Hammond Music

Posts Tagged ‘read music’

As the first method that beginner guitar players use to learn songs guitar tabs are an important skill to understand. If you’ve used a learn to play guitar dvd or other guitar lesson program tabs are usually introduced early on since they’re such a vital role to your learning. If this is your first intro to guitar tab don’t worry I’ll go easy on you, and if you’re using a guitar lesson course at home rest assured you will have some lessons on reading tab.

This article will explain how guitar tabs are made, how to read them and of course how to play guitar tabs. After reading this article you shouldn’t have any problems reading, understanding and playing most basic guitar tabs. Starting out take your time learning tabs, it’s a good idea to master a song or piece from a tab slow first then add speed, accuracy is what makes a great guitar player.

Let’s Begin

How Guitar Tab is Constructed

A guitar tab is like looking at your guitar neck if the guitar was in the case. A guitar tab has 6 lines, one for each string on your guitar. The top line of guitar tab corresponds to the first string on your guitar or the high E. The bottom string on a guitar tab corresponds to the sixth string or your low E string.

Here’s a quick example

1st ——–
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th ——–
5th ——–
6th ——–

Understanding the Notes of Guitar Tab

The next part of reading tabs is understanding what notes to play and on what strings. One of the great things about guitar tab is you aren’t required to know how to read music you just need to know which fret to play on each string.

Here’s another example

1st -2——
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th —–6–
5th ——–
6th ——-3

The number on each string line corresponds to the fret you are supposed to use when playing that string at that point in the song. In the above example you’re to play the second fret on the first string, then the sixth fret on the fourth string followed by the third fret on the sixth string.

Tabs will look just like this of course much longer. Sometimes it will be individual notes you need to play and other times it could be complete chords you need to play. There’s an example chord tabbed below, it’s a C major chord.

1st ———
2nd –1—–
3rd —2—-
4th ——–
5th —3—-
6th —x—-

Above it the right fingering for a C major chord. You might have noticed the ‘x’ on the sixth string, I haven’t mentioned this yet but the x on the string means you do not play that string during this part of the song. So if you see an x on a particular string don’t strum or pluck that string.

With this information you should be able to go out and find some tabs of your favorite songs. There are some more advanced symbols you might run into in tabs, don’t worry you’ll learn them as your progress.

Quality guitar lesson dvd will be of assistance to teach you more advanced tab reading skills. It’s important to not stop learning, tab is just one skill you should strive to master on the guitar. You will become a better guitar player and better musician if you push to learn how to also read music and understand theory as well as reading tabs.

The printed music is the roadmap through which all musicians adhere to, and when you learn to read music you will know the very meaning of the phrase “being on the same page”.

It would be foolish to expect that someone could speak with a Spanish speaker without knowledge of the language, why then would we expect to be able to communicate with one another without the basics of this language?

Ensembles, bands, choirs, opera, jazz all operate on the written notes first. As soon as man could sing he wanted to pass on his songs to the next  generation, hence the need for written music.

Before improvisation was the written note.

It all comes down to if you cannot read; you cannot be with a group that reads. This leaves you as a performer left out of a large portion of musical performance venues.

You cannot comprehend music theory without the notes on the page. The theory of music is by necessity based on the written note. You may say this sounds very difficult and it may be, but all music theory comes from the written page and harmony, melody and structure cannot be understood otherwise.

Learn a song without any other reference. When you follow music you can learn a song without an instrument in your hand. If you can read music you can go straight to the book and get all of the basic information on your own. Have you ever learned a song from someone else and not known if you got it right or got all of the information you need? If you can read you can learn a song much faster and more completely without having to play a cd over and over and wonder if you got it right.

You can learn exactly how the author of the song meant for it to sound. It can open up new worlds when you read a song from the authors’ point of view, only to find all of the versions you ever heard did not include 
the intro or coda or a repeat etc. In “Georgia On My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, for example, no ones plays the intro. The fact remains that just because you have heard it on the radio a million times does not mean it was written that way. It may be even better the way the author originally intended it! If you are involved in songwriting, I am sure you would want people to know the way you wrote it. Think about that for a moment.

When you can read music the discovery of new worlds awaits you. If you can read music you can open up a songbook and discover new worlds. I have found many songs this way that are favorites of mine now and if I did not read I certainly would never have found them.

Discover new music you would never know otherwise. When I was young it was hard to learn to ride a bike and I fell over a lot. These days I hardly fall at all. The same is true with any new skill, it is hard at first but soon you begin to move past that and grow.

You will only become a better musician if you learn to read music.    Are you prepared to discover new music, perform with people you  might never have met otherwise, speak with authority about the origins and intent of a particular piece of music or composer? Learn to read music, you will not be sorry.