Beginner Guitar Lesson #2 - Guitar Tablature

Happy New Year! This is the year of your guitar success, so lets do some work here. I'm glad that you're still reading my blog. It's gonna worth it for sure. Today I'm gonna learn you about the thing called tablature. Ok, lets do it!
Guitar tablature consists of a series of a horizontal lines forming a staff (or stave) similar to standard notation. Each line represents one of the instrument's strings. Therefore standard guitar tab has six-line staff. Top line of the tablature represents the highest-pitched string (e) of the guitar. You can find many guitar tab notation on internet for any song that you want to learn to play. Tablature is much easier way to figure what should you play, because it indicates where your fingers should be placed. Traditional music notation is much harder to learn. Even if its easier to learn guitar tab, it still has its sticky points. For example, you can't easily indicate rhythm on tablature. You have to learn strum from the song itself.
Here is guitar tab example for 2 chords.

E||----0---------2----|
B||----2---------3----|
G||----2---------2----|
D||----2---------0----|
A||----0---------x----|
E||----x---------x----|

First row is A major, and second is D major chord.

You need to practice strumming the A major and the D major chords to the following down stroke pattern. Strum 4 down strokes over the A major chord, and then 4 down strokes over the D major chord. Then you have to repeat it all over again. This exercise should make you getting a smooth change between the 2 chords, so that whole piece flows and is in time.
I recommend you to check out Jamorama. They have great jam tracks for exercise.

Chord  A       D       A       D
Stroke ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
Count  1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 

Remember it will not sound so good at the first time, that is why you need to practice and to be patient. Always have that on your mind, P&P (Practice & Patience). :)

Keep rockin',
Mike