In this guitar lesson we will take a look at playing tenths and how you can use them in your guitar playing. You will also learn to read tablature notation. You can find tabs to songs everywhere on the net.
Let us first take a look at a guitar tab staff:
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These six lines symbolises the six strings on your guitar. The top line represents the first string. This is the string with the highest pitch.
On the lines you will find numbers indicating which frets to press down to play the notes I will present to you. Here is an example:
---0-----------
---1-----------
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The number 1 on the second line tells you to press down the first fret on the second string. The 0 on the first string means that you play the string without pressing down a fret. This is called to play an open string.
Numbers at the same vertical position are supposed to be played simultaneously. Actually the two notes in the example above are the note C on the second string and the note E on the first string. This interval is called a third.
An interval is the difference in pitch between two notes. If we now take the C on the second string and lower it one octave you will get the following interval:
---0-----------
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---3------------
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This interval is called a tenth. It sounds nice and you can actually play melodies using this interval. Here is an example:
---0---1---3---1---0---
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-------0---2---0-------
---3---------------3---
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Now we will try to use a little scale with tenths to help us move from the chord G7 to the chord C-major. Here is the G7 chord:
---1---
---0---
---0---
---0---
---2---
---3---
Here comes the scale in tenths:
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---0---1---3---
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-------0---2---
---3-----------
And finally the C-chord:
---0---
---1---
---0---
---2---
---3---
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Here you have part of the C-major scale in the first position written with tenths:
-----------------------0---1---3---
-----------0---1---3---------------
---0---2---------------------------
---------------------------0---2---
---------------0---2---3-----------
---0---1---3-----------------------
I suggest that you practice playing this scale until you know it by heart. Try to create your own simple melodies using the notes!
> Guitar Lessons 
