ok i think the reason it froze last time was that there was soo much shit in here so please noone post till im done..ill tell you when
oh and dont get on my ass for having alot of posts right after the other


i will delet this post once im done...

__________________

sheet music, is written on a staff alot like our tabs but it has 5 lines and 4 spaces. each of the lines and spaces are specific spots for certain notes. befor each staff you will see a clef the two more common ones are treble clef and bass clef
you can write on either one seperatly or you can combine them into a grand staff

both the of clefs have the notes in different spots
lets start with treble, the notes are as follows
---F--
E
---D--
C
---B--
A
---G--
F
---E--

some good yet "corny" ways to remember these are
for the notes on the lines
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, or Evacuate Garage Before Dad Farts

and the space notes as the word "F.A.C.E."

the bass clef has the notes like this

----A---
G
----F--
E
----D--
C
----B--
A
---G---

to remember these think...
for the notes on the spaces Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always

and for the spaces think of "ace-g" or All Cows Eat Grass


the notes always go higher in pitch and higher up the musical alphabet as they are written higher on the staff, and vice versa for lower

__________________

-------------THE NOTES-----
when you writing on sheet music you use note values to represent how long to hold that note for

whole note lasts for 4 beats, and is counted as "1234"

half note lasts two beats and is counted as "12" "34"

quarter note lasts one beat and is counted "1" "2" "3" "4"

eighth note lasts for 1/2 of a beat and is counted "1+" "2+" "3+" "4+"

sixteenth note lasts for 1/4 of a note and is counted "1e+a" "2e+a" "3e+a" "4e+a"

those are are main ones, you could have a 32 note, but you would normall just speed the tempo up and use a smaller note.

you can also dot a note , which adds half of the original value to it. so if you had a dotted half you had half of the original beat value to it(2 beats) so you now have a note worth 3 beats

__________________

------THE RESTS-----
there is a rest equal to every note, rest represent a time in the peice where there is silence.

whole rest note the location of it, it must always be placed here

half rest looks very similar to the whole but again note the location, its different and its also above the line instead of underneath it. it too must always be written here

quarter rest

eighth rest

sixteenth rest

like their note counterparts there too can also be dotted to add half of the value to it

__________________

when writing in sheet music, there are three things you need befor even writing any music down

1-the clef its in (already coverd, but i didnt say that treble is the higher notes and bass is the lower)
2-key sig
3-time sig

lets start with #3

-------------------TIME SIGS-------
a time signiture is made up of two numbers.
the top one represents how many beats will be in a measur ( you can have 2, 3,4,8,12)
while the bottom number will tell you what kind of note gets a full beat
if 4 is the bottom note then a quarter note gets a full beat (so everything is normall to what i posted before)
but say 2 is the bottom number then that meens that a half note is now one note instead of two. which means a whole note is now 2 instead of 4 ect..

the most common one is 4, 4 time also known as common time and can be written with a C instead of the numbers.

these are not fractions so dont write them as such!!

other key sigs would be
3,4
2,4
7,8

__________________

-----------key sigs---
i wont go too much into detail with this (thats another thread another time )
but they would basically look like this that one happens to be the key of Cb

in a nutshell, a key sig will tell you what note(s) need to be sharpend ot flatted within a piece. these notes will be sharpened or flatted everytime you see them unless there is a natual sign right before it
(looks like this but without the ".."
l
l___
l___l
.....l
.....l

__________________

---------OTHER SIGNES/SYMBOLS----

you may have seen ledger lines before, that just meens that the note was either too high (like the pic) or too low to be placed on the staff.

if you are familiar with piano then you know about middle C (if not then middle C is the middle key and is what a lot of things are based off of)
when you have a grand staff middle C would be located by going one ledger line below treble clef which is also one ledger line above bass clef. by knowing this its much easer to figure them out, say you have a note that is two ledger lines above bass cleff. well one line above is middle c and anything above that would be getting into treble clef. so two ledger lines above bass would be the first line in treble, which is what note folks? (thats right E)

bar linesare the lines that seperate one measure from the next one. when in only one staff there are written like the top one, but when in a grand staff like the bottom one.

