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"Learn How To Read Guitar Notes For Mastering Your Fretboard and Understanding Music Theory"

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Learning how to read guitar notes is easy. You just have to memorize them. Learning real music notes unlocks the ability to learn music theory and understand the science of music.

The most common way to learn to read guitar notes is learning one string at a time. Most popular guitar methods teach music notes this way. But the truth is, if you know all the open guitar string notes names, learning the rest of the fretboard becomes twice as easy.

If you already know how to read tablature, you can compare each real music note as we learn them to the tablature note to find your place more easily.

Why learn real music notes?

Learning the real music notes has many benefits. There are also many philosophical reasons why you should learn to read music. Let's look at them now:

You get to master your fretboard: Learning the note names on your fretboard helps you better understand your guitar. If you can randomly point to any fret on any string and name the note, you are in good shape. If not, learning your guitar fretboard is something you must do.

But don't worry, it's all a part of learning to read music notes. So keep reading and you'll get it...

It's the language of music, so you must learn it: Yes, it's true. Music notation is how music is translated between musicians. It is the language with which we understand music. Knowing how to read music notes is a fundamental part of being a musician. Going by the book, it's a necessity.

It makes learning music theory possible: If you ever want to learn music theory, you must know how to read guitar notes on a staff, not just tablature. Tablature is easy, but it lack many fundamental things that are a natural part of learning theory. In other words, it would be nearly impossible to teach music theory without an understanding of real music notes.

How to read guitar notes

OK so let's get to it. Remember how I was saying that if you know the names of the open strings on your guitar, that learning you guitar notes is twice as easy? That's true, but it's only half of the equation...

You also have to know where the notes are on the page itself; on the music staff.

The musical alphabet

The musical alphabet is easy: it goes from A to G then starts over again. Picture yourself plinking away on a piano from left to right. If you did that, the notes would go: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and on and on and on...

Every single note that exists can be named using the musical alphabet of only 7 letters (later we will learn that there are more notes available "in between" the ones above).

The staff

If you are familiar with reading tablature, you will know that it uses six lines, one line for each string on the guitar...

Well, learning how to read guitar notes using real music will require a whole different mindset. The musical "staff" has only five lines, and they have nothing to do with guitar strings.

Here's why: the real music staff is used for every instrument, not just guitar. It's just five lines that notes can be written on. The notes then have to be translated onto the guitar by you. Reading music notes is a two-step process.

Let's look at the staff now. Here it is by itself:

And here it is with tablature underneath:

The combined version of the staff with tablature is the best, because you can double check your notes using the familiar tablature, which is more visual.

Here are some actual notes. Observe how the real music notes and appear either in the spaces between lines, or on the lines themselves.

Believe it or not, both the tablature and the music notation represent exactly the same thing. Play through the tabs and look at the notes. That's what it feels like to play real music notes.

Notes on the first string

The real meat of this lesson is memorizing the note names and where they appear on the fretboard.

Like we said earlier, learning how to read guitar notes is a two-step process. You have learn the note name and where it appears on the staff, then memorize where the note is played on the guitar.

Let's learn the first string notes:

See where the E is? It appears in the top space of the music staff. Now look at the tabs to see where it's played on your guitar. It's the first string open, right? Do the same thing for every note. Memorize the note names, where they are on the staff (whether it's on a line or in a space), and where they are played.

Notes on the second string

Notes on the third string

Notes on the fourth string

Notes on the fifth string

You'll notice that starting with this string, the notes on the staff are extending below the bottom line. These little line segments are called ledger lines and are used for the lower notes on the guitar.

Notes on the sixth string

Guitar note chart

Now that we have learned all the basic notes on the real music staff, let's look at a complete guitar note chart with every note on it:

Get real tab books from Amazon.com.

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