It is critical to any serious musician that they are able to read music.  Playing guitar makes reading music a little more difficult than (for example) a piano because there are multiple places to play each note on different strings.  High E can be played in 3 places for example.  On a piano, just the one.  Being able to identify the notes as they appear on manuscript is just the start of the story for the guitarist, who must then figure out the most efficient way to play the notes written.  You could always try and find a tab for what you are looking for, but the tab has no rhythm information and it is unlikely that you will be able to find many good works written in tab.  The people that play this kind of music can normally read normal music.

There are endless resources on the web which will tell you what each note looks like on paper so I’m not going to go into any detail about that, but instead offer some advice for associating the names with the physical action of playing them on a guitar.  The following is a description of a game I used to play with my guitar teacher but with a bit of effort can be done by an individual.  It isn’t as much fun to do it by yourself but it definitely helps you to get used to the positions of all the notes.

  • A beat is set up, either using a metronome or a tapping foot, it’s up to you
  • A string is decided, for example 6th string
  • The first person calls a note in time with the rhythm, eg 6th string, A
  • The second person has until the next beat to play the note
  • The second person now calls a note keeping with the rhythm
  • Process repeats until someone gets the wrong note and a new string is chosen
  • If you lose 3 times you lose the game

This game is quite easy once you know where all the notes are.  If you are finding it too easy, increase the tempo until you start making mistakes.  If you want to make it even more challenging, try to picture each note the way it would look on a sheet of music at the same time as playing it or don’t call the note, use flash-cards of the note instead.  This is difficult and definitely not doable if you are practicing alone.

There are other ways to get more used to the positions of notes on the guitar such as playing scales and arpeggios.  Whist these are good technique builders and certainly shouldn’t be excluded from a good practice schedule, I find this method a lot of fun, especially if you have someone to practice with.  It is good to try and push each other to be better but a teacher should never lose to a student at this game unless the student is extra special.  I never beat my teacher!

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