Reading Bass TAB – How to Read Bass Tab

This quick lesson makes learning how to read bass TAB a quick and easy process! Reading TAB is an essential skill and it will help you tremendously as you go along. Here’s the complete lesson:

Reading Bass TAB

There are only three things to remember for you to get started:

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

• The four horizontal lines each represent a bass string.
• The thickest string is on the bottom, and the thinnest string is on the top (top to bottom: GDAE, bottom to top: EADG).
• The numbers on these lines tell you which fret to play.

There are also some symbols that tell you when to bend notes, apply vibrato, etc. but the three things above are key to reading simple TABs.

Single Notes

G------------------------
D------------------------
A------------------------
E---1----2----3----4-----

The above TAB is telling you to play frets one, two, three, and four on the E string.

Chords

In TAB, we stack notes that are supposed to be played at the same time. Like this chord:

G----4-------------------
D----5-------------------
A----5-------------------
E----3-------------------

Since all the notes are stacked on top of one another, you should know to strum them all at once.

Technique Notation

Here are some common symbols you’ll see in TAB and what they mean:

h – hammer on
p – pull off
b – bend string up
r – release bend
/ – slide up
\ – slide down
v – vibrato (sometimes written as ~)
t – right hand tap
x – play ‘note’ with heavy damping

Reading Chord Charts

Chord charts are a way to display the chords of a song. They show a snapshot of the fretboard as if you were holding your bass in your lap facing you.

• With vertical chord charts, the thickest string is on the left, and the thinnest string is on the right.
• With horizontal chord charts, the thickest string os on the bottom, and the thinnest string on top (just like with TAB).

Chord charts use dots to show you which string to press and on which fret. Sometimes these dots have numbers on them that will tell you which fretting finger to use.

At the top of the chord chart, you might see “x” or “o” above strings. “O” tells you to play a string open, while “x” means do not play that string at all.

In the examples shown, all chords pictures are played within the first few frets of the bass.

If the chord chart happens to be showing a chord played higher up, say with the root on the fifth fret, there will be numbers to the left of the fretboard diagram telling you the fret numbers.

Pros & Cons of TAB

TAB is short for tablature, and bass TAB is specific to the instrument. If you write out a song in bass tablature form and hand it to a pianist, they’re not gonna have a clue what they’re looking at, this is why you also need to learn to read sheet music!

Bass TAB also has another major flaw: it lacks rhythm (an important part of music!). While some complex TABs try to get the rhythm on paper using note counting and spacing, it’s not perfect. Learning to at least read the beat of traditional sheet music will help you tremendously!

The pro: bass TAB will become second nature to you, like reading from a book, with just a short bit of practice. Plus, you can use TAB to quickly share idea with other bassists.

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