Information on How to Read Music for a Guitar

The ability to read music for a guitar is a useful skill.

Thanks to alternate notation methods like guitar tablature, guitarists can often get by without the ability to read music. However, reading music will help you immensely if you want to learn songs out of a music book, write your own music, go to music school or if you hope to do any session work. Learning to read musical notation will not only expand your horizons as a guitarist, but it also will allow you to communicate more intelligently with other musicians, regardless of the instruments they play.

Instructions

1. Study the placement of the notes on the guitar neck. The ability to name any note you fret is extremely important when attempting to learn how to read guitar music. Every fret equals a half step increase in pitch. The E and the B notes do not have sharps, but every other note does. Similarly, the F and the C notes do not have flats. For example, the notes on either E string read, from the open string to the 12th fret: E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E. Using flats, the notes would read E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, C, Db, D, Eb, E.

2. Study the placement of the notes on a musical staff. Guitar music is written in the G clef, which means that the second line from the bottom of the staff is a G note. Learn every note from the E beneath the third ledger line beneath the staff (the note the low E string produces) to the D above the second ledger line above the staff. Each consecutive line or space is an increase of one diatonic tone (don't worry about sharps or flats yet).

3. Locate a piece of music and examine the symbols at the left of the musical staff. Beside the clef sign may be a series of sharps and flats written on the staff. This is known as the key signature. The key signature tells you that every time a specific note appears on the staff (unless it is accompanied by an accidental) it is either sharp or flat. Beside the key signature is a fraction known as the time signature. The bottom number tells you what note gets the beat (4 equals a quarter note, 8 equals and eighth note and so on) and the top number tells you how many beats are in a measure.

4. Play the piece of music you are examining on the guitar. Match every note on the staff to a note on your guitar. Eventually, you will begin to naturally recognize which notes should be played where on the guitar neck. The key to becoming good at reading music is to practice it as often as possible.

Tips & Warnings

• Study major and minor guitar scales. The better you know your scales, the easier it will be to read music in different key signatures.

References

• "Guitar for Dummies"; Mark Phillips, et al; 1998
• "The Everything Music Theory Book"; Marc Schonbrun; 2001
• The Method Behind the Music: Basic Musical Notation