What's your instrument of choice? Acoustic guitar? Mandolin? Ukelele? Banjo? What all of these different instruments have in common is that they are played by fingering taut strings. They also share a common type of musical writing that is far easier to pick up than classical music notation for piano and wind instruments: guitar tablature.



Some people might like to believe tablature to be a recent invention to aid in learning acoustic or rock guitar, but it is actually quite old. It was given birth by those rock stars of the fifteenth century: the English lute players.

Guitar tablature is brilliant in its simplicity. It consists of six lines, each showing a string on the instrument. The top line is for the smallest string (the 1st string); the bottom line is for the thickest string (the 6th string). Looking at it, it is easy to visualize the strings of a guitar. Instead of having to memorize all the basics involved in classical music notation, you can easily look at tablature, look at your guitar, and know at once what to do. Little numbers between the lines on the tablature show what fret to play. It really is as simple as it sounds.

Knowing how to understand guitar tablature opens up a whole world of possibilities. You can easily pick up your favorite songs if you have the tabs. Writing down any music that you compose could not be more effortless, either. Finding and sharing tabs online is helpful for any musician, especially on sites that include videos and lessons and explain in detail how difficult slides and fingerings are performed. Almost any musician you can imagine has guitar tabs on the internet for the picking.

Those English lute players couldn't have predicted the future applications their musical shorthand would have. They were just looking for an easy way to share tunes. Whether you're a big lute fan or not, you owe them a world of gratitude for simplifying music!