Before you get into your second lesson just reflect for a moment on lesson 1.? Are you sure you understand everything?? Is everything clear to you?? If not, go back and revise.? Do not rush on regardless of whether you understand each lesson.? Pause and satisfy yourself that you do understand.? That way you will make the most progress and derive the most enjoyment out of your course.
Read each page carefully and revise any point which at first seems a little strange
Give as much time as you can to practice.? It should be a great pleasure to you.
Please don't be impatient.? The better you understand these first lessons the quicker you will proceed in the future.
As you are new to playing guitar you probably found that your finger tips became sore after only a few minutes.? This is normal (no pain no gain).
Rest assured that your fingers will harden up very quickly but in the meantime give it a break and come back to it after giving your fingers a rest.? There is no need to rush through everything in one go.
Don't get confused.? This is not a stave of music.? The lines represent your guitar strings and the numbers represent the fret position for each string.? Each number represents a note in the sequence it is to be played.?? So for this piece you start with the 4th string, 2nd fret.? Then 4th string open, indicated by the 0.? Then 5th string, 3rd fret, then back to 4th string, 2nd fret, and so on.? In this example the fret positions are much the same as the finger numbers previously described but this is not always the case so don't confuse the fret position indicated in a tab with finger numbering.
Now this is very handy as a guide but there is an enormous drawback to tablature and that is that there is no indication of rhythm or timing which you are going to learn shortly.? For tablature to be of any use you really need to know the tune beforehand so that you can add your own rhythm and timing.? Some people have made an attempt to indicate the timing in tablature by adding little tails to the numbers but if it is going to get this complicated why not learn to read music.? Written music has been around a long time and is proven to be the best way to learn to play a piece.? Another problem is that there is no instant way to recognize the key that the piece is written in.? Also your guitar tab is of no use to a keyboard player, or any other instrument other than guitar.? With proper printed music you can play any piece no matter what instrument you play so if you have a friend learning keyboards you can simply look over his shoulder and play from his music.? Not so with tabs.? However tabs do have a place particularly when you are just starting and need a bit of guidance.? You can create your own tabs by simply ruling out 6 lines and fill in the fret positions.? Why not do that now and tab the rest of "Swanee River" from the information you already have.? It doesn't matter whether you like the piece or not.? Soon you will be able to choose what you want to play without restriction.? But for the purpose of learning just be patient and see if you can make the most out of this simple tune.
Because not everybody has a graphics program suitable for creating tabs or sheet music many people simply use the characters provided on their computer keyboard like this:
e |-----------------------------------------------------------
b |--------------------------1--------1----------------------
g |-------------------------------2-------0------------------
d |---2---0------2---0-----------------------2------0-------
a |-----------3----------3-----------------------3-----------
E|-----------------------------------------------------------
?
?
This is very handy if you want to share tabs with other people and there are a lot of free guitar tabs available on the internet.? Simply key in the search phrase "guitar tabs" into your favorite search engine and see what you can find.?
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Looking for authentic guitar tab? Browse the selection at Sheet Music Plus, for the latest hits and your favorite classics. It's a cheap and fast way to find authentic guitar tab. Go now?In addition to your fret board chart provided in lesson 1 there is also a note location chart with sound files which you can use with your "Finale" viewer.? Location.MUS is the file to load. With this you can relate the above tab to sheet music and understand what notes you are playing.
A good many books and 'teach yourself' courses don't go into much detail on the subject of the bass stave,? which is a pity because proper understanding of it will allow you to play accompaniment at a glance from? any sheet music, not just the easy play stuff.? Your ability to be able to read notes at a glance will give you many advantages.
The same alphabetic letters are used on the bass stave as on the treble stave and they follow the same order.? They fall on different lines and spaces though, but this will not be a problem to you once you become accustomed to them.?
The bass stave, just like the treble stave, consists of 5 lines and four spaces.? You know if you are looking at a bass stave because it has a bass clef at the beginning of the stave, as indicated below.
