Guitar lesson: Learn To Read Sheet Music

By Peter Edvinsson

A guitar is a fantastic instrument to play. It is easy to play and very difficult depending on what you play. Let's take a look at learning to play guitar sheet music!

I have found in my teaching experiences that many pupils find reading sheet music on guitar to be very difficult.

Admittedly there are a lot of factors that make reading guitar sheet music notation more of a challenge than on other instruments in certain aspects.

Guitar: Learn Guitar By Not Playing Guitar

By Peter Edvinsson

I suppose you think that you learn guitar by playing guitar. Well, do you learn to say the right things by talking all the time? Let's take a look at the art of not playing guitar...

How can you learn to play guitar by not playing? Is it really possible to develop as a guitarist without touching the instrument?

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Cavatina From Deer Hunter - Learn to Play Classical Guitar Sheet Music

The classical guitar solo Cavatina was composed by Stanley Myers and became the musical theme in the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter played by the famous guitarist John Williams. The solo version has became a goal for many guitarists to learn but the composition is quite difficult to play and even more difficult to play well. Here are some useful tips on how to practice this beautiful piece of classical guitar sheet music for motivated students.

Learn To Play Guitar Tab - Amazing Grace

Even if you never have played melodies on your guitar before the time has come now! You will learn to play guitar tab and a very popular melody even if you do not know sheet music notation. Pick up your guitar and let's start! Guitar tablature lesson

Guitar lesson: Learn to use correct left hand fingerings

Left hand fingerings are numbers in the sheet music indicating which finger you are suggested to use when playing a specific note. Usually when playing the first pieces on the guitar on the first frets it can be a good idea for you to play the notes on the first fret with your index finger, notes on the second fret with your middle finger, notes on the third fret with your ringfinger and notes on the fourth fret with your pinkie.

What then are the left hand fingering advantages? Can't you play every melody with your left hand index finger and forget about all this fingering stuff? Well, of course you can play melodies with your index finger but your progress will be very limited beyond just playing easy melodies. You'll have to move your left hand as you change frets and, most importantly, when reading sheet music, you'll have to look at the guitar fretboard instead of looking at the sheet music which means that it will be hard to sight read music.

Guitar lesson: Learn to play sheet music notes on your guitar

Usually when you are playing your first guitar sheet music melodies you will have to learn the notes in the first position on the guitar. To have a good grasp of these notes on the guitar I suggest that you learn them slowly and with concentration.

I usually begin by teaching the notes on the first string like E on open string, F on fret 1 and G on fret 3. On string two you'll find B on open string, C on fret 1 and D on fret 3. With these notes you can play the song Mary Had A Little Lamb.

Using the previous notes the melody can be played as follows:

E D C D E E E - D D D - E G G - E D C D E E E - E D D E D C

I hope you recognized the melody. This kind of music notation doesn't give any hints as to how the rhythm is to be played but presupposes that you already know the melody. Traditional classical guitar sheet music notation shows both the notes and the way they are supposed to be played.

My dad was the only guitar tutor in the town where I lived and he taught mostly classical guitar playing. His young students, I was one of them, learned those first guitar pieces very fast because he used a system similar to tablature showing the frets and strings to play, along with the sheet music. Tablature wasn't common back then when playing classical guitar sheet music.

I remember somebody remarking that his system prevented the children from learning to sight read sheet music. His reply was that if somebody really wants to learn the notes they will anyway. I agree with that and I have found that if a pupil is not motivated learning guitar sheet music they will not advance in this area whether they play with or without tablature.

Guitar lesson: How to learn the guitar fretboard

With the conventional tuning on your guitar you will have the note E on the first open string. I guess you are aware of the fact that you can find the same note on the second string too. If you don't know on what fret you will find it you can listen your way through the frets on the second string until you'll find the note that sounds the same as the first string.

You will probably find out by yourself that E on the second string is on the fifth fret.  E on the third string is on the ninth fret. Practice to play E on these different places and jump back and forth until you can find the frets without effort.

