A----5------------------------------------------------------------
E---3-------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
Which would mean strum the same shape starting at the bottom string, so
that each string is hit slightly later than the last string, but all notes
will ring together. Below is am example of the same shape again, but now
the gaps between the notes are bigger - so you would probably pick the 
strings separately instead of slowly strumming the shape.
 
 
E------------------3----------------------------------------------
B---------------3-----3--------------------------------------------
G------------4-----------4-----------------------------------------
D---------5-----------------5--------------------------------------
A------5-----------------------5----------------------------------
E---3-----------------------------3--------------------------------
 
 
You might ask - How do I know how fast or slow to play this ?
                Are all the notes supposed to be the same length ?
 
 
This is where TAB differs from standard notation. Most often TAB 
will *not* give you any information on the note lengths.  It is usually
left up to you to listen to the song to pick up the rhythm.
 
However - don't despair. TAB should give you some indications of
timing.  In the example above all the notes are evenly spaced so you
can reasonably assume that the notes are the same length (maybe all
eighth notes or quavers) but this may not always be true - it depends on
who wrote the TAB.
 
As a general rule, the spacing of the notes on the TAB should tell you
which notes are the long ones, and which are the short and fast ones, but
obviously it won't tell you if a note is a triplet or anything like
that.  Again, this will depend strongly on the person who wrote the
TAB.
 
As an example, here are the first few notes of the American National
Anthem in TAB.  You should see fairly clearly that the different spacing
corresponds to the different note lengths.
 
E-----------------------0--------4--2-0--------------------------
B---0--------------0---------------------------------0-----------