The following tutorial will help to explain to you the basic concept of reading guitar tab. Although it may seem complex, learning to read tab is quite simple, and you should find yourself reading tab easily in no time.
Guitarists are a unique breed.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
What IS Guitar Theory?
If you’ve been on my email newsletter for any amount of time, or if you’ve been hanging around Guitar Tips Weekly very much, you’ve probably heard me talking about guitar theory at some point or other.
So what IS guitar theory, and how in the world is it going to help us become better guitar players?
So what IS guitar theory, and how in the world is it going to help us become better guitar players?
How to Read Guitar Tabs
Guitar Tablature or TAB is the most common method of writing out music for the guitar. It is different from classical music notation in that, TAB uses ordinary numbers and keyboard characters as opposed to standard musical notation which uses symbols. Because of this format, anyone with a computer can write or read TAB making it the most user friendly way to read and communicate guitar music. Also TAB relates directly to the fret board of your guitar, meaning that you may easily see where you put your fingers.
What is guitar action?
The term ‘action’ refers to the height of the strings above the fretboard. It is the way a guitar is adjusted and how well it plays, relative to the style of music that is being played. The action on an instrument played by an aggressive strummer or flatpicker will vary greatly from that for a jazz player or fingerpicker.
Acoustic guitar have generally a higher action than electric guitars. An action that is too high is hard on your hands and will cause the guitar to play sharp.
Acoustic guitar have generally a higher action than electric guitars. An action that is too high is hard on your hands and will cause the guitar to play sharp.
Major & Minor & Fretboard
1. major 2. minor 3. minor 4. major 5. major 6. minor 7. minor
Sometimes referred to as the “Nashville Number System,” this sequence remains the same regardless of key. Guitarists translate it into moveable patterns on the fretboard. This allows guitar players to visualize keys as easily as they view barre chords or scale patterns. The ability to identify keys helps to chart progressions, apply scales, play by ear, compose and more (see Fretboard Theory Chapter 6 Building Chords and Progressions).
Fretboard Theory
Sometimes referred to as the “Nashville Number System,” this sequence remains the same regardless of key. Guitarists translate it into moveable patterns on the fretboard. This allows guitar players to visualize keys as easily as they view barre chords or scale patterns. The ability to identify keys helps to chart progressions, apply scales, play by ear, compose and more (see Fretboard Theory Chapter 6 Building Chords and Progressions).
Fretboard Theory
Guitar chords & scale
Chord theory consists of how chords are built. Chords are built from scales. Scale degrees, or intervals, are combined to make major and minor chords (see Fretboard Theory Chapter 6 Building Chords). The notes of these chords are scattered throughout a pattern that covers the whole fretboard. Break this pattern up into five pieces and something familiar emerges.
Guitar Theory
Have you ever learned something new on the guitar but had no idea what to do with it? Many guitarists suffer from this ailment and most instructional materials do little to remedy the problem. You can buy a chord or scale book at your local music store and learn some new shapes and patterns, but rarely do these books explain what these components actually do or how they ought to be applied. Without knowledge of how something functions it’s pretty much useless. This is why theory is necessary.
Theory Offers Explanations
Theory Offers Explanations
What is Music? Solving a Scientific Mystery
The main idea of the theory is that music is a super-stimulus for the perception of musicality, where "musicality" is actually a perceived property of speech. "Musicality" refers to the property of music that determines how "good" it is, how strong an emotional effect it has, and how much we enjoy listening to it.
Tempo & Rhythm II
To illustrate this, note that marches are in duple time (2/4 or 4/4 ) giving that "left, ..., left, ..., left, right, left, ..." feel. In contrast to this 3/4 time seems to completely lack that left-right feel, and we therefore frequently associate it with circular motions, like swirling waltzes, or roundabouts at the fun-fair.
Tempo & Rhythm
Music tends to have a steady tempo to it, often measured in "beats per minute". A simple observation is that most music is in the range of 50-200 beats per minute, the same as the extreme range of our heartbeats. In general too, the tempo of a piece of music roughly equates with the heartbeat associated with the corresponding physical state or emotion which the music suggests.
Anything in the range 60-80 beats per minute is calm and relaxed, less than 60 is often very relaxed, introspective or even depressed. 80-100 is moderately alert and interested. 100 upwards is increasingly lively, excited or agitated and, since we crave some degree of excitement from our entertainment, 80-120 is quite a common tempo, and even 120-160 is common in some energetic situations. We're not saying that there is an absolute correspondence between heartbeat and music tempo, but there is a strong degree of suggestion between the two. Music moves in time and suggests movement, and we tend to associate music unconsciously with movements made by our bodies while talking, walking, running, dancing, riding, etc.
Anything in the range 60-80 beats per minute is calm and relaxed, less than 60 is often very relaxed, introspective or even depressed. 80-100 is moderately alert and interested. 100 upwards is increasingly lively, excited or agitated and, since we crave some degree of excitement from our entertainment, 80-120 is quite a common tempo, and even 120-160 is common in some energetic situations. We're not saying that there is an absolute correspondence between heartbeat and music tempo, but there is a strong degree of suggestion between the two. Music moves in time and suggests movement, and we tend to associate music unconsciously with movements made by our bodies while talking, walking, running, dancing, riding, etc.