In a similar way you can invent small exercises on you guitar fretboard like playing all E's on all six strings until you can play them with ease or finding all C's and play them consecutively like a picking exercise or as an exercise for your right hand fingers.

Knowing the notes on the guitar fingerboard will be a great help for you, not only when playing guitar sheet music but also when you are playing by ear or improvising a guitar solo.

Guitar lesson: Why is it so hard for many guitarists to read sheet music?

Probably the answer is: They haven't done anything about it. An old used tyre can stand leaned against the wall of a car garage for thousands of years. Why? Nobody has thought about moving it. Could it be that easy also with playing guitar sheet music? Sometimes we consider ourselves poor sight readers or not able to read guitar sheet music at all and we think this is part of our personality. Every person who wants to learn to read guitar sheet music notation properly has already taken the first step towards changing that condition!

Climbing the "Reading Guitar Sheet Music" mountain starts with step one.  I have been teaching guitar playing for many years and I have found that learning to play guitar is like many other activities. People often want to start from another position than from where they are. I would like to suggest that we approach the sight reading assignment from two directions. First by learning to find our way around the guitar and learning the notes on the guitar fretboard. You can make up your own exercises learning a few notes at a time. It doesn't have to take a long time to learn notes on the guitar fretboard if you do it a few minutes a day!

The second step is to learn the note names in your guitar sheet music. Use a few minutes of your practice time to just read the sheet music, trying to say the note names. If you are a more accomplished player and already know the note names it is still a good habit to read the sheet music trying to understand the music and try hearing it as you read. This will help you to spot rhythmical challenging parts and solving the note reading difficulties before you start playing the music on your guitar.

Guitar lesson: Learn to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with guitar tabs

In order to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star you will need only the first three strings on your guitar. That is, the three strings with the highest pitch or the bottom string on your guitar when you play. The names of the strings are e, b and g.

Guitar tablature notation shows you the strings to play with lines and the numbers on the strings tells you which fret to press down. As we will use only three strings to play the song we will only need three lines representing the strings. Here is the first part of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star:

e ---------0-0---------------------

b -----3-3-----3----1-1-0-0--------

g -0-0----------------------2-2-0--

The top line represents the string E which is the bottom string when you play. The first note 0 means that you play the G string without pressing down a free. It is called to play an open string. The third note is on the third fret on the B-string. Time for the rest of the song:

e --------------------------------

b -3-3-1-1-0-0-----3-3-1-1-0-0----

g -------------2---------------2--

e ---------0-0---------------------

b -----3-3-----3----1-1-0-0--------

g -0-0----------------------2-2-0--

You can use your left hand index finger to play the notes on the first fret, your middle finger for the second fret and your ring fingers for the third fret notes!

How to find free guitar sheet music

Sheet music for guitarists is available for free on many sites on the Internet. Let us take a look at what you can expect to find and how to search for music sheets online!

When you search for items on the Internet maybe using Google you will get quite different results depending on what search terms you use. Free guitar sheet music can be found on different types of sites. Here is a few examples:

If you are using the search term "classical guitar" you will come up with a lot of sites with information about guitarists, lessons, events and more. You will also find free classical music scores on some of these sites.

It is not always very obvious where to search for free music scores. You will for example find them on sites offering guitar tips. The most common search terms for finding these sites are "guitar lessons" and "learn to play guitar". Usually the most common free sheet music on these sites are very easy music scores for beginners.

If you want to find music scores for the beginner with easy music notes you can search for "easy guitar sheet music", "beginner guitar sheet music" and similar terms. In connection with these scores you will often find tips on how to practice and improve your musical skills.

Guitar Tab - How to Play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on Guitar

I have made a new guitar lesson article: "Have you ever wished you could play a melody on your guitar? Now you will learn how to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star without sheet music! Let me take you to the first note of the song with the help of guitar tab notation!" Guitar Tab - How to Play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on Guitar