In the most basic sense, guitar tablature (or tab) refers to an alternate method of reading music. Standard sheet music contains the notes of a song written out on five horizontal lines, called a score. This type of notice is universal, whether one is playing guitar, piano or anything else, the notes remain the same. One needs to know their instrument very near to be able to translate the written notations into music.
This can be very frustrating for the beginner, as it takes real commitment to get to this point. With a song written out in tab form, a favorite lick can be learned in minutes.
To briefly describe tab, it is something of a patch of your guitar neck, and where each channel is to be plucked. Tab uses six lines to a bar of music, rather than the standard five. Each line corresponds to the six guitar strings. Replacing the notes are simple numbers, which represent the grate the school is to be played at. In this manner, a song like "Money" by Pink Floyd is completely worn out, all one needs to do is become the range at the bar indicated, and voila - they are suddenly David Gilmour.
Obviously there are drawbacks to this method; you are not really learning how to learn music. I have seen a great many guitar students just give up after a while though, because they felt they were making no progress. For them, learning even just a favorite riff in this way can be a huge confidence-builder. Sure it is a shortcut, but one that often leads to a renewed incentive to continue with the harder work.
The Alfred Music Publishing company have just issued Pink Floyd: Guitar Tab Anthology. In it they feature 13 Pink Floyd songs, in both standard sheet music format and guitar tab. Pink Floyd are an interesting band to have chosen for a shape like this. For one thing, their songs are generally not what one would consider easy to play - and many of them are rather long as well.
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