been taking lessons for a while but know no songs. I’m also curious about what your lessons are like.
I (and the many other guitar players on the boards)(Hi guys!) will be glad to help.
As Jonathat said, TAB is easy 
Imagine the six lines as though you were looking down at the fret board on your guitar as it sits on your lap, ready to be played.
The first line on the top then is the high E string (the little string at the bottom of the guitar). The last line on the bottom represents the low E string (the fat string on the top of the guitar).
The numbers on the line represent the fret starting from the left to the right.
For example this is the A minor chord:
—0—
—1—
—2—
—2—
—0—
—x—
A 0 means an open string (no frets held down).
an x means the string is muted (gently touch it with one of your fingers so it won’t play).
Alright Jonathan Chance, howdja do that??
Under ‘Post Reply’ there’s a button for making hyperlinks.
Don’t always use the quick reply!
I know several classical pieces, and I like those, but I don’t know how to play anything that I can sing. To clear that up.
I should really make you look it up, but here’s the link for making links: vBcode page
Also there a tool called PowerTab that everyone interested in guitar should have. It converts from MIDI sequences to TAB and back. You can get it here.
And there’s an archive of TABs in PowerTab format here.
Is there any sort of PowerTab for Macs? I tried Googling it and came up with a question on power-tab.net’s boards of someone asking the same question. Oh, and some Fleetwood Mac PowerTab. Not exactly helpful.
Aswell as PowerTab, there’s a commercial program called GuitarPro, with an archive of tabs for it at www.mysongbook.com
My suggestion – go buy a $3 book of guitar chords, and focus on the OLGA .crd or .cho at first. These are chord progression files, which are especially nice if you can sing along. It is a great way to learn lots of easy songs.
It won’t sound good at first, but with some practice will start to fall into place. A big part of learning the guitar is learning some nice strumming patterns. These really can’t be taught, you just need to strum until it starts to sound right. First work on getting the left hand chord movements smooth with a simple quarter- or eigth-note strumming with the right. After the chord transitions are smooth, start getting fancier with the left hand.
Two easy chord progressions to learn are Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe.” Neither of these have barre chords or the dreaded F in them, and they each have really easy intro parts which are well tabbed out in OLGA. If you want to work in an F, try the Animals’ “House of the Rising Son.”
erk…I meant “fancier with the right hand.” Sorry.