How To Read Bass Tabs

About Bass Tabs

Bass tab is short for bass tablature and is a way bassists can read other bassist’s basslines. Bass tabs are similar to sheet music, but instead of using notes bass tabs use numbers. They are much easier to read than sheet music and don’t take as long to learn and understand. They are very popular in music and there are lots of websites which use them. (Visit my Links Page.) Bass tabs should be used to learn songs or to tab your own songs. Visit my Downloadable Content to download blank tabs for free.

How to read bass tabs

OK, bass tabs aren’t as hard to read as you may think, all you need to know is what string represents what bit on the bass tab. Firstly, you need to know what each sting is called on your bass, use the diagram below and hover over the strings. Use the play button to play the tab that can be found below also.

 
 Now you know all the string on the bass E, A, D and G it is straight forward on how to read bass tabs.

 G|----------------------------------------------|  
 D|----------------------------------------------|    
 A|----------------------------------------------|  
 E|----------------------------------------------| 

Each string is named on the left hand side of the tab. Although, it looks like the tab is upside down this is not so, this is because when you play your bass and you look down at the strings this is how you see them.

 G|---------------------------------------------------|  
 D|---------------------------------------------------| 
 A|-------------------------------55555555-77777777---|  
 E|-55555555-77777777---------------------------------| 

The numbers represents the number of frets you go along by, for example in the tab above it say 5 on the E string 8 times, so you would play the 5th fret 8 times on the E string. You could count along 5 frets one by one, but when playing songs this is too time consuming. That’s why there are fret markers on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th fret, etc, so if you know the second fret marker is on the 5th fret then you can just go straight to the 2nd marker on the E string.

Other

Some Tabs will include the timing for the song below the tab. This is so you know when to hit the notes and it saves time on working out the timing between the notes. A bass tab that uses this looks like.

 G|--------------------------|    
 D|--------------------------|         
 A|--------------------------|       
 E|-5--5--5--5--5--5--5--5---|  
     1  +  2  +  3  +  4  +    
 

Bass Tabs can also have other marking that are included within them, below are the list of markings and what they mean:
•    ( \ ) = a slide down the fretboard.
•    ( / ) = a slide up the fretboard.
•    (h) = a hammer-on.
•    (p) = a pull-off.
•    (^) = a bend.
•    (x) = a ghost note.



Some markings however can be located under the tab, like the timing marks, below are a list:
•    S = a slap note.
•    P = a popped note.
•    T= tapping.