How to Sight Read Guitar Music
Sight reading music is a daunting task for a guitarist. Because of the fact that identical notes can be played at multiple places on the guitar neck, sight reading music for the guitar is often quite confusing. Before attempting to sight read guitar music, make sure you completely understand the musical staff. You need to know all about key signatures, time signatures, sharps and flats and all of the special symbols that represent various guitar techniques.
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Instructions
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Lean the names of the notes that are produced at the various places along a guitar neck. If you cannot look at the 10th fret of the G sting and automatically place the note produced there as an F note, you will have significant trouble trying to sight read guitar music. You can practice this by playing riffs that you know while saying the name of every note you play.
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Familiarize yourself with all the major and minor scales. Learn each of these scales in every position on the neck. Knowing your basic scales inside and out will make the process of sight reading guitar music exponentially simpler. If you can look at the key signature and automatically know what scale to play in, you won't need to think so much about sharps and flats.
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Practice reading simple, single-note sheet music. Don't worry about being able to sight read yet, just make sure that you are playing the melody correctly. Try to find as many different ways to play this melody up and down the guitar neck as you can. This will help you think about all of the different ways a piece of music can be played on a guitar.
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Practice reading more complex songs. Stick with music that you know to ensure that you are playing it correctly. If you are having trouble with any technical aspect of reading music (such as note recognition or timing), go back and brush up on the basics. To sight read competently, you will need to be able to play the music that is written without having to think too much about it.
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Practice sight reading as much different music as possible. Sight reading music on a guitar takes a great deal of practice and as with any skill, the more you practice, the better you will become.
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