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Lesson 4: Reading Standard Music Notation
Level: Beginner

Reading standard music notation is a lot tougher than tab.

Notice the top layer of this example from Lesson 3a, the symbols on the top staff are all different. The easiest way to explain how this works is through these diagrams:

These are called "clefs." As a guitar player, you'll only have to worry about the first one for now. The "treble" or G-clef. The clef tells you which notes the lines on the staff represent. This isn't important unless you play other instruments.

These symbols tell you how long to play the note for. The first note on the left, has a one under it, meaning you hold it for one bar. The third note is a quarter note.

Everything in music is counted in by beats. The number of beats is told by a time signature. The most common tie signature is 4/4, meaning four quarter notes per bar. Musicians will count in using that, 1, 2, 3, 4.. and play.

The line the note is on represents which note you play. These notes are on the A space. Each line and each space represents a different note. We'll go over which is which in the next couple lessons.

Since notes aren't playing 100% of the time, for every insturment, you need rests. These are the symbols composers use to tell the musician to stop playing for a certain number of beats. The numbers like in the notes diagram indicate the how long to hold the rest for, from 1 whole bar of rest to 1/64th of a bar of rest. You won't need to worry about anything above the eighth note for a while.

Slurs and Ties are also important to standard notation. Instead of playing a note then taking off your finger to play the next note, sometimes the composer will prefer you play the notes joined together to create a different effect. When playing guitar to slur a note we must slide our finger to the next note rather than press and release the string. Ties simply mean if there is a note on one bar, the same as a not on the next bar, and they have a tie over them, you should not to break the sound.

A dotted note means to play that note for 1.5 times more beats than normal. So a half note, meant to be held for two beats, with a dot would be held for three. A dotted quarter note worth one beat, would be played for 1.5 beats.

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