You will remember from your knowledge of the treble stave that the bottom line is? known? as? the? first? line? (lowest) and? the? top line is known as the fifth line (highest)? The bottom space is the first and? lowest and the top space is the fourth and highest.? Just like the treble stave, the lower sounding notes are in the lower part of the stave.
?The Bass Stave
The range of your guitar starts with the 6th string played open which you already know is E, situated in the 3rd space up on the bass stave, so this is really the domain of the bass player. ? As you will mainly concern yourself with the treble stave your bass note E is normally indicated on ledger lines below the treble stave but just in case it is written on the bass stave you now know where to find it.?
If you compare this diagram with the treble stave in lesson 1 you will see that all the letters have simply been moved down.? The bass note G is now on the first line instead of the second line and A is now in the first space instead of the second space.
Whenever you have a stave with the bass clef written at the beginning then the notes are always named like this:
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 1st?? line? is? G. (at the bottom)
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 2nd? line? is? B.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 3rd?? line? is? D.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 4th?? line? is? F
The names of the 5 lines making up the stave can be remembered by thinking of the phrase:-? Good Boys Deserve Favor Always.
???????????????????????????????????????????????? 1st? ?space? is A.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 2nd? space? is C.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 3rd?? space? is E.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? 4th?? space? is G.
The names of the 4 spaces making up the stave can be remembered by thinking of the phrase:-? All Cats Eat Grass.
After a little thought you will begin to see that reading music on the base stave is quite simple.? Remember never confuse the bass stave with the treble stave.?
The bass stave is indicated by the bass clef which is sometimes called the F clef because it starts on the F line, which is the 4th line in the stave.? (Remember you count lines and spaces from the bottom.)
Did you get CAGE, DEAF, FEED AND EDGE.? If so you did very well.
?Notes above? the stave.
Now that you have mastered these notes there are a couple of extra ones for you to learn.?? B. is situated just above the fifth line and C. is a little higher still and has one of those ledger lines running through it.
This note C is middle C which you have previously learned to recognize on the treble stave.??
Additional information about middle C.
Middle C is the note with the same pitch as middle C on Piano.? On any keyboard instrument, middle C can be regarded as the point where the treble and the bass meet.? Middle C is the bottom of your treble range and the top of your bass range.? (5th string, 3rd fret).
When you find notes written on ledger lines even higher than middle C on the bass stave,? they are in fact treble notes.? In the same way, when you find notes written on ledger lines even lower than middle C on the Treble stave, they are in fact bass notes.
Fingering
As was mentioned previously, you can in fact use any finger which feels comfortable for any particular note.? The idea is to make hand movement easier, so you use whichever finger allows you to move smoothly from one note to another without getting your fingers tied up.? You have learned that as notes appear higher on the stave, then you prepare to move your hand to be in the correct position for the next note.? If the notes move down the stave, then you move your hand,? looking ahead to see what is coming up next.? Provided the next note is not made more awkward than need be, you are allowed to use any finger with any note.? Common sense is your best guide in deciding what fingers to use in any particular note sequence.? With experience you will find your fingers moving smoothly to position.? What seems strange now will soon become second nature.? And it will happen very quickly if you keep practicing.
You will come across a variety of printed music in your search for suitable pieces to play and don't be put off if at first some of it seems a bit strange.? As has been said before, music is surprisingly easy to understand once you know the basics.
Music can be written with 1 stave, (the treble,) 2 stave, (treble and bass.) or 3 stave which we will cover in a later lesson.? Below is an example of the 2 stave version which you will see much of.
As you can see? the top stave has the treble clef at the beginning and the bottom stave has the bass clef at the beginning.
These two staves must be played together, simultaneously, and not one after the other.? You can see how they are joined together by a vertical line indicating that they should be read together.? To emphasize this point a bracket is placed before the stave in proper music, like this { to further indicate that the two staves are joined.? This bracket is called a brace.?
It's a good idea to break a piece of music up into smaller segments for practice purposes.? In our example you could concentrate on the first 9 notes only until you get it right, then try the next 4, then put the two segments together.? When you feel you have got that right you can move on to the next segment until eventually you can play the whole thing.? This is much better than trying the whole thing all at once.
