Learn to Read Guitar Notes and Get Strumming Today

If you want to learn how to play the guitar the very first step that you take needs to be to learn how to read guitar music notes. Fortunately there are a variety of ways that you can use when reading guitar music notes. The first way is by using guitar charts. These charts are a great way to tell you what chords you need to play and where in the song to play them, but they do not tell you how to play them within the music.

The second technique is reading guitar tabs. Although these guitar tabs will not tell you what speed you should play your chords at or the melody that you might be trying to follow, they are great for showing you finger and fret positions for your chord. I have described these methods in other articles, so I won't go any further into them here. The third and final way to learn guitar notes, and the one that we will be concentrating on, is by using a music staff.

Most people are aware of what a music staff looks like, but did you know that it not only tells you what to play and when, but also how to play your chords? Because it can be a liitle more difficult to read guitar music notes off a staff many people prefer to use the guitar charts or tabs as described earlier. Using these ways of reading guitar music notes in combination is a great idea until you become familiar with the chords.

When you are reading guitar notes from a staff, you have to know how a staff is arranged.

A music staff has five lines, each representing a note. All staffs start with a funny symbol. This tells you what type of staff it is and defines what notes the lines represent. Most guitarists only need to concentrate on the staff that begins with a symbol that looks like an elaborate 'G'. This is called a treble clef. Have a look, the treble clef is by far the most common staff used so I bet that you recognise it.

Each of the lines is a note, so from the bottom up we have an E, the next one up is a G, B is next, then D and at the top we have F. Because they do not go in alphabetical order there is an easy way of learning these notes. Just think of the phrase Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, do you see the first letter of each word? E, G, B, D, F. The spaces, from bottom to top, spell FACE. Just to confuse things further you also see lines that go above the staff and below it. You can follow the A, B, C pattern to find out what the note is. One note that you will see often is the one that appears on the first line under the treble clef staff. This is called 'middle C' and is a really popular note. On a standard tuned, acoustic (folk or classical) or electric guitar, this note is the 3rd fret on the A string.

You will probably see a couple of numbers, one on top of the other beside the clef or staff sign, this is called a time signature. This tells you how long to play each note. You will often see a 4 on the bottom of this time signature, this means that that every 4th note will have the 'beat'. With this type of timing every quarter note will have the beat - we will go into the different types of note shortly. The other common variation on this is a timing of 2, meaning that the notes would be halves instead of quarters.

The top number of your time signature is how many notes are in your measure. A measure is just a way to divide the notes so that each note has equal value, and gives a common reference to the piece. As you would imagine, 4 is also the most common, meaning that there are 4 beats to each measure. If you have a four as both you upper and lower numbers then the beat is very easy to decipher as each note is worth a quarter and you will get the famous 1-2-3-4 rhythm. 3/4 timing is another popular signature. your notes are still divided into quarters, but only 3 out of four are actually played

Also next to the time signature when reading guitar notes you could see either a # or a 'b' These indicate the key that the piece is to be played in. When you see a note on the line that has the #, you will play in the note a half step up when you see a note on the line or space with a italic b, you play the note a half step down. Sometimes, you will see the b or the # next to the note. You still play them according to the symbol, but just for that note while it appears in that measure. The natural sign is one that looks like a box with a line on the left side going upwards and a line on the right going downwards. This is the natural sign, and you would play any note it appears by without a sharp or flat.

We will cover common minor chords in another article.

Another symbol that you will see on a staff when reading guitar notes is the repeat symbol. Two thick lines descend across all the lines in the staff and there are two thick dots beside them. If the dots are to the left of the bars then you need to play this part again. To repeat the section of music find a similar sign reversed - so that the dots are on the right, this tells you where to repeat from. If there is no 'start repeat' sign then you repeat the section from the beginning of the piece Some cases you might see the repeat mark with a number and line above the staff. This lets you know which part to play with each consecutive repeat.

If you see the words DS al Coda you play to the coda sign and if you see the words DS al Fine you play to the end of the piece.

The list here is by no means an exhaustive list of everything you might find reading guitar notes. But you will find most of the things you will see in the vast majority pieces of music.