every peice of music must end with two bar lines.

repeat sign this meens to repeat something. if there is only one then you go back to the beggining of the music, but if there is one facing the opposite directiong then you go to that sign and repeat from there


i think that should pretty much cover it

any questions im happy to answer

ok im done go ahead and post now...oh and i know i said i would delete that first post, but because its the first post and i made the thread im not sure if it would delete the thread and i fucking dont want that to happen

hey john i think this should be a sticky what do you say?

__________________

I agree - reading music is something that everybody should be within touching distance of.

Could you do a more specific thread on time signatures and how to identify them?

__________________

im not sure i follow you, how hard can it be to identify them, you just look at the numbers. or perhaps you ment the key signatures?

__________________

I meant when you just listen to a song, for example Dillinger Escape Plan or Meshuggah. How does one work out and classify the time signatures being used?

__________________

i guess after a while you just kinda know, like being able to pick out notes in a song when tabbing them out. but meshuggas uses really weird time sigs alot which would make it even harder

EDIT: it also depends on the tempo somewhat too.
cause you could be in 4,4 time with a tempo of say 60bpm
or you could be in cut time(2,2) with a tempo of 30bpm which would end up being the same

__________________

Wow, shit, haha a theory Zone, I'm in heaven!!!

You can identify most time signatures by the strong beat that you hear. In the time sig of 4/4, beats 1, 2, 3, 4 are the strong beats. In most 3/4, beat 1 is the strong beat.

__________________

this is awsome good job guitar_demon

__________________

yeah well done, thanks GD

agreed.

__________________

Ah, now I have a bit of a hang of notes, thanks.

__________________

Great Work!

__________________

Great documentation. The only thing I gained from school music class was playing in front of a crowd and reading a score

Thats how I learned. When I was in 6th grade my music teacher tought me how to read music, she would have the class look at some sheet music and clap out the beats(while saying 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and). It helped alot. Then eventually we played full songs................. on the xylophone

Claping the beats out is a good way to learn them. Just like guitar demon said, a whole note gets four beats so you would clap it out like this

--1------and------2------and------3------and------4------and
-clap---------------------------------------------------------

And half note would be claped like this

--1------and------2------and------3------and------4------and
-clap-----------------------------clap------------------------

And a quarter note....

--1------and------2------and------3------and------4------and
-clap------------clap-------------clap-------------clap--------

A eighth note.....

--1------and------2------and------3------and------4------and
-clap----clap-----clap----clap----clap-----clap----clap----clap

You get the picture. Use the same method for the other notes and rests(just don't actually clap on the rest)
I figured this would help out if you are having a hard time with the beats/notes

__________________

Theres a shitload of books on reading. It is definitely worth it to pick one up.
-amerok

I understand all of this stuff, but I wish I could just pick up some sheet music and play it ... I always have to think to remember which note is which, and how long to hold them.... usually by the time I figure out the next note and how long to play it, I've already screwed up. It's one thousand times easier for me to listen to something and then reproduce it.
I wish I could just read and play properly (although probably at a slower tempo for starters) without having to stop and think about it. Especially when I have to think to remember what scale I'm in so I know which ones are sharp or flat.

__________________

yea thats the problem for most people that arnt taught "properly" in the begging. my advice would be to get a begginer book and start 'sight-reading' with that. they always have slow songs with very few notes in them. like anything though its all about sitting down and practice practice practice.

__________________

Isn't the guitar written a half octave lower than the other instruments?

__________________

?

__________________

I recommend the berklees modern method for guitar series, individually with the cds they are about erm. .. 70 dollars buying from www.berkleemusic.com I buy from them occasionally but yeah, The Joe Stump DVD isn't bad either but yeah, he doesn't explain much he just jams and assumes you watch his hands really closely him and his screwed up grill. . . . I sound so ghetto

why would it be like that?

