How To Read Guitar Sheet Music (For Beginners)

For a guitar player to grow as a musician truly, they have to learn how to interpret guitar sheet music. While making use of guitar tabs presents an incredible way that beginners can use to start and continue without actually knowing how music is read, they will not be useful for long. A complete lesson regarding the details of music reading goes way beyond this article’s scope. However, there are some basic things you must know regarding the guitar music sheet no matter you are a pro or a complete beginner.

Table of Contents

Steps on Learning How To Read Guitar Sheet Music & Things You Must Learn

Recognize the Guitar Sheet

Every guitar music sheet contains music related to guitar, but some sheets can also include other instruments such as piano. You need to distinguish them from the guitar and focus only on your instrument. You will just ignore anything other than guitar while playing, and concentrate on your part of the sheet.

Recognize the Musical Staff

When someone sees five lines, which are capped on end, one knows that he or she have written music. “Clef,” which is italicized “C” or “G” shape, is on far left. A set of numbers, like 4/4 and a set of flats or hashes denoting the key. All of these together are the elements of a musical staff.

The guitar has a different writing system of music. Tabs do look like the traditional musical staffs, but they have five lines instead of six. They do not have any clef, and they often call it “Tab” on the far-left side.

Guitar music is written in “treble clef.” What it means is that the symbol, which is on the far left is every time cursive G, and the bottom loop is around the 2nd lowest line of the staff.

Recognize the Different Types of Notes

The placement of the note, either on the space or the line, gives you a clue as to what note to play. The notes also tell you for how long a note should be played. If it is a whole note then it is played for the full measure, a half note is played for half a measure, and this goes down to thirty-second notes. We will have a look at different kind of notes that one will come across:

Squiggles and half rests are meant for quarter note rests.

Reading Tab

Guitar Tablature or in short known as Guitar TAB is a way of writing meant only for guitars. Even for beginners who do not have any knowledge of music can read this. In some cases, it also offers more information when we compare it to written notation.

Guitar Tab allows one to play the guitar without even knowing reading the music. In moderation, this is great. But one should remember that Guitar Tab is not ‘Sheet Music.’ But there are also limitations. It displays only melodic content, and rhythmic content cannot be displayed. Due to these reasons, guitar tab can’t be sight-read. The tablature is very useful for the beginners who just started to learn guitar.

Tablature consists of 6 horizontal lanes, which are representative of 6 strings of the guitar. The 6th string or the lowest line is thickest, and 1st line or top line is thinnest. To play a note, look at the numbers that are placed on the line. Only play a string if it has a number on it. In case no number is on it, that string is not part of the composition. If somewhere during the composition you find the number 0, then that mainly has to be played open, which means no fingers should be pressing the strings on the fret.

Bass Clef or Treble Clef

Know that if you are the six string guitar player, chances are high that you are inside the treble clef. Bass guitars are usually put on the bass clef, though. Then it all falls down to identify which clef is bass and which one is treble. That is another easy thing to find out. The rule is, the bass clef is always in a lower position than the treble clef. E-G-B-D-F is the order of a treble clef aligned from bottom to up. Take the saying “Every Good Boy Does Fine” to memorize it. This phrase is commonly used for education. Bass clef, on the other hand, goes like G-B-D-F-A from bottom to top. The phrase that you can use for it would be “Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always.”

Identify The Key of The Song

A particular song’s key often refers to the scale and notes on which the song is based. A reasonably reliable way of identifying the key entailed in a song is to establish the chords or notes that the song begins and stops with. If a particular song starts and stops on letter D then it most probably in the D key. However, the best way in which to establish the key in which a song is contained is to have a look at the signature of the key. A key signature is flats or sharps that come in a series and are indicated just at the beginning of every line of guitar sheet music for beginners. It is possible to determine a particular song using the flats or sharps contained in it. This particular system has its basis on one among key aspects of the theory of the theory of music which is known referred to as the circle of fifths.

Check the Time Signature

Finally, we must speak about the time signature. As you have gone through the bass-treble identification, the parts of the guitar, and the key of the song. Now the time has come to identify at what pace the song is going to be played, or simply its time signature. It is the fraction that is put at the beginning of the lines. For instance, music styles such as pop or rock use a time signature of 4/4. It means that the thing that will get the full beat is a quarter (fraction’s bottom part) and each measure has 4 beats (fraction’s top part). In ¾ however, all that a quarter can get is one beat, and a measure will have 3 notes. Swing music or waltzes are popular music genres which use this type of time signature. These are some of the things that you need to memorize about the beginner guitar sheets.

Should You Tune Your Guitar To Match The Guitar Sheets?

The ability of your guitar to be able to be tuned in many ways is very important in the relation between your guitar and the sheet music. A piano, for example, has a standard tuning that does not change over time. However, guitars can be tuned to sound very differently and in a great variety. You need to make sure that you have tuned your guitar to a suitable tone for the sheet music that you are planning to play. You can guess which type of tuning that you may apply by looking at the top of a sheet music piece that is written well. You will notice a term like “Drop D”. Tune the guitar according to any instruction that is given, or otherwise, you may not be able to get the desired results from your guitar playing performance of the guitar sheets.