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Guitar lesson: The E F G of Learning To Play Guitar Sheet Music

Author: Peter Edvinsson

Is it really possible to conquer the guitar fretboard? Do you find the notes you want to find? Is tabulature cheating? Let me invite you to the guitar fretboard!

I suggest that you right now start to take command over your guitar. Usually when you are playing your first guitar sheet music melodies you will have to learn the notes in the first position on the guitar. To have a good grasp of these notes on the guitar I suggest that you learn them slowly and with concentration.

I usually begin by teaching the notes on the first string like E on open string, F on fret 1 and G on fret 3. On string two you’ll find B on open string, C on fret 1 and D on fret 3. With these notes you can play the song Mary Had A Little Lamb.

Using the previous notes the melody can be played as follows:

E D C D E E E D D D E G G E D C D E E E E D D E D C

I hope you recognized the melody. This kind of music notation doesn’t give any hints as to how the rhythm is to be played but you already know the melody, right!

Is using tablature cheating? My father taught me some interesting things about learning to read guitar sheet music.

My dad was the only guitar tutor in the town where I lived and he taught mostly classical guitar pieces. His young students, I was one of them, learned those first guitar pieces very rapidly because he used a system similar to tablature showing the frets and strings to play, along with the sheet music. Tablature wasn’t common back then. I remember somebody remarking that his system prevented the children from learning to sight read sheet music.

His reply was that if somebody really wants to learn the notes they will anyway!

I agree with that and I have found that if a pupil is not motivated learning guitar sheet music they will not advance in this area whether they play with or without tablature.

Do you think your fingers has anything to do with guitar playing? I guess you’ll answer yes!

A more important question is if the fingers you choose to use can have a bearing upon your guitar playing. Left hand fingering means which finger you use when playing a specific note.

Usually when playing the first pieces on the guitar on the first frets one plays the notes on the first fret with the index finger, notes on the second fret with the middle finger, notes on the third fret with the ring finger and notes on the fourth fret with your little finger.

Why mess up everything with this fingering stuff? Isn’t it possible to play every melody with your left index finger and forget about fingerings?

Well, of course you can play melodies with your index finger but your progress will be very limited beyond just playing easy melodies.

Besides you’ll have to move your hand all the time as you change frets and, most importantly when reading sheet music, you’ll have to look at the guitar fretboard all the time instead of looking at the sheet music.

The important thing when learning to play the notes on the guitar is to make a conscious effort to learn the notes and not to work on too many notes at the same time.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/guitar-lesson-the-e-f-g-of-learning-to-play-guitar-sheet-music-10470.html

About the Author
Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

Guitar Tab: A Language Of Its Own

Author: Victor Epand

Guitarists have a tendency to be self-taught or, at the most, to have taken a few lessons in an informal setting. This is a very different approach from that of most other instruments, which are generally taught formally and with a heavy emphasis on musical theory and written music. A guitarist, for whatever reason, will usually try to work his way through a new song without the aid of written music. Anyone who has ever participated in a campfire sing-along will be familiar with the blunders of an inexperienced performer trying to get through an unfamiliar song. This does not, however, mean that written music for the guitar does not exist. It does, and it is called guitar tab.

If you look up the term “guitar tab” in Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, you immediately realize, due to the term’s absence from that book, that the expression is either relatively recent or from the vernacular. Only slightly more helpful is Webster’s fourth entry under “tab,” which denotes “[short for tabulator]: a key on a keyboard especially for arranging data in columns.” But for a true definition, it’s off to that most popular of Internet resources, Wikipedia. The Web site explains that guitar tab is simply the term for written guitar music, or tablature, which is the style of written music generally used for fretted stringed instruments, such as the guitar.

A tab staff for guitar consists of six horizontal lines, each of which represents a guitar string. The bottom line represents the lowest string, “E,” the second line “A,” etc. This arrangement, with the lowest string on the bottom and the highest on the top, follows the basic layout of Western Standard Notation. This should not, however, be taken to mean that guitar tab is a standardized musical writing practice. This is definitely not the case, the result being that songbooks and other guitar tab sources will usually include a legend defining the usage of the tablature.

Guitar tab is not without its flaws. Rhythmic notation, for example, is a major issue in written guitar music, the problem being that it is rarely there at all. So if the guitarist has never heard a song before, he or she has no way of knowing how long a note should be held. Another major problem is that only guitarists can read guitar tab, it does not translate for any other instrument, nor is it comprehensible to any other type of musician. Needless to say, this can make musical cooperation with other instruments difficult.

There are an inexhaustible number of sources for guitar tab in the world. In addition to the more traditional songbooks and guitar magazines, there is a seemingly endless number of Web sites offering guitar tab. It can be searched by music genre, by level of competency, by guitar type…the list goes on. Some of it is on a “pay per play” basis, but some of it is free. Of course, one might have to wonder about the accuracy of some of the materials, but even a somewhat erroneous written edition of Stairway to Heaven is better than nothing at all!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/guitar-tab-a-language-of-its-own-549809.html

About the Author

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio. You can find the best marketplace at these sites for guitars, guitar tabs, sheet music, guitar tabs, and home theater audio.