If you downtune enough it could be. . . I mean look at meshuggah. . . that's a prime example of what I'm referring to. In most cases like in E tuning it shouldn't be any lower than any other instrument because it's still on treble clef. Below the preceding C any tuning you use will fall into bass clef a little which would make it quite different. Hell I don't even know what I'm rambling about anymore. But I think you are right andrewc.

Most horns are higher than the guitar. Thats why they have to transpose all the instruments sheet music, to make them sound the same. I know little about big band playing so im not sure how the exact tunings go.

not to be rude but why is it good or necessary to kno how to read music.
I kno what notes i'm hitting when im playing but tabbing just seems more effective

__________________

Because you can't sight read a tab without having an intimate knowledge of the song already. Sheet music also contains the tempo, note durations, how those notes combine rhythmically with others and the style in which to play a passage (softly, loudly, etc).

__________________

if you want to play jazz or classical reading is a must. you have to be able to sightread charts. other than guitar and.. bass i suppose, all instruments require sheet music, so you need to be able to read the same format as everyone else in your group. plus what john said

when sight reading i suggest that the first time u take a look at sheet music, u try and clap out the rythms, cuz thats the main thing that peeps have a hard time with when sight reading dynamics and rythms.depending on the grade level of the song, sometimes u can play the notes how u think they should go, cuz its supposed to attract peeps not to scare them away. u'll probly be 60% accurate doing this.

__________________

#=sharp
b=flat
dude key sigs are easy to read

__________________

i can sight read guitar pro tabs

__________________

No, it's an octave higher. (sounds an octave lower)

The note "middle C" on piano, violin, flute, oboe (standard "concert" instruments) is written on the ledger line under the treble clef stave.

In guitar music, middle C is written in the 3rd space up.
So if a pianist was to look at some music written for guitar, they would end up playing it all an octave higher than it should sound.
Likewise, if you were to play music written for piano or violin, you'd be playing it an octave lower than it should sound.

This is because if guitar was written in concert treble clef, most of the notes would be way off the bottom of the stave. Treble clef was designed for high register instruments (and piano right hand), and guitar is mid-range. There is no dedicated mid-range clef (other than the rare tenor and alto clefs), so we adapt the treble clef by lowering the stave by an octave, so it covers (roughly) the middle range of guitar, instead of the top.

Same for bass (double bass or bass guitar). It's written in bass clef (F clef), an octave higher than concert.

(Hey, if you think this is complicated, you dont wanna know about transposing instruments like saxes and trumpets... )

i ask my self that a lot but it is something cool to know the only problem is in most of those books the songs are realy not interesting it is like why would i want to play ode to joy when i could play some death metal so yeah i know what you mean


and great job on the thread i actually learned something

__________________

As far as guitar goes it seems kinda eh, but if you play piano, for god sakes it makes everythign so easy. Thats where it was created from and everything branched off and used that notation.

But if you've definately sat behind a piano you'll know the answer to that question within seconds.

__________________

I learned to read regular music before I ever saw a tab. Having that extra line and a faulty memory aren't good for tab reading. My kid can pick thengs up with tabs so simply, but it's a struggle for me. But reading and playing sometimes is still crazy for me either way.

__________________

How can tabs be difficult? haha. I can sight read just about any song i've never played. I guess i've spent quite a bit of time looking at tabs (int he past) and since i forced myeslf to learn to play while reading i've gotten good at it.

__________________

I just haven't done it that much. It's easier than it was, but I can still read the other stuff better. Ten years of seeing choir music will do that though.

__________________

But can you sight read (from tab) a song you've never heard before?

Playing with the song being played for the most part yes.

The only advantage sheet music has is the addition of time values but you can do that with more professional tabs, so in essence yes i could do that if the tab were accurate enough to include the timing.

Also sight reading doesn't completely revolve around pieces you've never heard before. Most of the time when people sight read sheet music its because they've heard it before but don't have allthe notes memorized. So i really don't see it surprising especially since tabs literally tell you where your fingers go, where as sheet music gives you the note it must be played on so which fret you use for that value is totally up to you.

