|
How To Read Guitar Music
By Joshua Jenkins
How to read guitar music
Do you find it hard to read manuscript? Manuscript is the universal method of writing music. Guitar music is simpler to read. Guitarists have developed there own separate way of writing music and it is a much more basic and easy way to write guitar music. This method is called tablature or TAB for short. It is the written representation of notes through the depiction of the frets and strings of the guitar through numbers and lines. It sounds complicated but is actually very basic and straightforward. The hardest thing is getting used to it. To learn how to read guitar music you have to get familiar with it.
The guitar is an instrument which has ‘frets' along the neck. These frets are where you place your fingers and they are what changes the ‘pitch' or ‘tone'. The frets are represented in tab music by numbers. Read some tab and you will quickly discover that there is a lot numbers on the page.
You will also notice that the numbers sit on lines. The lines of tablature represent the strings of the guitar. The number of lines on the page depends on the amount of strings that the guitar has, so a standard six-string guitar tab will show 6 lines when you read the tab. A 4 or 5 string bass guitar will have 4 or 5 tab lines respectively.
Tab also uses various icons to dictate how you should play certain parts. An arrow pointing upward means bend the note up. A small h or ho will mean hammer on or off respectively. A small sl. means slide, likewise a small po means pull off the note. All of these symbols require a fairly basic knowledge of guitar in the first place. Even if you come across tab with symbols you don't understand you will be able to understand the numbers and lines, the rest will come with practice. How you go about working through a piece of guitar music is up to you, I personally enjoy learning it bar by bar, to do this you need to learn about how to read the rhythm. The rhythm of tab is represented in many different ways. Sometimes guitar music can be read with the rhythm on a separate set of bars, the bars will have standard manuscript notes in them, this is how you judge the rhythm. Another way of showing rhythm on tab is by making the numbers have bars and heads. The bars and heads represent timing and length of notes. If you are having trouble reading the rhythm of guitar music then you should listen to the original recording of what you are playing. So if your learning a Beatles song through tab, listen to the song first to get the rhythm.
Learning how to read guitar music can be a very easy thing to do. It requires practice and patience. If you are having trouble try increasing how often you practice or change how you practice. If you are learning how to play guitar as well as reading tab then you should concentrate at one at a time, otherwise you will get confused. Keep practising and you will soon learn how to read guitar music. The most important thing is that you are playing the guitar, whether this means in your room, the kitchen, the toilet… whatever. Just keep jamming and the rest will come naturally.
See Also:
Guitar learning techniques
Copyright © 2005-2006 HowToSite.Net and Accelerated Software Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Any proprietary content contained in this document may not be copied in part or full without express written permission from the publisher.
Contact Us | Terms of Use
|
