The following diagram shows you how tablature relates to the guitar fretboard:

We use numbers to indicate the string and the fret position that you are supposed to play. Each fret is numbered, starting at the nut of the guitar at O and moving upwards towards the bridge of the guitar. The following diagrams demonstrate this principle.

The 3 on the above tablature score (Tab. diagram 1) indicates to you that you place a finger on the third fret of the sixth string. It is the note G.>

Diagram here. The 1 on the tablature score (Tab. diagram 2) on the last page indicates to you that you place a finger on the first fret of the third string. It is the note C.

The O on the above tablature score (Tab. diagram 3) indicates to you that the third string is to be played open. This means that you don’t need to place a finger on it. It is the note G.

Chords and Tablature
Chords are indicated by a set of numbers that
tell you which frets need to be played and which don’t. The following diagram demonstrates how an open A major chord is constructed with tablature.

The first and fifth strings are played open whilst the second, third and forth strings are played at the second fret. The sixth string is not played in the A Major Chord and this is indicated by an X.

Often tablature is written beneath traditional music score or stave. The two together looks like this:

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When you listen to one of your favorite songs you become aware to the fact that it is built up of notes and chords that are changing and causing the song to evolve in a way that is pleasing to the ear. The question that I want to look at today is: why do some chords sound good together and others sound absolutely terrible?

To answer this, we need to look at root notes as they are the base that chords are built upon. If we take the notes of a scale and number them from 1 to 8, you will find movements between notes 1, 4 and 5 consistently sound better and stronger than between any other number. Let’s take a look at a scale (for learning purposes we will use the C Major Scale):

It might be a good idea to get your guitar out at this point and just have a play around with the notes in the above scale so you can hear what I mean about strong movement between numbers 1, 4 and 5. Also, play around with some of the other numbers to see what some weaker movements sound like.

So, now that we have established the above fact, let’s use it in some chord progressions.

A turnaround progression is a sequence of chords that can be continually repeated due to strong sounding chord movement between the ending and starting chords. In the following turnaround progression we use the F chord (F being 4 in the C major scale) to get back to the starting chord C (C being 1 in the C major scale):

Try playing the above chord progression using a strum of your own. If you don’t know the chords, they are shown at the bottom of this page – you will hear that the progression sounds good and repeats itself through a strong chord movement.

Here are some more turnaround progressions for you to practice:

1)

2)

3)

Chords