How To Read Guitar Music

A cursory surf around the net will throw up plenty of sites dedicated to guitar music. Tablature has been around as long as guitars have, making it relatively easy even for a novice musician to play like a pro.

Learning to read guitar music, however, does take time and practice, especially knowing when notes or chords are to be sharp or flat. Guitar music is usually written on 6-line staff paper, which is a graphic representation of the guitar strings, with sharps indicated by the pound sign, and flats shown by a lower case b.

Frets are also indicated by lines on the paper as well as finger placement. A “0” would indicate to play the string open, while numbers would correspond to the finger with which to hold the string down.

Tablature differs from traditional sheet music in that it provides finger placement for the chords. Traditional guitar music supplies only the name of the chord. Guitar music is also written to provide the lead vocal, the bass pattern and the words to the song, giving aspiring musicians the ability to learn a song quickly and easily.

Some musicians' sites even offer tab sheets for their music for free while others offer to sell it online. A majority of book stores and many music stores also offer guitar music as single-song sheet music or in compilation books. Prices vary depending on the age of the songs and the popularity of the artists.

Looking at guitar music you will notice it generally contains two concurrent staffs which show the music’s melody line. The top staff is always the lead line and is written in what’s called a treble clef.

It looks rather like a large letter s with a line through it vertically. There will also be “#” and “b” on the left of the first line, indicating what key it is played in. Each sharp or flat indicator specifies a note which indicates the overall key.

The bottom staff, represented by a colon surrounded by kind of a backward “C,” is the bass clef and is written as bass guitar music. The two lines when played together give you the chords for the song, the bass beat and tune for the song and the melody for the lyrics.