How To Read Guitar Music 14 Steps With Pictures

Guitar is also written as “tablature,” a unique music-writing system for guitar. Tabs resembles traditional musical staffs but have six lines instead of five, no clef, and often say “Tab” on the far left side. Guitar music is always written in “treble clef. " This means the symbol on the far left is always a cursive G, with the bottom looping around the second-lowest line of the staff. [2] X Research source

F E D C B A G F E

Each line has a note above and below, and you need to memorize it as you move forward. For now, however, just work on the basics.

Depending on what line the symbol fall on, you adjust that note. In the example above, there is a sharp on the F line, and one on the C space. This means any note on these lines you ‘must make a sharp. This automatically keeps you in key.

Whole notes: O Half notes: A whole note with a vertical tail, a quarter note with a hollow center. Quarter notes: ♩ Rests: are times to not play – they are either thick “–” marks for whole and half rests and squiggles for quarter note rests.

Check out the general “How to Read Music” to get deeper insights into music theory and expand your knowledge past just guitar music.