music reading
 
 
 

My poor guitar instructor. I often think of him, and his three year struggle to get me to read music. All things considered I would like to think that I was a good student. I showed a lot of potential, and I knew what I wanted. I wanted to rock, man! Reading music wasn't part of the picture I had in my head. I practiced constantly but devoted little time to most of my assignments, especially reading. Now that I am a teacher, I know how much fun it can be to have a student with a clear vision of where they want to get to. I also know the frustration caused by watching the same individual neglecting some of his or her most fundamental skills.

From 1993-1994 I attended the Musician's Institute in California, and finally had no choice but to read music. We had to prepare pieces of classical music for trios, quartets, and sextets. If I was going to do well in school I had no choice but to buckle down and get the hang of reading. It was about then that I realized that reading music is a lot of fun, once you get good at it. Nothing is fun when you're terrible at doing it, but once you get past the initial roadblocks (which, of course are all in your head) reading music is not only extremely rewarding, (it develops your sense of harmony, melodic sense, ear, rhythm, and everything else) but it is also a lot of fun.

Reading music is not easy. It takes a long time to learn. A relatively small percentage of the guitar-playing population knows how to do it. We live in a tablature driven society. Numbers are very easy to deal with. Trouble is they don't tell you one tenth of what is actually going on in the music. If you want to understand music completely, you need to learn to read it. If you want to be a creative musician, it is imperative that you expose yourself to as much music as possible, including music that isn't tabbed out in the back of guitar magazines. If you're not interested in being a well rounded musician, you needn't read any further. If you are interested I will do all I can to help you along. The world is always in need of fertile minds. Here we go....

This is a called a staff:

The staff is the five horizontal lines on which the music you see will be written. The first thing you see on the staff is the TREBLE CLEF. A clef is used to designate the range (how low-how high) the music is written for. All the music you'll see written for the guitar will be written with this clef. Next you see two 4's, one on top of the other. This is called a TIME SIGNATURE. The top 4 tells you there are 4 beats in each measure. The bottom 4 tells you that a QUARTER NOTE gets the beat. In other words, there are four quarter notes (or the equivalent) in each MEASURE. Measures are the spaces between BAR LINES, the thin vertical lines you see on the illustration below.

Now you'll need to know about these guys....

These are telling you about the rhythm of the song you are playing. There is always a steady TEMPO in music. Tempo means the speed the song is played at. Tempo is indicated in BEATS PER MINUTE. The beat is basically the pulse of a song. A WHOLE NOTE will be allowed to ring out for four beats. A HALF NOTE will ring for two beats, and a QUARTER NOTE is only be one beat long. For the time being we will only be using quarter notes.

Finally, the line or space that a note appears on determines its sound. There are five lines, and four spaces on a staff. A simple way to remember the names of the notes on the lines is, from bottom to top, (E)livs (G)oes (B)oppin' (D)own (F)reeways. The spaces are from bottom to top, F-A-C-E, which in case you didn't notice spells the word FACE. :-)

We're going to learn one string at a time, learning two or three notes on each string. We'll start with the first string, which is of course the E string. We'll be playing an E, an F, and a G note. The E is played by simply picking the first string open. The F is played by fretting the 1st fret of the first string with your FIRST FINGER. The G is played by fretting the 3rd fret (NOT THE SECOND FRET! THAT'S F#. REMEMBER LESSON THREE? ) of the first string with your THIRD FINGER! The fingering is very important. Consistency is everything when you're learning something, because it makes it possible to know what your mistakes are.

Try this little exercise. I think you'll get the hang of it in no time. As always, I hope I've been very clear about what I want you to do. If you do need more information, or have any questions about anything at all feel free to e-mail me!  Good luck!!
            

While you're at it, try this one:

"go that way.... really fast! if something gets in your way..... turn"-zen parable