Learning Guitar: How to Read Guitar Tablature

By Dan Cross, About.com Guide

The following tutorial will help to explain to you the basic concept of reading guitar tab. Although it may seem complex, learning to read tab is quite simple, and you should find yourself reading tab easily in no time.

Guitarists are a unique breed. Chances are, if you play guitar, you are either self-taught, or have taken a small number of lessons via a friend or guitar teacher. If you were a pianist, however, you would have learned the instrument through years of private study, which would include both music theory lessons, and heavy focus on sight reading.

INSTRUCTION : Deconstructing Sus Chords Lesson

by acousticguitar.com

Learn the easy music theory behind chord suspension and resolution. With tab. By Matt Warnock

Suspended chords, or “sus chords” as they are better known, are somewhat of an enigma in the realm of modern harmony. They float between the worlds of major and minor chords, somehow sounding like they can function in any harmonic situation, regardless of key or tonality. They are at once full and heavy sounding (mostly a result of the perfect-fifth interval they contain), while at the same time open-ended and harmonically ambiguous, due to the lack of a major or minor third.

Classical Acoustic Guitars

Classical Guitar

During the Middle Ages, guitars with three, four, and five strings were already in use. The Guitarra Latina had curved sides and is thought to have come to Spain from elsewhere in Europe. 

The so-called Guitarra Morisca, brought to Spain by the Moors, had an oval soundbox and many sound holes on its soundboard. By the 15th century, a four course double-string guitar called the vihuela de mano, half way between the lute and the guitar, appeared and became popular in Spain and spread to Italy; and by the 16th century, a fifth double-string had been added. During this time, composers wrote mostly in tablature notation.