Now the really good thing to know is that most guitarists simply read the treble stave and they can pick up all the information they need from that plus the chord symbol.? However you should know what the bass stave is all about.? You cannot play lower than your open 6th string which is E anyway.? But in future an understanding of the bass notes might help you in playing "fill ins" one octave up.?
When you find notes on the bass stave below the range of your guitar you can move the whole thing up on octave but this might place some notes too high for the mood of the piece you are playing.? An alternative is to move up only those notes which are below your range.? For example:? If you had the notes C, E and G on the bass stave, the C only is below your range so instead of moving all 3 up an octave, which sound a bit high, you could try just moving the C up an octave and play the notes in the order E, G and C.? Remember we are dealing here with base patterns, not melody.? Obviously you could not change a melody around like this.
So far we have been working on getting the quality of our sound right but to really make music appealing we need to know something about RHYTHM and TIMING.? To achieve rhythm and timing, notes are given different values, some are long, others are short and some are in between.? This value is the beat or count attributed to the note.? Notes must always be counted correctly so before you learn how to recognize the various note values it is necessary for you to understand the simple rule of counting.? Now just because it is simple does not mean you can gloss over it.? Make sure you understand it.
Counting must always be even and smooth.
Here are 6 sets of counts.? The counts are 1. 2. 3.
Take a pencil and tap on the edge of a table at the same time counting out loud very slowly.? Make one tap for each count.? Do not increase the speed of the tap.? Remember, counting must be even and smooth.
1.2.3. / 1.2.3. / 1.2.3. / 1.2.3. / 1.2.3. / 1.2.3.
Avoid any tendency to become uneven.? DO NOT, for instance, tap like this.
1.???? 2.3. / 1.???? 2.3. / 1.???? 2.3.
Which leaves a longer gap between count 1 and count 2.
Avoid the other extreme of this.
1.2.???? 3. / 1.2.???? 3. / 1.2.???? 3.
Which leaves a longer gap between count 2 and count 3.
Do not leave a gap between each set of counts.? There is no pause between the 3rd count of one set and the 1st count of the next set.? Do not allow yourself to speed up as you proceed from one set to the next. You should finish at the same pace you started at.
Counting must be even and smooth.
You must learn to make even counts or you may find later that your playing is not all it could be.? Sometimes there are 4 counts to a set instead of 3 and we will deal with this later.
Click on Three Four Time.MUS for 'Finale' example of three four timing.
From printed music we observe some important facts all at once.? We can recognize the note name by it's position on the stave and can therefore find it on the fret board.? And we can tell by the shape of the note what it's value is and therefore how many beats, or counts we give it before taking our finger of and passing to the next note.
?The four main types of notes.
The semibreve is often referred to as a whole note. The minim a half note.? The crotchet a quarter note and the quaver an eight note.
The stem and tails on notes can point up or down without it changing it's value.? In fact the only reason stems point up or down is to make the written music look neater.? Usually notes on the lower part of the stave point up and those on the upper part of the stave point down.? Stems going up are always drawn on the right hand side of the note and stems going down are always drawn on the left hand side of the note.
Let's just compare the 4 note values which we have just learnt
A SEMIBREVE equals four beats or counts and a MINIM equals two beats or counts.? It follows that two minims are needed to equal the value of one semibreve.
The CROTCHET equals one beat or count, so it follows that two crotchets are needed to equal the value of one minim.
The QUAVER equals half of one beat or count.? Therefore two quavers are needed to equal the value of one crotchet.
There is no mystery to note values.? Just remember:
??????????????????????????????????????????????? SEMIBREVE?? =?? 4 COUNTS.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? MINIM???????????? =?? 2 COUNTS.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? CROTCHET??? =?? 1 COUNT.
??????????????????????????????????????????????? QUAVER???????? =?? HALF A COUNT.
In all printed music you will find vertical lines dividing the stave as illustrated below.
Each of the separate segments thus created by the bar lines are call BARS.
