Hi I’m Luke Mcintosh, creator of becomeabassist.com
and in this lesson, you’re going to learn
everything you need to know to get started
reading bass tabs.
We’ll cover the very basics but also some
of the more obscure things that bass tabs
ask you to do sometimes.
[Video Intro]
If you’re here right now, then it probably
means you need to make sense of the bass tabs
you’re seeing all over the internet.
Good news though - first of all, you’re
not alone.
I decided to make this video after I got a
comment on another lesson asking about how
to read tabs.
Secondly - it’s really simple to get started
with reading tabs.
Much easier than standard music notation at
least, so let’s just jump right in.
Now if it’s a bass tab you’re seeing,
chances are it’s going to have 4 lines like
this.
Each of these lines represents one of the
strings of your bass.
In case you don’t know, they’re called
the E, A, D and G-strings.
Sometimes these will be written at the start
of the lines like this, but not always.
The E is your fattest string and sounds the
lowest, Your A-string is the next one along.
A bit thinner, and sounds higher.
Your D-string is right next to that one.
Again - a bit thinner and sounds higher.
And finally you’ve got your G which is your
thinnest string and highest sounding.
If the song you’re playing is played on
a 5 or 6-string bass, then the tabs will show
that like this.
A 5-string will have an extra string here
and the 6-string right here.
Also, if the song you’re playing is in an
alternate tuning, it’ll sometimes be shown
in here or it might just say it at the start
of the tab.
Now one of the big mistakes that people make
when they start trying to read tabs is read
it upside-down.
They see a note on this top string here and
want to play on the E-string when really,
you should be playing it on the G. Tabs didn’t
make sense to me when I first started using
them because I was making this mistake.
When I saw this, I mapped it to my bass like
this - like I was looking at someone else
play, which was totally wrong, so I sounded
like an idiot!
The thing that helped me get past this is
to imagine these 4 lines in front of my face
and I’d pull it down onto my bass like this
- and as I pulled it down it kind of flipped
upside down.
Maybe the same trick will work for you - maybe
not.
Either way, let’s keep moving.
Now the most common thing you’ll see on
tabs is different numbers from 0 all the way
up to 21 or 24 - maybe even higher depending
on the song.
These numbers represent the fret number on
your bass.
For example, if we saw this we’ve got a
3 on the A-string, that means you’d play
the 3rd fret on the A-string.
Just like that.
At the start, you might have to count up to
the 3rd fret 1-2-3, but the more you play,
the more familiar you get with the fretboard
you’ll get and you’ll just know where
that 3rd fret is.
By the way, if you see a 0, you just play
that as an open string.
Open E, Open A-string, Open D-string and finally,
an open G. Simple enough!
If you came across a simple bass line like
this, you’d be able to play it no worries.
[plays bass line] 3rd fret on the E-string,
2nd fret on the A-string, and 3rd fret on
the A-string.
Now in truth, if you just know these things
that’s usually enough to get you going and
if this is enough for you - that’s great!
But a lot of times you’ll see all kinds
of other symbols in the tabs you find.
Some of the most common ones though are hammer
ons and pull offs.
A hammer on is where you pluck one note and
then without plucking again, you hammer on
the next note with your fretting hand like
this.
Plucking the 12th fret on the G-string and
then without plucking again, use the plucking
hand to slam on to the 14th fret.
Most of the time, it’s notated like this.
You pluck the first note and then hammer onto
the 2nd one.
You’ll also see the opposite of a hammer
on - a pull off.
A pull off is where you pluck a note and then
again, without the plucking hand, you pull
that note off and reveal a new one underneath.
So if we do that same thing on the same frets,
this time we’ll start with the 14th fret
and then without plucking, we’ll pull that
14th fret off with the fretting hand and go
back to the 12th fret.
Just like that.
This is usually notated like this.
The original fret, the lowercase P and then
the target note.
You’ll also sometimes see slides notated
with backslashes and forward slashes.
A forward slash means to slide up and a backslash
means you need to slide down.
So if you saw something like this, you’d
need to play the 4th fret on the D-string
and slide up to the 6th fret - again, without
using your plucking hand again.
See how that works?
That’s our upwards slide, but you can also
slide down.
That one uses a backslash rather than a forward
slash.
By the way, these slides don’t always have
to be between 2 distinct notes.
You can slide up to a note from nothing.
[slides on bass] And you can also slide down
to nothing.
[slides again] It doesn’t always have to
be from one distinct note to another.
Another super common thing you’ll find are
little x’s like this.
These represent ghost notes.
These are notes that have rhythm, but no super
strong note.
You get them by muting the string with your
fretting hand and then plucking.
You get this kind of sound.
[plays muted note] You’re just lightly grazing
the string with your plucking hand - not pushing
it down to the fretboard.
This means you can hear the rhythm, but the
pitch, not so much.
It also means you can get sounds like this.
[plays bass line] Hear how you’re getting
a rhythm - kind of like a ‘thud’ - but
no full note?
That’s what these things are!
The next symbol is a little less common in
bass tabs and that’s this symbol here.
It’s like a little upwards facing arrow.
When you come across this symbol, you need
to bend your string up.
Usually you’ll get the starting fret, then
the symbol, and then the number of the symbol
you’re supposed to bend up to.
Usually no more than 2 frets.
For example if we see this, we’ve got to
start on the 14th fret, [plays note] and bend
up so it sounds like the 15th fret. [plays
note] See how that works?
