Anatomy Of Ukulele Tab
3 Mins
From How to Read Ukulele Tabs
About The Lesson
Lesson Materials
Strings
If you think of TAB as a ukulele fretboard it’s going to make your understanding of it a lot easier. Imagine you are hovering above it and looking straight down. You have 4 horizontal lines that are made up of dashes and they are your strings.
A|------------------------|
E|------------------------|
C|------------------------|
G|------------------------|
String Names
You can tell what strings they are because of the letter on the far left.
A|------------------------|
E|------------------------|
C|------------------------|
G|------------------------|
Sections
The lines that split the strings are signalling that it’s the start of a new bar or section of the song.
A|-----------|------------|
E|-----------|------------|
C|-----------|------------|
G|-----------|------------|
Frets
Next, you have the numbers and these represent the frets. Check out my guide to the different parts of the ukulele if you are not sure what they are. This is telling you what fret to put your finger on. So if you see the number 3 on the C string, you need to press your finger down on the 3rd fret and pluck the string
A|-----------------0------|
E|--------------0---------|
C|--3--4-----0------------|
G|--------0---------------|
Chords
When you see multiple numbers above o beneath each other, this is representing a chord. So for example, if you saw 0 on the G, 0 on the C, 0 on the E and 3 on the A. This is the tab telling you to play a C Major chord. You can either pluck them all with 4 fingers or strum them depending on what the song requires.
A|--3---------------------|
E|--0---------------------|
C|--0---------------------|
G|--0---------------------|
