reading music

I have a question about reading music. I played the trumpet for 6 years and somewhat remember how to read music. I remember EGBDF (every good boy does fine) for notes on the lines and FACE for notes in between, and how whole, half, quarter, eighth notes, etc.. look. There was a four year gap in between me setting down the trumpet and picking up the guitar. Since I've been with the guitar; however, I've only been learning songs by reading them in tab notation. Recently I've downloaded a sweet program called Powertab and have been scouring the Power tab archive for songs. I noticed along with the tab notation, it also has the bar with the actual music notes in it. My question is whether or not I should be able to play the songs by just looking at the notes alone. Do good guitarists do this? Or does tab notation alone suffice. It seems to me that you get a helluva lot more information from looking at the song in note formation. I'd appreciate any input. Thanks.

Some good guitarists do read music, some do not. It is a skill all of its own, learning it will only expand your musical diversity not inhibit it.

I can read both Standard Notation & Tabs, I can tell you as a rock guitarist, reading Tabs is enough unless you wanna play classical music or jazz.

Reading music is one of the most difficult things to learn , and get good at, as such it is one of the best things you can do. Not only will it improve your rhythm but WILL make you a better player all around. It is not easy and only very few players will ever be able to read music as well as they read a book or magazine. But in the Tablature age it has become a "lost" art , so to speak.

If you are thinking about learning to read music for guitar , DO IT! It may be disheartening and frustrating at first , but as with all worthwile endeavors, The payoff is invaluable!

Good Luck

I learned to read music at G.I.T. (Although I had had some experiance with music reading before then). I don't really use it much on guitar but I do read music when I play my cheap 'ol keyboard from time to time. And by no means can I speed read it.

I would say that at least it would be of great value to be able to read the rhtyhms, if not the notes themselves. Combine that with the tab fingerings and you'd be able to learn a bunch of songs you've never heard of, where as with the old ASCII tab you couldn't.

Sara

Leedog, as you're playing another instrument besides the guitar, reading music could be useful if you ever want to take a melody from the Trumpet and play it on a guitar. I play piano and cello too and i've found i've enriched my guitar playing by taking melodies I like out of classical or blues pieces and working them out on the guitar, and as I can read music for guitar at a competant enough level, doing this is much easier.

Maybe this only goes for me...but i often interview people that are skilled at guitar and ask them all sorts of questions.

One of them is "if you could go back 10 years or so and change one thing with the guitar and your skill what would you do?"

And they all say they wish they would have known how to read music.

So like someone else said...if you have interest..then go for it...but know it does take a lot of work...i am currently in the beginning stage as well...and i practice reading about an hour a day.

This could be a cliche or simply a fragment of my imagination,but in the hillsides of rural Spain and Mehico,you'll find some very old and wizened flamenco guitarists who've probably never been to school but who are absolute virtuosos at what they do.
And there are sheet music classical guitarists who are again absolute virtuosos.
Lesson(assuming the above is true:)):
You can be absolutely teriffic whereas you can't tell the differencec between a crotchet and an illustration of a sperm.
And you could also become absolutely teriffic coz of being able to tell the differencee between a crotchet and an illustration of a sperm.

So where's a good place to start with regaurds to learning to read music for the guitar? Also what's a good way to recognize notes that are way above or below the bar?

Originally posted by Leedogg
So where's a good place to start with regaurds to learning to read music for the guitar? Also what's a good way to recognize notes that are way above or below the bar?

Find a guitar teacher who teaches music reading... I had 2 books series that I learned classic guitar from when I started playing.. Their names are "Carulli" & "Carcassi" ... they're both written in standard notation only.

A teacher would be a good thing.Or a proper music school(what's the difference?).
There's this book somebody here told me about.It's called "The Complete Guitarist" and is available on amazon,where they(Amazon) say it's the primary text used in the Berkelee School of Music's classical guitar program.I got a feeling it's a good book.Look it up.

I've got a book called solo guitar by Frederick Noad which seems very good to me, a sequel is also available. Lots of guitar tuitorials are very limited in the number of pieces they teach you; say just a riff or so from here or there and then pad it out with a load of tab. This book teaches you how to read music and learn the fretboard. I wish I'd had the perseverance with it; I got it several years ago and sacrificed the cultivation of any real musicianship to become a shred freak. Now I'm still crap at reading music and it's frustrating having to start at such a basic level.
I would never recommend learning by tab alone. People I do know who can read music properly recon tab is an arse to read and this skill is not transferable to any other instrument.