You end up with this kind of sound.
[plays lick] Like I said though, this isn’t
super common in bass tabs.
Every once in a while, you might see a fret
number with square brackets around it or you
might see a number with an H either above
or below it.
This means you need to play that frets harmonic.
[plays harmonic] Again, this is one of the
less common ones, but if you’re trying to
play some Jaco Pastorius or something, you’ll
probably come across this.
If you need to know how to play harmonics,
check out the series on my site about them.
They’ll be super helpful for you.
Next, let’s talk about how slap is notated
with tabs.
Unlike all the symbols we’ve talked about
so far, these notations aren’t in the 4
lines, they’ll be either above or below
them.
Now there are 2 main slap actions - striking
the strings with the thumb and ‘popping’
the strings with the index or middle fingers.
Striking with the thumb is sometimes notated
with an ‘S’ for slap or sometimes with
a ‘T’ for thumb.
The T can sometimes be confusing though because
T is also used to signal notes that are tapped
like this [taps notes] but you will see both
the S and the T around.
The popping is usually notated by a P [plays
bass line] With the slap lines, they can get
pretty involved using slaps, pops, hammer
ons and ghost notes all at once, so if you
had a bass line like this, you’d play this.
[plays bass line] If it’s a really intricate
line, this can get confusing, but that’s
what the S or T symbols plus the P symbol
mean on the tabs you’ll find.
Now one of the big problems with tab is that
you can’t really communicate rhythm very
easily so you kind of have to know what the
song sounds like before you can use the tab
itself.
For example, if you saw this with no indication
of the song, you might be able to figure it
out.
There’s 6 open E-strings, then to the 3rd
fret, back to the open E then to the 5th fret.
You might do something like this.
[plays wrong bass line] But you don’t know
if they rhythm is right at all.
But if I told you this was the bass line to
Another One Bites the Dust, then you’ll
pretty quickly be able to figure out the rhythm
[plays bass line] See how that works?
Once you know how it sounds, you can use the
tab pretty easily.
By the way, these vertical lines here, they
represent a bar line.
So if you’ve got a bar of 4, the time between
these sets of vertical lines will be 4 beats.
1-2-3-4, then a new bar, 1-2-3-4.
Just like that.
Some people try to notate rhythm through tabs,
and they do it like this.
They’ll put the count underneath the tabs.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
This can work pretty well as long as the rhythm
stays within this kind of grid.
So if we had this for example, we’d see
that we had notes on beats 1, the and of beat
2, beat 3 and the ands of beat 3 and 4 and
finally the and of beat 1 in the next bar.
That rhythm sounds like this 1-2-3-4.
Can you see how this works?
All you have to do then is play the notes
and you’ll get this.
[plays bass line] And the second half of the
line has the same rhythm, just different notes.
[plays bass line] It’s Feel Good Inc. by
Gorillaz.
Like I said though, this way of notating rhythm
kind of falls apart if you need to do something
that’s outside of this grid.
For example, if you wanted to notate a triplet,
it gets trickier.
You can get around this by changing the grid.
For example, if you had a bass line that uses
a lot of 16th notes, then you can make a 16th
note grid like this 1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a.
Takes up a lot more space, but it’ll get
the job done.
You can also do the same thing for other time
signatures like 6/8 and 12/8.
It’ll always depend on the song.
But at least now you know what to do if you
see numbers and pluses underneath some tabs
- it’s for the rhythm.
There are also bunch of different styles of
tab that you’ll see depending on where you
look.
This is the one that a lot of old-school tab
sites use - it’s super common, but there’s
also other ones that look like this.
Or this.
Some of them even combine the notes of tabs
but the rhythm of standard notation.
And that looks like this.
This is great if you already know how to read
music, but if not, then it’s not super helpful
to you.
All these different styles of tab though will
all do basically the same thing - it just
looks a little different.
One final thing to consider with tabs is that
there are tons of really good, well put together
tabs out there that would be really helpful,
but there are also tons of dodgy tabs that
are sometimes just flat-out wrong.
So when it comes time for you to dive in,
just take the tabs you find with a grain of
salt and never assume they’re 100% accurate.
Now if you’re just starting out on bass
and you want to jumpstart your learning, I’ve
got the perfect thing for you.
It’s called the Become A Bassist starter
pack and it’s a collection of my best lessons
for beginners.
We’ll cover everything from mastering your
fretboard, making your own bass lines,  basic
technique concepts and you’ll even get some
incredible famous bass lines to play that’ll
get you can get started with right away.
To get the starter pack, just click the link
in the description and sign up on that page
and I’ll send it straight to your inbox.
And by the way - it’s 100% free.
My gift to you as a beginning bass player.
To 
recap though, you learned everything you needed
to know to get started reading bass tabs.
You learned that the 4 lines represented the
4 strings of your bass, you learned that a
big mistake people sometimes make is reading
tabs upside down and the solution was to map
the tabs to your bass like this.
You also learned a ton of the different symbols
you’ll see in tabs as well as a rudimentary
way of notating rhythm.
You also got a bit of a warning about the
accuracy of tabs too.
Make sure to head to the site and pick up
the Become A Bassist starter pack - like I
said it’s 100% free and 100% awesome, so
hopefully I’ll see you in there.
Thanks so much for watching - I really appreciate
it.
I’m Luke McIntosh, creator of becomeabassist.com
and I’ll catch you soon!
