Much of the time if a G chord is called for, most of the notes will be 0 because the banjo is tuned to a G chord already. However, most of the time there will be additional notes added in. Some chords, such as C, usually require you to hold a chord formation. Notice that descending below each note is a vertical line or stem. These vertical lines represent the time value that a note receives.
Most bluegrass music is made up of eighth notes and quarter notes.
Eighth notes are ordinarily connected to other eighth notes in pairs. Look at the tablature above and notice the pairs of eighth notes. Occasionally an eighth note will be called for but will not be next to another eighth note. In this case a small flag will appear at the bottom of the stem. Such is the case with the very first note in the tablature example above.