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Guitar Sheet Music or Tab

By: Marcus G Robinson

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Being able to read guitar sheet music can be an invaluable asset in today's world. We all know that becoming a pro guitarist means entering an extremely competitive field. You need every advantage you can get, 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 seeking to make a name for yourself or earn a living as a guitarist then the answer would be "no". This by no means negates the importance of tab, but in a world that is 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 hundreds of years. Even before the invention of the instrument we know today as "guitar", we see examples of tab being used especially with fretted instruments such as the lute. Examples of tab in the Western world today date back to the 1300's. In Asia tabs was used even before that.

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

Sheet Music

The sheet music for guitar on the other hand supplies you with rhythmic as well as note (pitch) info. This is very important becauseit is like getting a detailed blueprint of a hotrod car. It allows you to see "inside" and understand exactly how the parts work. This is fantastic because you can use this information to fix your hotrod if it breaks down, or build yourself a new one. 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 giving you the power 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 tab versus notation. Traditional guitar sheet music does have its shortcomings 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 in conjunction 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.

While a combination of notation and tablature will give the best results, we will focus more on sheet music in this article because of the simple fact that most guitarists know how to read tabs, 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 Good the Bad and the Ugly

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 music 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 be thinking that you will never be able to understand notation. Guess I'll just have to prove to you that it's not nearly as difficult as you may think by teaching 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. An easy way to remember the notes that are on the lines of the staff is by recalling 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. And there you have it, less than a minute and you know all the notes that are on the staff. If you 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 automatically without using the acronyms listed above.

Final note

As you can see learning how to read music is not that hard, and while it may take a little bit of time to understand it all, the benefits are tremendous. Stick with it and you will soon see yourself standing head and shoulders above the crowd of guitarists out there.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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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