Guitar Tabs and Chords
What is Guitar Tablature?Tablature (or Tabulature) is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. Tablature is mostly (but not exclusively) seen for fretted stringed instruments, in which context it is usually called tab for short (except for lute tablature). It is frequently used for the guitar, bass, lute, archlute, theorbo, angélique, mandora, gallichon, banjo, and vihuela, but in principle it can be used for any fretted instrument, including ukulele, mandolin, banjo, and viola da gamba, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica. While today tablature is commonly used in notating rock, pop, ragtime and blues music, it is often seen in folk music, and was in fact common during Renaissance and Baroque eras. (In the context of guitar tab, standard musical notation is usually called 'staff notation' — even though tab is also written on a staff — or just 'notation'). Three types of organ tablature were also used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian. There are several types of ocarina tabulature.[1] Harp tablature was used in Spain and Wales. An alternate usage of the word "tab" is common on the internet, where it refers to conventional chord symbols (for harmony), or note names (for melody). Pentatonic ScalePentatonic scales are the least complicated, because they only use five notes rather than the seven notes used in the major scale and the other scale modes (see below). Learning the major and minor pentatonic scale patterns is very important, because they make up an important part of all the modes. A Minor PentatonicMost guitarists feel comfortable beginning with the A minor pentatonic, which is the single most popular scale for solos in western music. Most guitarists know this shape of the Am pentatonic scale by heart, mainly because it is so frequently used in solos. It can also be used for pretty much anything, especially if you want to give it a slightly melancholy sound. Remember that this scale pattern (and any other scale pattern) can be moved up and down the fretboard to play in any key. Major PentatonicThe major pentatonic is a little more complicated than the minor pentatonic, but if you look carefully you will notice some similarities to the minor pentatonic scale.
Guitar ChordsA guitar chord is a chord, a collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. Chord voicings designed for the guitar can be optimized for many different purposes and playing styles. Guitar chords can be composed of notes played on only a few strings at a time, whether occurring on adjacent strings or not, or on all the strings. The instrument is generally very capable and versatile for chording purposes, but it does exhibit some differences with other instruments. Most guitars only have six strings, which means that for the very largest of chord-voicings it's often necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord; this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard sometimes demands that the notes in a chord do not run in tonal order, or makes possible a chord which is composed of more than one note of exactly the same pitch. Many chords can be played with exactly the same notes in more than one place on the fretboard. Guitars can vary both in the number of strings they have, and in the way they're tuned. Most guitars used in popular music have six-strings and are tuned (from the lowest pitched string to the highest): E-A-D-G-B-E. The internal intervals present among adjacent strings in this tuning can be written 5-5-5-4-5 (being mostly perfect fourth intervals plus one major third interval near the middle). Conventionally, the string with the highest pitch (the thinnest) is called the first string, and the string having the lowest pitch is called the sixth.
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