The notes written between any two bar lines make up what is known as a Bar of Music.? A bar is simply a small section of the whole piece the same as a sentence is a small section of a paragraph.? It doesn't matter if some bar lines are further apart than others, that is only a matter of convenience in writing some pieces of music.? However,? each bar is equal in time value.?
The purpose of a bar is to make notes easy to follow by dividing them into small sections of equal value, or in other words, of the same number of counts.? Bars are also referred to as measures
Here is an example to make this clear.
Each bar has 3 counts made up like this.
Bar 1.? 2 counts for a minim plus 1 count for a crotchet?? = 3
Bar 2.? 3 crotchets at 1 count each????????????????????????????????? =? 3
Bar 3.? 2 quavers at half a count each plus 2 crotchets?? =? 3
?Bar 4.? same as bar 1.???????????????????????????????????????????????????? =? 3
Now try playing the 4 bars to the correct count.? You can find the notes from your fret board chart if need be but you should by now know what the notes are.
So far we have dealt with only 3 beats to the bar and much of your favorite music will have more than 3 beats.? Some may have only 2 beats.? You will learn shortly how to tell at a glance how many beats to the bar a particular piece of music has and how to count the beats.
Earlier we learned about the value of the various notes.? Now we will learn how the value can be changed by adding a dot immediately after it.? The duration of any note can be increased by half of it's original value by adding a dot.
In some music you will find notes with a dot under or over a note.? That means something different which will be covered later.? Please do not confuse the two.? We are dealing here with dots that come immediately after a note, as in our example.
You are? familiar with the minim.????
What is it's value??? It's worth 2 beats isn't it?
When a dot comes after it.
It is called a dotted minim and is worth 3 beats.? There are 2 beats for the minim and 1 beat for the dot making a total of 3 beats.? PLEASE NOTE:? A dot is worth half of the original value of the note. NOT half a beat.? Let's repeat that.? A dot is worth half of the original value of the note.? NOT half a beat
?Can you remember what this note is called?:
If you said CROTCHET you are right.? If you didn't know it might be wise to spend more time on lesson 2.? How much is a crotchet worth?? It's worth 1 beat.
When a dot comes after it.
It becomes a dotted crotchet and is worth one and a half beats.?? there is one beat for the crotchet and half of one beat for the dot.? Remember.? For a dot after a note you always add HALF of the ORIGINAL note value.
?Dotted quaver and semiquaver notes will be covered in a later lesson.
The word 'Octave' comes from the Latin word 'Octavus' meaning 'eighth'.
In music an octave is the distance from one note to the next note of the same alphabetical name.? From one C to the next C, or from one G to the next G.? These notes are at an 8 note interval up on your fret board.? When counting, we ignore the sharp or flat notes.? So count only whole notes and include the first and last notes in your count.
Here is what it looks like in music.
ONE OCTAVE
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This example illustrates the two C notes but it applies just the same to any of the notes you have learned.
Playing an Octave
In written music, when two or more notes are to be played together, they are written directly in line with each other, as illustrated.
When you find notes joined together like this, they must be played together as an octave and not one after the other but you don't have to play octaves.? You will find it gets easier as your ability increases but the roof wont fall in if you leave octaves out altogether.??I am not even going to explain how to play these two notes together at this point - that comes later - but for now just be aware of what it is.
You have made great progress in just 2 lessons but don't try and learn the whole lot all at once.? Study your lessons in small segments and master each part before you proceed.? It is the goal of this course to have you playing a variety of pieces in the shortest possible time so that you can gain maximum pleasure from playing while still learning the other points which will increase your musical knowledge.
To achieve this it is necessary for you to be sure you understand the basics.? So take it slowly.? Tackle your practice with enthusiasm, remembering that you are achieving something really worth while.? Always keep your goal of becoming an accomplished musician in front of you and have the courage to keep at it to overcome any obstacles.
Be CERTAIN you know the names of the notes in the lines and spaces of the BASS STAVE and work out their fret board position.? Anything below E must be played one octave higher so therefore the G on the bottom line of the stave become the 3rd fret position on the 6th string and the A is your 5th string played open.
Practice your slow and even counting.
Make sure you understand NOTE VALUES