The stave: the higher the note head, the higher the pitch
In Panie Janie the first note is C. It sits higher than the open B string. Tab says which fret.
Adrian8 minupdated
Open Panie Janie and switch on Notes. The first note of the melody is C: second string, first fret. The note head sits higher than open B (the middle line). Higher on the stave means a higher pitch, not “higher on the neck towards your face”.
Do you need to learn clefs?
For guitar, the treble clef is enough. The curl at the start shows how to read the stave, but the first try does not ask you to do anything extra with it.
A guitar sounds an octave lower than the writing shows. That is how its whole range fits on one stave. A small 8 under the clef sometimes marks that fact.
How do I find the first note?
The higher the note head sits, the higher the pitch. The lines from the bottom are E, G, B, D, F, and the spaces are F, A, C, E. Do not learn both rows at once: pick a note from the song, count its place from the bottom and find the same letter on the neck.
In Guitarmatic we use the letter B. In Polish materials that place is often H, and the letter B means the note a semitone lower. The place of the note does not change, only the name.
When a note sits outside the five lines, it gets a short ledger line. You read it in the same way, carrying on the letters above or below the stave.
Start from the open strings
The six open strings give landmarks without fingering. The “sounds” column is the pitch you hear, and the last column is its place in guitar notation.
| string | sounds | on the staff |
|---|---|---|
| 1, thinnest (e) | E4 | fourth space, the top one |
| 2 (B) | B3 | third line, the middle one |
| 3 (G) | G3 | second line from the bottom |
| 4 (D) | D3 | the space just below the staff |
| 5 (A) | A2 | second ledger line below |
| 6, thickest (E) | E2 | fourth space below |
The digit after the letter only says which octave a note lives in. E2 from the thickest string and E4 from the thinnest are the same letter, two octaves apart. Tap both in the widget below and you will hear how far apart they are.
A sharp raises by one fret, a flat lowers by one fret
A sharp in front of a note raises it by a semitone, and a semitone on a guitar is exactly one fret. A flat lowers it by the same amount, and a natural cancels both. The sign applies to every note of that name until the end of the bar, not only to the one it stands in front of. That is the easy part to forget.
While you are at it, remember the two pairs that sit next to each other with no sign between them: E and F, and B and C. On the neck they are neighbouring frets, so if you are hunting for an F, it is the fret right after E.
The two figures at the start are the time signature. The top one says how many beats fit in a bar, and the bottom one names their value. A vertical line closes the bar and starts the next one.
Tab or notes?
Tab answers which string and fret to use. The stave shows the pitch and the length of the sound, so the two writings solve different parts of the same job.
In the song view you can switch on Notes and Tab together. Play from the numbers, then check where the same phrase sits on the stave. Highlighting leads both writings at the same time.
One written note can have more than one place on the neck. The E in the fourth space can be the open first string or the fifth fret of the second. At the start stay in first position by the nut, where there are fewer choices.
Do not mix two octave marks. The guitar always sounds an octave lower than written, while 8va above the notes raises only the marked passage.
Do this now
Panie Janie, the Notes layer. First note: C on B1.
Compare the height of the note head with open B on the middle line. Higher on the stave is a higher pitch.
Measure: you point to the first note as C, higher than open B, and play it at the first fret of the second string.
Play this
two tunes to readBoth have the Notes layer in the app, and both melodies fit in first position. Ode to Joy is the melody teaching books open with, and it works the same way here.
» Learning to read will take me six months and I want to play this week.
True, if the aim is sight reading. Krenz budgets six weeks for reading in the first position alone, and that is an honest figure if you want to play from a score. But the five things above are not a reading course. They are the minimum that stops the page being a picture: the clef, the lines, the addresses of the open strings, the accidentals and the time signature. The rest arrives on its own if you spend a week opening songs with the notation switched on and watching the highlight, instead of studying a separate book.
Read more
- Learn & Master GuitarSteve Krenz · sessions 2, 3 and 4The course lays out the order in which reading is introduced, with a time budget per session, and it covers accidentals with the “until the end of the bar” rule.
- The Only Guitar Book You'll Ever NeedErnie Jackson and Marc Schonbrun · ch. 4This book gathers the musical alphabet, ledger lines and a table of note values into one chapter, all before tab appears.
- Learning to Play GuitarColin McAllister · lessons 2 to 4The author gives the open string addresses on the staff, and he is the only one in this library who writes that a guitar sounds an octave below its notation.
- musictheory.net lessonsRicci AdamsThe site runs a free series from the staff and clefs through ledger lines to accidentals, in exactly the order used here. There are no adverts.
- ClefWikipediaThe entry confirms for a second time that guitar notation sounds an octave lower than written, and it shows the clef with the small 8 under it.
- B (musical note)WikipediaThe entry explains where the H in Polish and German songbooks comes from, and why their B is our B flat.