How to Read Metal Guitar Tabs for Beginners

Before we get into this, let me first encourage you to trust your ears more than anything. Tabs are a great tool, but you never want to rely on them 100%. The real superpower for metal guitar players is combining solid ear training with the ability to read tabs.

That said, this post is your quick-start guide to learning how to read guitar tabs – specifically for playing metal riffs. Once you understand these basics, you’ll be able to read and play almost any metal guitar rhythm or riff you come across.

Prefer to learn by watching? Here’s the full lesson in video form 👇

📥 Want riffs with tabs and backing tracks? Grab my free Metal Riffs & Licks guide.

What Are Guitar Tabs?

Tabs (short for tablature) are a simple way of writing music for guitar without needing to read traditional music notation. And it’s a much faster way to show exactly what’s being played on guitar.

Here are the basics of reading guitar tabs:

The six lines represent the six strings on your guitar
The numbers tell you what frets to play

So, instead of this (traditional music notation):

You get this (guitar tabs):

The Basics of Reading Metal Guitar Tabs

Now, let’s dive deeper into the basics and how that translates tabs to what to play on guitar. After that, we’ll expand and apply them to some actual metal riffs.

Six Lines of Tabs = Six Strings on Guitar

As you can see below, each line represents a string. And the easiest way to remember where to start is that the lowest line represents the lowest string, your low E string. From there, you just go up through the rest of the strings from the low E, A, D, G, B, and the high E.

Here’s what that looks like on your guitar. Simple. Easy.

What the Numbers Mean

The numbers you see on those lines represent frets that you will play. In the example below, there is a ‘2’ and ‘3’ on the lowest line, followed by a ‘2’ on the line above, then you go in reverse with the ‘3’ and ‘2’ played on the first line again.

On guitar, you’ll play:

Frets 2 then 3 on the Low E string
2nd fret on the A string
Frets 3 then 2 on the low E string

Let’s go over another riff example, but this time, we won’t start on the low E string. Here are the tabs for the next riff:

On guitar, you’ll play:

Frets 5, 4, and 2 on the D string
Frets 3 and 2 on the A string

Open Strings (The “0”)

Oftentimes, especially with metal tabs, you’ll come across a ‘0,’ which means you’ll play that string open. Let’s go back to the first riff above and add a ‘0.’

What you’ve seen so far is the beginning of playing single-note metal riffs. Now you’re starting to see how this works and how easy it is to read guitar tabs.

Numbers Stacked Vertically (Power Chords in Tabs)

Another thing you’ll see a lot in metal guitar tabs is two numbers stacked on top of one another. When the numbers are stacked vertically, it means you play them together. This is how power chords (the backbone of metal) are written.

Here’s an example of a power chord progression: