With guitar lessons for beginners you have your opportunity to get to grips with sight reading music notation & to practice it until you get it!

Sight Reading is a skill that all guitarists would greatly benefit from. Remember to take your time & within a year of steady study & application you will be able to sight read music notation well.

Music Notation - Stave

Music Notation is plotted onto five lines each line is assigned to a note letter. The letter however could be a natural, sharp, flatted or double flat.

The five-line grid is called the stave or staff.

Notes above or below these five lines are placed onto leger lines.

You read notes from left to right, notes stacked on vertically are to be played together.

The higher the notes appears on the stave the higher the pitch.

Guitar music can span over three octaves; that means that there are over 3 different pitches that a B note can be played.

So it's your task to get to know where to play on the guitar fretboard, any note displayed on the stave.

Music Notation - Clef

A Clef appears in front of the stave, it indicates the pitch of each line in the stave.

Music Notation - Key Signature

Tells us what key we are playing in.

Music Notation - Time Signature

Tells us what timing should be used in a piece of music & this is also helped by looking at the bar lines to get to know the rhythm of the music. Western music notation has developed over thousands years of civilisation. The ancient Greeks, then the Romans, used letters of their alphabet to show different pitches.

Note Duration and Rests

In written music, the length of a note is shown by its shape.When there is no note sounding, a rest is written and the length of the rest is also shown by its shape.

Semibreve	Whole Note	4 Beats
Minim	        Half Note	2 Beats
Crotchet	Quarter Note	1 Beat
Quaver	        Eight Note	½ Beat
Semiquaver	Sixteenth Note	¼ Beat

Notes above the middle line of the staff have the stem pointing downwards from the left hand side of the note.

Notes below the middle line of the staff have the stem pointing upwards from the right hand side of the note.

Notes that fall on the middle line can have the stem pointing either up or down.

Tails of quavers are joined to group them into beats.

Bar lines and Time Signatures

Most music has a regular pulse which we know as a beat.Beats are grouped into patterns of two, three or four beats separated with bar lines.

A double bar line separates different sections of music within the piece.

A thin/thick double bar line indicates the end of the piece.

A Time Signature is placed at the beginning of each piece to show how many beats there are in each bar, and the type of note that equals one beat.

The Time Signature is shown as a fraction. The upper number indicates the number of beats in each bar.

The lower number represents the length of one beat as a fraction of a semibreve (whole tone).

For example :2/4 - denote 2 beats per bar, each beat a crotchet (a quarter note) long

3/4 - denote 3 beats per bar, each beat a crotchet (a quarter note) long

4/4 - denote 4 beats per bar, each beat a crotchet (a quarter note) long

2/2 - denote 2 beats per bar, each beat a minim (a half note) long

6/8 - denote 6 beats per bar, each beat a quaver (an eighth note) long The Time Signature in the shape of a C is known as Common Time. It is identical to 4/4 time.

Cut Time, is written as a C with a vertical stroke through it. It is identical to 2/2 time.

Accidentals

Every pitch in music can be raised or lowered half a tone (half a step).

The sign for raising a note half a tone is the sharp sign: #The sign for lowering a note half a tone is the flat sign: b

This is how the black keys of the keyboard are notated.

The black note between C and D can be written as a C# or as a Db.

C# and Db refer to the same note, they are enharmonic equivalents.

Likewise the note between D and E is a D# or Eb. The note between F and G is an F# or a Gb. And so on.

A sharp or flat (accidental) not only affect the note behind it but also every other note with the same pitch that follows in the same bar. To cancel a sharp or flat within a bar a natural sign is used.

Key Signatures

Consider the scale of G major. It consists of the notes:

G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G

A piece of music written in the key of G obviously will contain mostly F#s rather than F naturals. To avoid writing a sharp in front of every F in the music, an F# sign is written on the F line at the beginning of the piece.

This is the Key Signature for G major: #

It means that all Fs in the music must be played as an F#, unless the note is preceded by a natural sign. (The natural remains in force for the remainder of that bar.)

The D major scale contains an F# and a C#. The Key Signature for D major consists therefore of two sharps.

guitar music theory from guitar lessons for beginners

understanding rhythm from guitar lessons for beginners

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