Acoustic guitar is one of the most melodious instruments that can be mastered easily with the help of simple finger exercises for beginners. This article provides some brief and easy tabs for acoustic guitar; begineers will surely benefit from these exercises to become better guitar players.
The acoustic guitar is pretty easy to play with the help of regular practice and patient hard work. Nowadays, many people select this instrument, and randomly start playing and strumming it, without actually realizing the importance of notations, and the beauty represented by every single note, scale, and chord.
Knowing Your Instrument
It is an absolute necessity to have a good knowledge about your instrument, even before you undertake any of the guitar lessons. An acoustic guitar has 6 strings placed in descending order according to the scale and pitch. It means that from the resonance and scale point of view, the first string from the top is the ‘lowest’ note that can be played on the instrument, and on the other hand, the bottommost string is the ‘highest’ one that can be played. It is also important that you study the parts of this instrument while learning the guitar tabs, especially the neck and sound hole. The strings of the guitar when played ‘open’ (without pressing any fret), would give you the notes E, A, D, G, B, and E (higher).
Exploring the Fretboard
If you take a look at the fretboard, you would notice that the frets become smaller and smaller in an ascending fashion, towards the guitar’s body. It means that broader the fret, lower is the note, and smaller the fret, higher is the note. The strings as mentioned give the notation E, A, D, G, B, E when played open. The next step is to figure out which fret would give you which note. The following diagram would help you to understand the fretboard. Note that the guitar tabs are written in a similar manner, and the first string in the diagram is the lowermost one, i.e., E (higher E) on the actual guitar.
| Fret No | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| open E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E |
| open B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B |
| open G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G |
| open D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D |
| open A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A |
| open E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E |
Free Acoustic Guitar Tabs for Beginners
One of the key aspects that is to be studied very sincerely, is the development of your fingers. This aspect can be classified into 3 types, namely the development of fret pressing, alternate fret playing, and crisscross fret playing.
Fret Pressing
The following exercise would help you to develop your grip over the guitar’s neck. It is necessary to practice this exercise as frequently and regularly as possible. Practicing these beginner acoustic guitar tabs in a disciplined timing and rhythm is also important. For this, you can also use a metronome.
E——————————————————-1-2-3-4-|
B———————————————1-2-3-4———–|
G———————————–1-2-3-4———————|
D————————-1-2-3-4——————————-|
A—————1-2-3-4—————————————–|
E—–1-2-3-4—————————————————|
E——————————————————-5-6-7-8-|
B———————————————5-6-7-8———–|
G———————————–5-6-7-8———————|
D————————-5-6-7-8——————————-|
A—————5-6-7-8—————————————–|
E—–5-6-7-8—————————————————|
The numbers indicate the fret number. You may also try out the same exercise for higher frets i.e., the ones that precede fret no. 8, and also for all the strings.
Alternate Fret Pressing
This also is another very important finger exercise for beginners, and provided below are the steps.
E——————————————-2–4—-|
B————————————1–3———–|
G—————————–2–4——————|
D———————-1–3————————-|
A—————2–4——————————–|
E——-1—3—————————————|
E—————————————-2–4—–|
B——————————–1–3—–1–3—|
G———————-2–4—-2–4————–|
D————–1–3—–1–3———————|
A——-2–4—-2–4—————————–|
E—–1–3—————————————-|
Crisscross Fret Playing
This exercise would help you to co-ordinate the motion of all your four playing fingers.
E—————————-|
B—————————-|
G————–4-4———-|
D————3—–3——–|
A———2———-2——|
E——-1—————1—|
E——1————–1–|
B——–2———2—–|
G———-3—–3——-|
D————4-4———|
A————————-|
E————————-|
It is an extremely important exercise, due to the fact that it helps you to develop a coordination between all you fingers, and also between your right and left hand.
Once you have developed a reasonable amount of finger strength, you can proceed to learn the guitar tabs, chords, and scales. While playing the chords and scales, you may refer to the notation chart that has been provided above. For exploration of the fretboard, and for developing the sense of scales, you can also undertake some exercises such as playing all the C#’s or F’s on the fretboard. This is a highly effective exercise as the note sounds are registered by your ear. No matter which guitar tabs you refer to, developing your ear for the tune is extremely important.
The last tip that I wish to give you is to feel every scale and chord that you play, because each and every notation that is present in there, is full of life!
