Reading Sheet Music

[apple pie]

Not talking about tabs, but classical notes, how do you read them.

[Jom]

Whoa, hang on. Let me move this out of D&P.

[apple pie]

thank you for moving as well as answering, I would rep if we were still in the 04 era

[Jom]

The lines of the staff are as follows: E G B D F.
The spaces on the staff are as follows: FACE.

So, "Every good boy deserves fudge" and "FACE" are mnemonics that can help you remember.

You don't need to worry about the bottom clef, as it's for bass. But, in case you want practice, the spaces are G B D F A ('Great Big Dogs Fight Aliens') and ACEG ('All Cows Eat Grass').

From there, it's just matching up with the frets on a guitar.

Remember that sharps are designated with a #, and their order is FCGDAEB.

Flats are designed with a flat sign (b), and their order is the opposite of sharps: BEADGCF.

Remember that flats lower a pitch a half-step, sharps raise a pitch a half-step.

The treble clef is what you use for guitar. The bass clef is for bass guitar (obviously).

EDIT: Hang on, let me draw you a picture.

[Jom]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/frozeninshadows/basics.jpg

Okay, so that's a basic staff line with the notes. You just have to match them up with the frets.

Remember that certain strings and fretting are the same note, too. For instance, playing

E|5

Is the same as:

A|0

Because E-F-F#-G-A is the fifth fret on E, but is the open A string. Of course, you need to have your guitar tuned.

More pictures to come.

[Jom]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/frozeninshadows/1stillthesame.jpg

Okay, so these are the opening chords and rhythm to Bob Seger's "Still the Same." The top bar is the tab, while the bottom is the sheet music, or standard notation.

Sometimes, sheet music will give you the fingerings and chord names, but this isn't always a guarantee. That comes down to memorization.

Do you know how to read notes (quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc.)? If not, I can show you how to do that, too.

[Jom]

Okay, so here's part of the chorus to 8stop7's "Question Everything," which is one of the first songs I ever learned playing guitar, which isn't my primary instrument to begin with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/frozeninshadows/2questioneverything.jpg

(I'm going to edit this post with an explanation)

EDIT: Okay, rock and roll.

This song is in 4/4 time. This means that a quarter note (the denominator here) gets one beat, and that there are four beats in a measure.

So, for example, four quarter notes would equal one measure.

Note values look like this in 4/4 (also known as common time):

Whole (four beats)
Half note (two beats)
Quarter note (one beat)
Eighth note (1/2 beat, half the value of a quarter note)
Sixteenth note (1/4 beat, half the value of an eighth note)

Alright, so let's look at the passage now (explanation to come).

[Jom]

Alright so the notes are read like this in 4/4 time:

(whole)
|1-----2-----3-----4-----|

(half)
|1-----2-----3-----4-----|

(quarter}

|1-----2-----3-----4-----|

Eighth notes can be syncopated like this:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

So, there are eight eighth notes in 4/4 time.

Sixteenth notes are like this:

1 e & + 2 e & + 3 e & a 4 e & +.

I'll post a quick video (it goes kind of fast) of me showing you the different values.

[Jom]

Okay, so here's a 9.6MB video of me showing the different durations with my hands, because my roommates suck and won't let me play any of my instruments in our townhouse.

We'll use this knowledge to read the sheet music for "Question Everything."

http://s64.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1X30YPAGR745H38GCNDBG376XJ

[Jom]

Alright, so let's break down how to syncopate the measures.

The first measure features a dotted quarter note and an eighth note (a dotted note extends the length of the note by a half, so a dotted quarter note = 1.5 beats, a dotted whole note = six beats, etc), followed by a quarter, an eighth, then an eighth and two sixteenths (because two sixteenths = one eighth note).

And this repeats itself.

Let me upload you a MIDI version of this, so you can hear it for yourself.

[Jom]

Okay, so I don't know how to splice a MIDI file.

http://s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=35F100NYT342A2VM7ODQG6ZQ29

Measure 12 (from the Photobucket picture) starts at :31 of the MIDI file.

Note how it's syncopated with the music. 1 - 2 3 - 4 - & a

EDIT: that looks really bad, but this is hard doing it on a computer :upset:

[apple pie]

so basically you just play the chord of wherever the note is

[Jom]

Well, it depends on the chord structure. Say you wanted to play an A. You could play it like this:

0
2
2
2
0
0

Or like this:

5
5
6
7
7
5

Or if it was an A5 (power chord):

x
x
x
7
7
5

That's where reading the sheet music comes in: by being able to read the notes and finding the easiest way to change fingerings when playing a song that calls for chord changing.

[Marcus. A]

That's an Eightuple post Jom. That deserves a ban.

[Jom]

Every time I tried to post, I got logged out :upset:

[Teh Secksi]

That's an Eightuple post Jom. That deserves a ban.
:lol:

But that sucks not being able to play your instrument, you should stomp your roomies.

This has helped me majorly, I was on the verge of hiring a teacher to teach me this, but Ive got a good grasp on it now, plus I dont gots ta spend money.

Thanks dude.

[Jom]

The thing that sucks is that I love teaching this stuff, but it's really hard for me if the person I'm teaching isn't there. In terms of music, I'm more of an auditory (duh) and visual teacher than I am just typing things on the Internet and sucking at MSPaint.

But if you guys have any questions on these things, I'd be more than happy to try to clarify and not suck at MSPaint.

[Teh Secksi]

You should compile it into one post, and slap it into the lessons forum as well.

Just a suggestion.

[Jom]

If I was going to write a lesson, then I would need to make it much more formal and much more neater than what I have there.

Thanks, though :)

[austin99]

You really need to learn to read music if your going to play classical, I taught myself to read music, for playing piano, its not really that hard, and it really comes in handy later on.

Most guitar theory books have a section on reading music, you might check those out, I have Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist, by Guy Capuzzo, and it has a section on reading music, and there are other theory books that have it

I also know all the notes on the guitar, you can set down and write out the notes on a peice of paper, its not that hard and you will be a lot better in the long run.

There are sites that have the information, however just having the information on the internet, means you never take the time to learn it, working through the execises in a theory book means that you learn the information.