OK, maybe the title of this post was a little harsh, but I always used to hear that tab was a lazy way or reading music. After you learn how to read guitar tab you may just agree with me that tab is a lazy way, but it’s a heck of a lot easier then memorizing the fret board, notes and understanding how to read the musical staff.
You see guitar tab looks like music but instead of notes on the music staff tab is actually a picture of the 6 strings on your guitar. One those strings will be numbers, these numbers correspond to the fret you play at that time.
So for instance if you were supposed to be playing an E chord it would look something like this.
1 ——-
2 ——-
3 —-1–
4 —-2–
5 —-2–
6 ——-
What this basically means is that on the 5th string, or A string, you press on the 2nd fret, then on the 4th string or D string you press on the 2nd fret and then on the G string you press on the 1st fret.
This is the simplistic view of what guitar tab can teach you but if you can get this you’ll be able to grasp reading it later on.
Here’s another great article that will help get you jump started with reading guitar tabs.