__________________

That's a good point. That's one of the things that confused me reading a regular score. Practice would be great help.

__________________

so if the time sig is 4,4 does that mean ther will be4 whole notes (or 8 half etc.)in the whole measure?

__________________

No, there would be 4 quarter notes, 2 half notes, 1 whole note. Say you have a time signature x/y, x refers to the number of beats per measure, and y refers to the type of note that gets one beat (2 for half note, 4 for quarter, 8 for eighth, etc..) For example, in common 4/4 time:


So in 4/4, a quarter note gets one beat, half gets two, and whole gets 4. Also, a eighth gets half a beat, a sixteenth gets a 1/4 a beat, and so on. If you look at something more complicated like 12/8, you have 12 beats to a measure and an eighth note gets one beat. So then a sixteenth note gets half a beat, a quarter note gets two beats, a half gets four, a whole gets eight. Hopefully that clears it up.

__________________

Well im trying to tab a song and know were to put the bar lines
Is that right?
All that is 4 wholnotes (equivelent in length)

so on 4,4 would i put the barline after each wholenote (or equivilent)

The song is All Dark Graves by the Faceless btw.

__________________

well the notes and nad numbers arent lineing up even

__________________

If I've understood your tab right, here's how I think it should lay out in 4/4 time.
I've shown a line of dots beneath to mark the beats.
This is assuming, by the way, that your first note (dotted half-note) falls on beat one of the bar - which it looks like it should.
Your last bar is incomplete, because a half note and two 8ths only make 3 beats. "(X)" marks the missing quarter note space. So either you need another quarter note, or a quarter note rest, or you need to make the last note a dotted quarter.
(It's just possible you have a 3/4 bar, but that would only apply if a downbeat fell immediately after that last 8th note, right on the (X). It would feel like a break in the rhythm, a missing beat - not a gap in the rhythm, a 1-beat rest, but a kind of stumbling rhythm. This is pretty unusual in rock, but can occur.)

In notation, you don't need to space notes exactly according to their value (bars with few notes can take less space than bars with lots of notes), but it's obviously clearest if you give long notes more space than short ones; think of a bar divided into 4 beats, and just place the notes roughly where they would occur in time.
Check out some published notation for a guide to what looks right.

Just figure out which lines and spaces correspond to which notes, and take it little by little. There's no real way to teach it other than by practice. Since you're playing viola, and (I presume) using alto or tenor clef, I can't tell you which are which, as I play the piano and use only treble and bass clefs, but I would certainly think that you could find that part online.

I find that you really finally learn how to read music when you finally can easily write/notate it. I've been using this book for like 10 years to help me keep my music reading/writing chops up.

__________________

The first step in understanding rhythms is to memorize the various notes and their 'values.' You don't need to understand them now, but for information's sake, look over the five most commonly used notes:

It's confusing to think of something being an eighth of a beat, and you may wonder why a note that is one beat long is called a quarter note. Why wouldn't it be called a whole note, since it's a whole beat?

It's because we name our notes based on the length of time they are played within a measure, not based on how many beats they are.

I often tell my students to think of a measure as a whole pie, in that it can be cut into quarters (4 pieces), eighths (8 pieces), and so on. A whole note is called a whole note because it is played and held for a whole measure. A quarter note is called a quarter note because a full quarter note takes up exactly one quarter of a measure.

I know what you're saying. "Yuck! Fractions!" To this, I hang my head sadly and nod. You're absolutely right. But I'm not going to make you add fractions, or anything like that. If you get the pie illustration, then you're set.

Now that we understand why the notes are named the way they are, let's look at the chart again:

Dividing a measure up into eighths and sixteenths on the fly while playing would be difficult, especially with complicated rhythms, so this is useful mostly as an understanding of the basics. The next step to take is to actually count through the rhythms.

usually there are guitar tabs on sheet music too