Okay, I've been told I'm not very good at explaining things, so bear with me, a lot of this stuff might not be in order of importance, so feel free to skip past a bit if you think it's a load of crap, okay?

What is tablature?

If you're guitar's fretboard doesn't look something like this, then you don't have a guitar, maybe it's a ukelele or something.

* | * lines mean string, * - * lines mean fret, or the nut (the top bit)


E A D G B e
-----------
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|

I realise how stupid that looks, but it kinda makes sense. Anyway, hopefully noones guitar looks too much like that...

By now, if you've been playing guitar, you should realise you (almost) never put your finger exactly on the fret, if a tab says, play the first fret of the e, then you put your finger over the first fret.

So, if you're already confused, I'll try to explain...

This IS an A chord:


E A D G B e
x-O-------O
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | o o o |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|
| | | | | |
|-|-|-|-|-|


The x on the top means don't play, the O means play open string.
o is where your finger is.

Tablature is this view of the fretboard turned around. It could in theory look like this:

A again:


e 0-|-|-|-|-|
B |-|o|-|-|-|
G |-|o|-|-|-|
D |-|o|-|-|-|
A 0-|-|-|-|-|
E x-|-|-|-|-|

But, in my opinion, that's really confusing, so here it is again in normal tablature, some people always have the string notes on tabs, I don't bother unless there's some sort of really important retuning to be done.

A in normal tablature (try and connect this with the other two):


|0
|2
|2
|2
|0
|

It tells you the exact strings to play, and doesn't clutter up the place with fretboard marks, or big x's that you can do without. This kicks ass.

Stuff in tablature besides just notes and chords

This is the stuff that's probably not in order, but anyway. For most of these you only want to play the string once, then do whatever effect you're practicing, like slides and stuff.

  Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

These are shown with:
I
I0h2 (hammer-on)         2p0 (pull-off)
I
I
I
I

This is a simple hammer-on. Just hit the string once, then while it's still ringing put your finger on the 2nd fret.

Pull-off, play string once with your finger on the second fret, and then just take your finger off, while it's still ringing (so it makes a sound).

  Slides

There's the big metal slides that some people use, but I'm not talking about them, okay?

I
I3s7
I
I
I
I

Okay, just play the string, with your finger on the third fret, then just slide your finger up as far as the seventh fret, fairly quickly.

Mmkay? - mmkay.

  Shaking notes

This is three-fingered technique as far as I'm concerned. At least two, anyway:

I
I
I9 (shake note)
I
I
I

Just play that note, and shake the string up and down, so you don't bend the string, that changes the note too much , what I usually do is shake with the third finger, and have a finger on the fret below it (for stability!).

  Bending and pre-bending - Ooh - Advanced

Teehee, this is pretty much it...

I
I
I9b10 (a bend)        (9b)10 (a pre-bend)
I
I
I

A little harder to explain. Just play the note, and bend up a semi-tone (I'm not explaining that), but you should try and bend, push the string towards/away from you, it doesn't matter, and it should go higher. In theory, the note you should get from bending up one semitone is the note on the tenth fret, (sigh), so, bend up, then just play the 10th fret, and the notes you get should be the same.

Ahh, prebends - bend the 9th fret to the tenth fret, without ever playing the string, then play the bended note, without the bending, then em... unbend the string, and the note should return to being the 9th fret note.

  Muting

Two types:

Left hand muting (it's only left handed muting if you're right handed)

Ix12x
Ix12x
Ix12x
Ix12x
Ix12x
Ix12x

The actual sign for left handed muting is something weird, so I'll just use this, in my tabs, I always say left or right handed. Ok, just don't push down on the strings so much (almost not at all), and play all the strings, and you get that cool harmonic effect (I'll explain that some other time).

Right handed muting brings a very different effect:

I
I
I
Ix2x
Ix2x
Ix0x

Right, finger the chord above (E5), and put the side of the palm of your right hand (again assuming you're right handed) just over the bridge, right at the bottom of the guitar, so it mutes the strings when you play. This just sounds crap on acoustics, but if you have an electric guitar, it's just like that death metal sound or something, it's in angel interceptor too, in the bit before the solo: angel interceptor, apollo 21...

Note:

I assume you know a good bit about guitars already in this thingy, and Ash songs are fairly hard to play (especially the solos), so don't expect to be able to play the solo from like , lose control, straight away. Start with the chords and stuff, and then do the rest. Oh yeah, my tabs aren't like definitive or anything, so you could spot a mistake that I don't, so feel free to send in correct versions and stuff.

Next week: Harmonics, ash solos, and making up solos.

Mail me if you're having trouble understanding my insane banter or if I forgot something or anything : bort@oceanfree.net. Bye!.