Tabs

Greetings Resprod, and welcome to Chordie (assuming you are new here).

  Well you have been playing chords so you should have a basic feel for how to place your fingers in the respective frets in the order that they were installed on your hands.  You will find that by looking at the Tabs you will start to see the patterns of common open and barre chords emerge and knowing those patterns is the "secret" (if there is one).  But as you will see repeated here and on other sites, there is no "right" way to do any chords, just those that are easier on your body, the easier most comfortable way is what will be commonly used and considered "correct", but it is what works for you.

  Tab has the advantage over "chords" in that it can be used in place of standard sheet music to represent graphically, both chords and the melodic sequence of individual notes for those of us who do not "sight read" standard notation.  The individual notes will usually represent notes in the "scale" of the chord derivative. What's that mean?  Riffs in the tonal range of the chord being played in accompaniment.  Really handy if you are trying to play that lead line!

  For more on scales, you might want to refer to the music theory section, where there are a bunch of folks that have a firm grip on all that magical mumbo-jumbo (most of which still defeats me).  But you will find that knowing some of the theory, will really enhance your understanding and broaden your repertoire of performance.  Stuff you should know some of, if you are interested in writing you own original music sometime in the future.

  Take Care;
  Doug

Ahhh, another multi-instrument player....

  Well you play keyboards also, so you likely have a grasp on standard notation sheet music (the genuine advantage).  I say advantage because unlike tab, you have the cadence of the music integral in sheet music which is absent in tab.  Tab tells you where to go, but not how fast, slow, or for how long.  So without having heard the tune or having a recording of the piece to play along with it can be really difficult to decipher tab and come out with anything sounding like the original version.  If you could imagine "Sunday Bloody Sunday" as a "blues" tune you catch my drift.

  Take Care;
  Doug

The more you dab in the tab, the better you'll know which fingers to use at maximum efficiency. Just think of playing guitar as you would in shooting pool(billiards). You want to give some thought into what  your doing presently, but also you'll want to think of what you'll be doing next. I know this may sound a bit wacky at first ,but just give it a go and I'm pretty sure you'll find this simple advice beneficial...........