Ya know, people say that you can get by just reading tab.
WRONG!
What happens if I wanna learn a song I've never heard before, can I do it with tab? Nope, but I could with sheet music.
And what happens if I wanna write down some music so that someone else can play it without hearing the song. Gotta use sheet music.
Frettycrouger was right, I've heard the same thing from many people also, and really, if you start learnig guitar by playing with sheet music(like me), you'll notice that its not that hard, as opposed to someone who's been playing with tabs for years and tries to learn to read music.
My advise to all beginner guitarists out there is to learn to read music as you learn to play. It will serve you much better than tab will.

Originally posted by Josh Redstone
Ya know, people say that you can get by just reading tab.
WRONG!
What happens if I wanna learn a song I've never heard before, can I do it with tab? Nope, but I could with sheet music.
And what happens if I wanna write down some music so that someone else can play it without hearing the song. Gotta use sheet music.
Frettycrouger was right, I've heard the same thing from many people also, and really, if you start learnig guitar by playing with sheet music(like me), you'll notice that its not that hard, as opposed to someone who's been playing with tabs for years and tries to learn to read music.
My advise to all beginner guitarists out there is to learn to read music as you learn to play. It will serve you much better than tab will.

Well... not all tabs dont have timing, I mean tabs like 'Guitar Pro'... a lot of tab books are written the same way, and if not, they have it written in 2 lines together (one for tab and the other for standard notation), so that you can figure out the timing from the notation.

And if you wanna write some music for yourself (or someone else) in a notebook or something, you can always include timing (I always write my tabs this way so I don't forget how to play my stuff!).

I believe that learning standard notation for a guitarist isn't that essential, but it will surely enhance your musical knowledge.

But if your going to apply that timeing to tab, why not just go learn standard notation, it will help you out more anyway, and its where the type of timeing used in those guitar magazine tabs come from.
Tell me, why didn't all you tab guys out there learn to read?
Do you think its hard, because it really isn't. If you start off reading music, instead of switching to it later, like I said before, its much easyer.

Tabs are generaly much easier for people who don't depend on a teacher while learning to play guitar... I didn't say notation is not important, but for me as a guitarist, I don't use it so much these days unless I wanna remember some classic stuff that I used to play back in days.

Who says you've got to be dependent on a teacher to learn standard notation? You dont. If you can sit down and learn to read lines and numbers by asking people on a wabsite like this, you can probably follow the notes in a music book to help you out.
No matter what system you learn, your still being taught at least a little bit.

My grand mother has a 50 tr old nephew(if you can't put two and two together,that would be my mom's cousin,which extends to my incle)who is deaf.He turned deaf when he was a lttle boy.Now,they didn't have money or anythign,so he basically never went to any schools and all that.He and his mom can communicate and understand each other perfectly well.The reast of us can never get a thing he "says".And he's always telling these stories,gesticulating and laughing and stuff,and we just act like we know wussup so as not to look rude,and he's so into telling stories.I guess it runs in the family,coz if (especially when we were kids)you do something and grandma is reporting you to your mom,she's gonna embelish that story so much it's like you killed somebody,and all you did was take two shillings(you need 78 of them to make a $)to buy candy.Anyway,we can't understand this guy.And he doesn't use standard sign language.
Now,if he knew and used standard sign language,we'd learn it as well,and we'd be ablr to talk to him,and him to us.But now he uses some version that only him and his mom understand.Because I guess they're the ones who develpoed it bewteen themselves as he grew up.
To me,sheet music is a bit like sign language,musically.Knowing the official Kenyan sign language is an asset.But only as long you're dealing with fellow Kenyans.There's (I hear)British and American versions.Then there's the international sign language.Which anyone can learn,and use to speak to whoever from wherever.
Sheet music is like this standard.Tab is an asset,fine,but like someoned mentioned,you can't use that knowlegde on another instrument.Not so with sheet music.
So if you can,learn it.

Some people (not all tab readers) dont think that reading music is really that inportant when playing a guitar, thats may be it. To me, saying that is a bit silly. If reading music is important on a sax or a piano, then why not on guitar?
Being a musician and not being able to wright music is like being a poet without being ably to read and write whatever language it is you speak. Maybe you can come up with some cool profound stuff, but try getting it written down for another person, or getting it out into the puplic. It just doesn't work very well. Being able to read music is more important than a lot of people think.