Guitar Sheet Music or Tab

Being able to read and understand guitar sheet music can prove an invaluable asset in today's world. We all know that becoming a pro guitarist means entering a very competitive field. You need every advantage you can muster, and then some. Before we go any further let's first answer one basic question: isn't being able to read guitar tablature good enough? If you are looking to make a name for yourself or earn a living as a guitar player then the answer would be "no". This by no means negates the importance of tablature, but in a world that's often oversaturated with guitar players, knowing how to read guitar sheet music can make the difference between success and failure. Let's break things down so we can understand them better.

Guitar Tab

While tablature or tab seems to be a rather new invention that came along with the electric guitar, the truth is that it has been around for quite awhile. Even before the invention of the instrument we know today as "guitar", we see examples of tablature being used usually with fretted instruments such as the lute. Examples of tabs in the Western world today date back to the 1300's. In Asia tablature was used even before that.

In today's modern world guitar tab is made up of of six lines that represent the six guitar strings, four in the case of the bass guitar on which numbers are placed which correspond to the frets. Most tabs, tablature, tab formats today do not show you the rhythm. The information presented gives you a clear picture of what strings and frets should be played. The tablature format does not give you information in regards to the notes (pitches) that are being played.

Guitar Sheet Music

The sheet music for guitar on the other hand provides you with rhythmic as well as note (pitch) information. This is important because it's like getting a detailed blueprint of a car. It allows you to see "inside" and understand exactly how everything works. This is fantastic because you can use this information to fix your hotrod if it breaks down, or build yourself a new one. In much the same way, knowing how to read sheet music allows you to understand and break things down, analyze your favorite artists or composers and use those techniques when building your own material, songs.

The ability to "see" inside the music gives you a huge advantage by allowing you to manipulate and direct the musical flow of your ideas in such a way as to achieve what you desire musically. To put it plainly, the ability to understand sheet music will allow you to create and juggle musical concepts with skills far beyond what other musicians posses.

I don't think that all can be reduced to a question of guitar tablature versus notation. Traditional guitar sheet music does have its problems when it comes to marking strings and frets to be used. Traditional notation for the guitar does allow for the string to be identified. This, when used along with the indicated note gives you the fret number. However this tends to fill up the visual space making the sheet music harder to read and follow. A combination of sheet music with tablature attached seems to be the best answer. Notation will also allow for the indication of the finger that should be used for certain note.

A combination of notation and tablature will give the best results, we will focus more on notation in this article because of the simple fact that most guitarists know how to read tab, so it's the learning of music notation that will set you apart from the rest of the herd.

Learning to read guitar sheet music... the lowdown

If you get the benefit of being able to read sheet music but are intimidated by the look and feel of sheet music notation, then take a deep breath and relax because things seem a lot worse than they actually are. I know the feeling of looking at notation and feeling like you are looking at ancient hieroglyphs. In truth notation is not nearly as complicated as it seems at first glance. It just takes a little patience and perseverance to learn but the results are definitely worth it.

You might feeling that you will never be able to crack the code of notation. Guess I'll just have to prove to you that it's not nearly as difficult as you may think by showing you some notation basics right here and now.

Here come the musical notes

Guitar sheet music is usually written on staff comprised of five lines. You can write notes either on the line or in between the lines. One easy way to remember the notes that are on the lines of the staff is by remembering the following acronym: Every Good Boy Does Fine (E G B D F). This corresponds to the notes on the lines of the staff as read from the bottom up. In order to remember the notes that are in this space is between the lines, just remember FACE (F A C E as read from the bottom up). Now, if you have to tell me what note resides on the fourth space of the staff, as read from the bottom up, you can easily recall FACE and figure out that E is the note we were searching for. There you have it, less than a minute and you know all the notes that are on the staff. If you just put a blank staff in front of you and quiz yourself over what note lies on a particular line or space, you'll soon be able to recall them without thinking of the acronyms listed.

Final note

So as you can see learning how to read music is not that difficult, and while it may take a little bit of time to understand it all, the benefits are huge. Stick with it and you will soon see yourself standing above the other guitarists out there.

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Being able to read and understand guitar sheet music can prove an invaluable asset in today's world. We all know that becoming a pro guitarist means entering a very competitive field. You need every advantage you can muster, and then some. Before we go any further let's first answer one basic question: isn't being able to read guitar tablature good enough? If you are looking to make a name for yourself or earn a living as a guitar player then the answer would be "no". This by no means negates ...

With a vast experience, Marcus Robinson teaches guitar and performs in the NY area. Visit him and get a free sheet music and tab classical piece and free tips at his guitar sheet music store classical guitar tabs.

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