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Introduction to Tablature Notation

I hope this information makes reading my tabs easier!

To begin I will use an example from PARADISE, you can find the whole tab in Beyond Control

 
e |----------3---------|-------|
B |---1--------1---0---|-------|
G |-----2--------2---0-|-5---7-|
D |--------------------|-5---7-|
A |-0------------------|-3---5-|
E |----------------0---|-------|

• Each horizontal line of ------ refers to a string on your guitar, the thickest string is the bottom line. Therefore it is denoted as E in the tab. These are labelled with the note they represent (E, A, D, G, B, and e).
  
  
• The numbers on the lines refer to the frets you play on that string. Therefore, the first note you play is 5th string zero fret, then 2nd string 1st fret, and so on. The zero fret means you don't have to press anything.
  
  
• The vertical lines ( | ) refer to the end of a measure.
  
  
• In the second measure in the tab above, you see 3 notes all appears in the same vertical line. This means you play all 3 notes at one strum. Whenever the numbers are on the same vertical line, then you play them all at the same strum.
  
  

Now we will move on to slightly more complex stuff. I have just made the tab up.

e |-----------------|
B |-----------------|
G |-------6p5-3-----|
D |-----5-----------|
A |-5h7-------------|
E |-----------------|

• The h stands for hammer-on. This example shows a hammer-on from the 5th string 5th fret to the 5th string 7th fret.
  
  
• The p stands for pull-off. In a pull-off, you do not pick the second note. This example shows a pull-off from the 5th string 7th fret to the 3rd string 6th fret to the 3rd string 5th fret.
  
  

There are a lot more guitar techniques to be covered in this page, so keep your eyes open!