Should Young Guitarists Learn to Read Music?
Guitar teachers are often asked if it is necessary to learn to read music. No one asks this question of piano teachers or violin teachers. So what makes the guitar different?
1. There is a long line of admired guitar players who didn’t regularly read or write traditional music notation, and
2. Guitar players have developed some very effective alternative systems of notation.
In this post we will look at traditional musical notation and some of the guitar alternatives, and then we’ll talk about why your child should learn to read standard musical notation on the guitar.
1. There is a long line of admired guitar players who didn’t regularly read or write traditional music notation, and
2. Guitar players have developed some very effective alternative systems of notation.
In this post we will look at traditional musical notation and some of the guitar alternatives, and then we’ll talk about why your child should learn to read standard musical notation on the guitar.
Modern Staff Notation
What most people consider reading music, is reading the modern staff notation that began to be standardized in 17th century Europe. While all the dots, lines, symbols and strange words may seem overwhelming, at its core modern staff notation is a graph of what pitch to sound and when to sound it. The symbols and terms provide all sorts of important information about the style and phrasing of the music. It is actually quite impressive the amount of information that is coded into modern staff notation, that is why a symphony orchestra in Ohio in 2022 can faithfully reproduce over an hours worth of music Beethoven dreamed up 200 years earlier in Vienna.
An example of Modern Staff Notation a.k.a. Standard Music Notation.
Guitar Alternatives
So if standard music notation is so awesomely powerful, why don’t all guitarists use it? A lot of this has to do with the history of the guitar. The guitar was always a little on the outside when it comes to European Classical music, and this was especially true in the United States. Standard music notation is firmly rooted in 17th Century Europe, meaning the majority of music that has been made throughout human history has been done without standard notation. As generation after generation of guitarists have operated outside of standard notation a number of alternative notation systems have evolved.
Chord Notation
There is nothing more satisfying than sitting around with friends singing songs while someone strums the chords on a guitar. Guitar players learn chords as collections of fingerings and then fluently move between them as the song dictates.
So for a guitar player a popular song can be reduced to something as simple as:
C G Am F C G7 C
Of course you have to know what those chords are, but most guitar players are able to learn the most commonly used chords in a few years. And guitarists have chord diagrams for the ones they don’t know.
This type of notation is very popular with singer-songwriters, since it is very flexible and makes it super easy to communicate with other players in the band. Why write pages of intricate music notation when a handful of letters will get the job done? Nashville studio musicians, famous for their ability to quickly learn and rearrange new songs on the spot, have developed a fairly elegant version of this system called the Nashville System.
So for a guitar player a popular song can be reduced to something as simple as:
C G Am F C G7 C
Of course you have to know what those chords are, but most guitar players are able to learn the most commonly used chords in a few years. And guitarists have chord diagrams for the ones they don’t know.
This type of notation is very popular with singer-songwriters, since it is very flexible and makes it super easy to communicate with other players in the band. Why write pages of intricate music notation when a handful of letters will get the job done? Nashville studio musicians, famous for their ability to quickly learn and rearrange new songs on the spot, have developed a fairly elegant version of this system called the Nashville System.
Tablature
Often called tabs for short, tablature notation makes a lined-graph of the guitar strings and then uses numbers to indicate where to finger notes with the left hand and which strings to play. Tabs quickly show guitarists exactly how to play something on the guitar. Since tabs are specific to the guitar they can be very useful for guitar-y things. For example, I would much rather learn Jimi Hendrix’s guitar masterpiece “Little Wing” through tabs than traditional notation.
There are a few downsides to tabs. It is a little hard to make out the rhythms since the rhythmic note-heads are replaced with numbers. Also, tabs are specific to the guitar, you can’t really use tabs to communicate with someone playing a non-guitar instrument. Finally, it is difficult to really see the contour of the music and some of the underlying structures in the music in a string of lines and numbers.
There are a few downsides to tabs. It is a little hard to make out the rhythms since the rhythmic note-heads are replaced with numbers. Also, tabs are specific to the guitar, you can’t really use tabs to communicate with someone playing a non-guitar instrument. Finally, it is difficult to really see the contour of the music and some of the underlying structures in the music in a string of lines and numbers.
The Case for Learning to Read Music
So while guitar has some great alternative forms of notation, I still strongly advocate for young players to learn to read music. When taught in a way that is developmentally appropriate (more on that below), kids can learn to read music at a basic functional level relatively easily. Not only does this make it easier for them to learn new music, it opens up the possibility for them to easily share music with musicians who play different instruments. Also, once students are comfortable reading music, identifying and applying strategies for perfecting a section of music becomes much easier.
But maybe the biggest reason for young people to learn to read music is the opportunities it opens for them down the road. Having taught at the college level, I have seen how really good guitarists get stuck in their musical studies due to their lack of familiarity with standard music notation. Not only does it limit what they can learn on their instrument, it makes learning music theory much more difficult. So as a teacher, I feel it is important to set my students up for long-term success by teaching them to read music.
But maybe the biggest reason for young people to learn to read music is the opportunities it opens for them down the road. Having taught at the college level, I have seen how really good guitarists get stuck in their musical studies due to their lack of familiarity with standard music notation. Not only does it limit what they can learn on their instrument, it makes learning music theory much more difficult. So as a teacher, I feel it is important to set my students up for long-term success by teaching them to read music.
The same musical excerpt is shown in chord notation, standard notation, and tabs.
The Best Way for Young Guitarist to Learn to Read Music
Most guitar method books agree with me on this point. In fact, most guitar method books are mostly, if not entirely, written in traditional music notation. Here’s the problem: beginning students are still learning how to hold and play their instruments. Even if they do have the perseverance to suffer through page after page of dull melodies as they are still trying to get a handle on their instrument, students I have worked with who were taught in a “read-music-only” manner have done little to develop their tone, technique, or musicality. Even worse, it is very common for them to start writing in all of the fingerings or note names over the standard notation, completely defeating the purpose of learning to read music in the first place.
That’s why in Awesome Guitar for Kids, we introduce the reading of standard notation slowly, in bite-sized pieces. We focus on the musicality embedded in music notation, so that students understand how what is on the page relates to what is on the guitar AND what they hear. We also place a heavy emphasis on tone, technique, and musicality through the memorization of simple songs. This appropriately situates standard notation as an important tool for musicians—not THE music itself. We also make it a point to introduce chord notation, chord boxes, and tabs within the first three levels of AG4K, so that kids will begin to become familiar with these important tools as well.
That’s why in Awesome Guitar for Kids, we introduce the reading of standard notation slowly, in bite-sized pieces. We focus on the musicality embedded in music notation, so that students understand how what is on the page relates to what is on the guitar AND what they hear. We also place a heavy emphasis on tone, technique, and musicality through the memorization of simple songs. This appropriately situates standard notation as an important tool for musicians—not THE music itself. We also make it a point to introduce chord notation, chord boxes, and tabs within the first three levels of AG4K, so that kids will begin to become familiar with these important tools as well.
