Learning to read music on guitar.

I'm going to attempt a serious blog post today. It's going to be helpful, engaging, and nothing is going to get weird. Here we go!

Artificial intelligence image generator strikes again - This was SUPPOSED to be a guitar player learning to read music. All the basic ingredients are there, I guess - kind of like how Taco Bell's more exotic menu items still feature the same basic ingredients as a taco, but take the form of convenience food from Mars.

Well Norfolk Southern may as well be writing this blog, because that derailed rather quickly. And just like that, I'm writing about trains. My wife agrees that I may exhibit some signs of undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, which I asked her about one day while I was watching clips of Beavis and Butthead on YouTube and was shown a targeted ad for adult-onset attention deficit disorder treatment. The guy in the commercial was the singer for Maroon 5, who at least for duration of his paid appearance in the ad, claimed to have attention deficit disorder. I'm not sure if this is apparent in his music. Norfolk Southern owes Palestine, Ohio some serious money and needs to up their safety standards.

A Crunchwrap Supreme.

Learning to read music can feel daunting, so why bother? I started out as a self taught guitar player, and most of my learning was through tablature books or from various guitar magazines, which were also predominantly in tablature. I don't want to diminish guitar tablature, because it is an excellent tool for showing guitar fingerings, but it has it's limitations. Tablature does a poor job of indicating the actual pitch of notes, and can be cumbersome when notating rhythms. The biggest shortfall of tablature is that it does not translate to other instruments: if you are using tablature for notation, you are going to have a difficult time communicating your ideas to a saxophone player. Similarly, since tablature only makes sense on guitar, only guitarists will be able to write music for you - a piano player will not be able to write a part you can understand. Similar problems exist for guitar chord frames and other notation conventions specific to guitar. To summarize, learning to read music vastly expands the amount of music you can play and who you can play it with. It was for exactly this reason that I began making a concerted effort to improve my reading abilities.

Mel Bay is excellent for developing music reading skills.

The good news when it comes to learning to read music is that the process is pretty simple and straightforward - get some books and start working your way through them. Just because it's simple, doesn't mean it's easy though - consistency and patience are key. It's like lifting weights or running - the results will happen as long as you keep putting the effort in. Just as you would with exercise, it is important to set small, attainable goals in order to make effective progress - you don't start running marathons on day one. This is where it is really most effective to find a progressive series of method books to work through. If you already play well, there will be things that you may feel are "too easy" for you, but it's important to gauge where your music reading is and start there.

There are two book series that I would recommend for any guitarist wanting to develop their music reading skills: Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method, by Mel Bay and A Modern Method for Guitar, by William Leavitt. These both present a gradual progression of material that is easy enough for the beginning reader, but sufficiently challenging and musically rewarding to be enjoyable to guitarists with more advanced playing abilities.

Of these two book series, I strongly prefer Mel Bay. There are eight books in the series, including a primer level book, that are suited for everyone from complete beginners to advanced guitarists. Mel Bay is heavily focused on chord-melody solo arrangements for guitar. This has the added benefit of building repertoire (albeit classical and folk music) and being generally fun and pleasing to play through. Even in the first book, you will be playing nice sounding arrangements that do not sound simplistic or amateurish. The books are organized largely according to the position of the neck you will be playing in and by key according to difficulty. Mel Bay Book 1 starts with the key of C in the first position and the series progresses from there. If you are shopping around, there is an Expanded Edition of Mel Bay, which I would avoid. Most of the extra material is either redundant or better explained by other books, and serves only to muddle the progression of the book.

Sometimes referred to as "The Berklee Book."

A Modern Method for Guitar is an excellent book, with plenty of musically sound reading exercises, fingering and picking studies, chord forms, and scales. It is written for guitar students who already have a strong musical background, such as a pianist leaning to play guitar. As such, it is very light on teaching fundamental concepts and assumes the student can already read music on at least a basic level. This makes A Modern Method for Guitar best suited as a supplemental book to another guitar method, such as Mel Bay.

Additional guitar methods worth mentioning would be The Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Alfred's Guitar Method, or The Stanard Guitar Method by Dick Bennett (if you can find it). These books are all more or less similar to the Mel Bay Method, but are generally slower paced - the full three book series in the Hal Leonard method is all easier to play than the material at the end of Mel Bay Book 1. I also find the songs contained in these methods are often arranged to be as easy to read and play as possible, with altered rhythms and melodies which can make them sound awkward, even when playing the songs correctly. I sometimes use these books with new students, especially younger students and students with no musical background, but if you already play guitar, you are likely to find the pace and material in these books frustrating.

I hope this helps on your musical journey,

Matt.