How To Read Music For Guitar

Here, we get a quick overview of the system we use to arrange sound into music. By the end of the video, you will have discovered the 3 main components of the Western Music System: Melody, Harmony and Rhythm.

Most folks will probably already know about the Chromatic Scale (If that's you, feel free to skip ahead to the next section); but I wanted to give this as a primer for those who have never learnt it before, since it's going to play a massive part in what comes next.

NB: Remember to download the PDF entitled The Guitar Fretboard to see how the Chromatic Scale plays out on your guitar. We'll be checking this out in more depth later, but this serves as a great primer.

In this practical, we look at how to draw the natural, sharp and flat signs, as well as revising the notes of the Chromatic Scale with enharmonic equivalents. Grab your notebook and follow along.

This is where we jump in, as far as reading and writing music notation goes. In this lesson, we look at the lines and spaces of the stave, and how the treble clef dictates the notes we read on it. Although, we're focused on only the theory of the notes on the stave here, we'll soon see how to apply all these notes to your guitar.

Follow along and write out the notes on the treble clef stave. If you don't yet have a music manuscript book, feel free to print out the free manuscript paper provided.

If you would like to get a music manuscript book, here's the one I was using in the exercises: https://bit.ly/2nLm4E5.

In this video, we extend our reach in terms of the notes we can access. Here we check out how to play notes which go lower and higher than the treble clef stave, by learning how to use ledger lines.

Follow along with the tutorial to solidify your understanding of the bass clef and ledger lines.

Now that you know where how to locate all the notes on the stave, the next step is to map them all out on your guitar's fretboard. Thankfully, this is a lot easier than it might sound!

Here, we map out the Chromatic Scale on the stave as we reinforce where each note would fall on your guitar's fretboard.

We've already learnt how the notes of the Chromatic Scale can be found on the stave, so now would be a great time to introduce harmonies (i.e. chords).

In this video, we'll be taking a look at a melody / harmony combination that you'll be able to take from the stave and apply to your guitar; and we'll also map out a few common chords on the stave.

Here, we'll practice writing a chord / melody combination and then I'll give you a challenge to write 3 other chords on the stave, without any help. When you've finished the video and the challenge, download the resource PDF and check your answers.

Here, we look at the concept of keys, and more specifically how keys are indicated on the stave.

Follow along in your manuscript book as we check out some examples of keys and key signatures. Remember to download the PDF that shows you the notes in all of the 12 Major keys, with their key signatures.

Here, we take the C Major Scale and apply it to the first three frets of your guitar. This is a necessary step, and it will start to become very clear how we can take music notation from the stave and turn it into music on your guitar. If you like, you can download the C Major Scale pattern PDF under the resources tab.

Also note that, while we're mostly focused on the Key of C in this course, I have also added a PDF in this section entitled, The Scales of the 5 Easy Keys. It will show you the scale shapes (and give you the TAB and music notation for the keys of G, D, A, and E as well, since these are the easiest, and most popular guitar keys.

In order to have solid rhythm, a clear understanding of the pulse of music is crucial. In this video, we'll look at what the pulse is, and how it can be grouped to create meter, which will be important to know about moving forward, when we look at rhythm on the stave.

If you've been playing for awhile, this may be second nature to you already, but there's no harm in brushing up to make absolutely sure you're in sync with the pulse.

I've included 5 audio examples of music in different genres to help outline the pulse really clearly. The goal here is to start listening to an example and simply try to tap out the pulse as soon as you can after the music starts.

Remember, we're not concerned with meter, or groupings and divisions of the beat just yet (i.e. rhythm); we're just going for identifying the underlying pulse.

The music will drop out towards the middle of the track where only the bare pulse will be audible so that you can check whether you're feeling the pulse correctly, then the music will kick back in. At the end of the track, the audio will once again fade away, leaving only the pulse.

This is to demonstrate that all music, regardless of genre, has a pulse, and that for you as a musician it's really important to be able to locate it. Why not put yourself to the test? I think you'll find it to be a pretty fun exercise.

In this section we look at how rhythm is depicted on the stave with different note values. We're going to start really simply, with the easiest of the note values, the whole note.

Here, we write out the whole note examples given in the previous video.

Here we look at our next note value that is also greater than 1 beat in duration—the half note.

Follow along as we practice writing out the half note examples from the previous video.

The quarter note is our first note value that is equal to one beat. In this video, we learn how to use quarter notes, and look at a time signature that can be used as a replacement for common time. The quarter note is also used to depict the tempo at the beginning of a piece of music, as you'll see.

As always, we put into practice what we've learnt in theory, writing out the examples given in the previous video.

The eighth note is our first note value that is smaller than one beat—it's where we get to break the beat up a bit, with notes of a shorter duration.

Follow along at home in your own manuscript book, as we apply the examples of eighth notes we saw in the previous video (apologies about my handwriting—it's not the neatest :-).

Now we come to the smallest note value that we'll be looking at in this course, the sixteenth note. As you can imagine, the smaller the sub-division of the beat, the trickier things become.

Here, we practice writing out examples of our smallest sub-division of the beat: the sixteenth note.

Now that we've dealt with each note value individually, it would be a good idea to start combining them. In this section, I've included five examples of note value combinations, ranging from dead easy, to pretty tricky. Because we're focusing on rhythm here, I've kept the fretting hand easy throughout.

In this video, we'll be looking at whole notes exclusively.

Here, we combine whole notes and half notes.

In this lesson, we try out a combination of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes.

Here, we look at an example that has whole notes, half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes.

In this video, we combine all of our note values: whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes.

In this video, we check out how to get note values that are some in between the note values we've already discussed. Sound mysterious? It's actually pretty easy.

Grab your music manuscript book and join me as I write out some dotted note exmples.

Tied notes are another way to get the same values that we discussed in the dotted notes video before. It's good to know both, dotted notes and tied notes, since you will encounter both in the 'real world'.

In this lesson, we practice tied notes and see how they can be an alternative way to write dotted note rhythms.

Our first song is Auld Lang Syne—a song that is traditionally sung on New Year's eve in many countries. You probably know it. I chose it because it has a meter of 4/4, and it's pretty straightforward to play.

We'll be tackling the melody only, but the chords are written above the stave as well, if you'd like to strum along. Other things we'll be looking at in the video are:

• The lead in bar (AKA pickup measure).

• Dotted half note / quarter note phrasing.

• Dotted quarter note / eighth note phrasing.

• How to approach learning a new song.

Once you've watched the video, download the PDF and give it a go on your guitar.

A meter of 3/4 is the next most commonly-used time signature, after 4/4. It has that lilting, waltz feel and it's super important to know about.

Here, we practice writing out the C Major Scale in 3/4 time.

Happy Birthday is a really easy song that everybody knows; and it has a meter of 3/4 so it's perfect for an introductory study on 3/4 time. We also check out the following:

• 3/4 Time with a lead in bar.

• Dotted eighth note / sixteenth note phrasing.

Have a look at the walk through on how to play it, and then download the pdf and learn it on your fretboard.