In order for you to play the acoustic guitar properly, you need to understand a little bit more about guitar music.
Firstly, the musical notations used for when playing the guitar or any other stringed instrument are different from those used for other musical instruments.
Where as other musicians use staffs, notes, note values, ledger lines and key and time signatures in order to play music.
A guitar player will only use musical notations referred to as tabs.
The main advantage to be had from using acoustic guitar tabs is that you can learn to play this instrument without actually having to learn to read music as well.
When you start to learn how to read these tabs, you will see in front of you a diagram with various different lines, numbers and dots on it.
The lines on the diagram represent the strings on the guitar the top one being string number one and the bottom line being string number six.
As for the numbers that appear on the diagram these represent the frets which are found on the neck or fingerboard of the guitar and which is where you fingers will need to be placed in order for the right note to be produced.
Yet if you see a Zero (0) on the line this then tells you that you need to leave this string open (no finger placed on it), where as the letter "X" informs you that the sound that this particular string produces needs to be muffled.
However, if you are not sure by what we mean when we say fret, this is a located between two of the metal bars that are found on the fingerboard (neck) of the guitar.
In most cases, a good quality acoustic guitar will have between 21 and 24 frets on the neck of it.
It is the dots on the diagram that clearly indicates to you the position in which your finger(s) should be placed on the neck of the guitar.
When learning how to play guitar tabs occasionally you will notice that all the numbers appear on the same line one after the other.
Plus you will also see that the frets you need to place your fingers at will the same as well.
When you see this notation on the diagram it means that you should just pluck this one string and no others at all.
Also it is through this tab you learn that you must play this one note and no others.
But if you find yourself in a situation when reading the diagram that you need to place each finger on to a separate string and on the same fret this is indicating that you then need to play these notes at the same time.
The easiest and most effective way of doing this is by strumming on the strings rather than plucking them all at the same time.
Along with the tab positions, we have mentioned above there are other ones which you will need to learn.
This includes Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, Slides and Bends and these are denoted by various letters and symbols.
The Hammer-ons are denoted by the letter "h", Pull-offs are denoted by the letter "p", whilst bends are denoted by the letter "b".
As for Slides, these are denoted by a slash "/".
The type of tab you are likely to see on the diagram in front of when learning tabs where Hammer-ons are required are "7h9".
However, once a person has learnt a bit about reading acoustic guitar tabs they need to start learning how to play them on a guitar.
A great way to get hold of some very basic lessons for learning how to read guitar tabs is by going online.
But when carrying out your search go for those songs that you know well and then start to play them in order to practice your tabs.
But be warned it will take you some time to get use to reading and playing tabs properly.
Yet once you can you will be amazed at just how quickly you can pick others up and play these as well.
If you can when practicing, the tabs for a particular song listen to it at the same time.
By doing, this you will find actually, learning acoustic guitar tabs becomes much easier, even if you think you know the song already.
Being able to listen as well as read the tabs at the same time will make the process of learning them much easier, but you will be able to better understand the detail and rhythm of the song that you are playing.
Using acoustic guitar tabs in order to learn how to play this instrument will be much more fun than you first thought.
You will soon find that you are able to play several different songs all of which you can then use to entertain friends and family as well as yourself.