Chords & Tab ?

Chords give you the harmony of a song... tab is (usually) an attempt to give you an accurate transcription of what the guitarist is doing - so if the guitarist is playing chords, the chords are in the tab.

For example, if you were trying to find "Stairway to Heaven", the chord chart would start with Am. The tab would start like this:

-------5-
-----5---
---5-----
-7-------
---------
---------

That's an Am barre chord at the fifth fret, but on the recording the chord is played one note at a time. Tab shows you that, chord charts don't.

But if you were trying to figure out what's really going on with a song - for example, how you could arrange the same thing for two guitars instead of one - chord charts give you a sense of direction, and tab won't.

Tab files normally have more information. If you are playing from a tab file you have the option of playing the song note for note, or just the chords (though often the actual chord names are not written in the tab). With a chord file you just get the chord names - giving a (usuallly) simplified way to play the song.

Although they have less information, a well-written chord file is often more useful than a poorly-written tab.

Hey Guys, :D
Haven't been able to come back for awhile. Thanx for the advice.
I thought that it was like that but sometimes I see something that confuses me. I think I need to learn more about notes and chords.
:shock: lol

Thanks for this post.....I have been following it and I am finding it helpful and encouraging.

On music with both Chords and Tab the chord will sometimes tell you which chord to finger while the tab tells you which notes to play.


D G
e-------2------0-----------------2--3--2---|--3------3-------------------
b----3-----3------3----------3-------------|---------0-------------------
g--------------------------2---------------|------------------------------
d-0-----0-------------0--------------------|------0-----0----------------
a------------------------------------------|------------------------------
e------------------------------------------|--3-------------3------------

In the example above the first measure will be played while holding an open D chord and the second measure will be played while holding an open G chord.

I realize that this might sound very simplistic but when I started out my fingers were jumping all over the place until my brain "saw or recognized" the chord shapes on tab without the chords written above. I downloaded the tab to Stairway very early on, which seemed a monster to play until I wrote in the chords above the tab. I swear it was like someone turning on a lightbulb. Hope this helps.

Michael