Music Part III
PAUSE FOR A moment to ‘think’ of these sounds: harp, clarinet, kettledrum, xylophone, violin, guitar, trumpet, saxophone, sitar, oboe, flute... They are all uniquely different yet we can ‘hear’ them in our heads, just by thinking of them. Then think of the individual styles of various composers
Music Part III
WE HAVE BECOME so accustomed to recorded sound that it has become rather facile and formulaic.
Music Part II
Songs in particular contain something profoundly elemental. The singer actually ‘becomes’ the instrument, or vehicle of communication and expression. Through the combination of voice, lyrical content and poetic structure, melody, rhythm, the nuance of combined tonal qualities and phrasing within the breath, singers can transmit and translate thoughts and feelings, potentially elevating and transporting both the singer and the listener to another realm. Music really can lead us into another dimension.
Music
WHAT IS MUSIC? Music is pure magic. It is a wonderful gift to humanity. Music moves us, and soothes us. It stimulates. It makes us want to dance or sing. It makes us feel happy or sad, inspired or uplifted. It affects our mood in all kinds of infinite ways. It can be exquisitely subtle or wildly raucous: from a lullaby, to a war cry for revolution.
WHEN SATISH KUMAR asked me to guest-edit the special Music For Transformation feature in this issue of Resurgence, I was delighted, as it gave me the opportunity to reflect once again on that most profound question, What actually is music?
Music is different things to different people: to Ian Skelly, author of the article ‘Beauty Speaks’, above all things music has a transcendental significance that is captured in the beautiful patterns of Nature and architecture – a kind of ‘frozen music’; to Mark Kidel, author of ‘Conversations and Crossroads’, music can bridge cultures in a universal ‘conversation’ that is beyond intellect or reason, but which is heartfelt; to Brian Eno, music brings the joy of unexpected and beautiful sound; and to singer/songwriters like myself and Howard Milner, music – and singing in particular – takes us to a world apart: a world beyond self and ego; a place of emotion that touches the soul.
I present to you an insightful glimpse into the world of music: yet it seems to me that the question ‘What is music?’ has no ultimately fixed answer, because although music can be defined in mechanistic terms as merely vibrations that are detected by the organ of Corti and assimilated by the brain’s cortex into what we hear, that is still only half the story.
It is no accident that the Latin word for breath – that prerequisite of music – is spiritus, for music invokes the spiritual in us. It is of the spirit and so is universal, other-worldly, nebulous and freely evolving. What a wonderful gift to humanity.
EVER SINCE I can remember, music has been an accompaniment to my life. It would be impossible for me to even try and conceptualise a world without music. If you have a natural aptitude and appreciation for it, then music simply draws you to it and connects. Watch a baby nodding her head, clapping her hands, or bouncing in response to a rhythm or melody.
WHEN SATISH KUMAR asked me to guest-edit the special Music For Transformation feature in this issue of Resurgence, I was delighted, as it gave me the opportunity to reflect once again on that most profound question, What actually is music?
Music is different things to different people: to Ian Skelly, author of the article ‘Beauty Speaks’, above all things music has a transcendental significance that is captured in the beautiful patterns of Nature and architecture – a kind of ‘frozen music’; to Mark Kidel, author of ‘Conversations and Crossroads’, music can bridge cultures in a universal ‘conversation’ that is beyond intellect or reason, but which is heartfelt; to Brian Eno, music brings the joy of unexpected and beautiful sound; and to singer/songwriters like myself and Howard Milner, music – and singing in particular – takes us to a world apart: a world beyond self and ego; a place of emotion that touches the soul.
I present to you an insightful glimpse into the world of music: yet it seems to me that the question ‘What is music?’ has no ultimately fixed answer, because although music can be defined in mechanistic terms as merely vibrations that are detected by the organ of Corti and assimilated by the brain’s cortex into what we hear, that is still only half the story.
It is no accident that the Latin word for breath – that prerequisite of music – is spiritus, for music invokes the spiritual in us. It is of the spirit and so is universal, other-worldly, nebulous and freely evolving. What a wonderful gift to humanity.
EVER SINCE I can remember, music has been an accompaniment to my life. It would be impossible for me to even try and conceptualise a world without music. If you have a natural aptitude and appreciation for it, then music simply draws you to it and connects. Watch a baby nodding her head, clapping her hands, or bouncing in response to a rhythm or melody.
What a music really is?
Before I go into the answer to that rather large question, I would like to say that my teaching method is somewhat unorthodox, and has been frowned upon by some teachers. Their main complaint is that I don't emphasize enough the importance of reading and writing notation. My answer to that is that if I don't know how myself, how on earth could I teach it?
What is Music?
What is music? According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, music is "the art of arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous composition".
The Method Behind the Music
It is a common misunderstanding that music is a freeform, random art. This is not the case. Almost without exception the great musical works of our history are bound by special rules that make their beauty more organized and understandable without dimming their brilliance. These rules and techniques are called music theory. Music theory is the product of over a millennium of work and innovation. It is possibly the greatest unsung achievement we have created as a species.
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