Guitar In Standard Notation

It has come to my attention that many people think that certain guitar techniques cannot be shown in “old fashioned” standard notation…

…well, that’s just not true! Almost everything you can do on guitar has a way of being written in standard notation, and to prove it I’m going to show you.

The Basics

Starting from the very basics, here are the open strings in standard notation:

…and here is that in tab:


e-----------0--
B---------0----
G-------0------
D-----0--------
A---0----------
E-0------------

Notice the clef (the squigley thing before the ⁴₄). This is the clef we use for guitar (it’s a treble clef with an 8 below it)- basically just telling us the pitch of the notes that come after it. The notes written in guitar music are not exactly the same as the ones you play. They are written a whole octave (12 frets) higher than they sound. That’s just the way guitar music is written.

Next to the clef, we have the time signature, and if you don’t know what that is, read this post.

Other than that, you should notice that each note is given a line or a space depending on the pitch. The horizontal lines are collectively known as a “stave”.

Fret Numbers

Yes, you can show fret numbers in standard musical notation! In guitar music you’ll sometimes see roman numerals over the stave, these are telling you the position to play in.

For example, this:

…is telling you to play in 4th position (i.e. your first finger is over the 4th fret, second finger over the 5th fret, third over the 6th fret and fourth over the 7th fret). Here is exactly the same thing in tab:


e-----------------------------------
B-----------------------------------
G--------4-----------4-----------4--
D--4-5-7---7-5-4-5-7---7-5-4-5-7----
A-----------------------------------
E-----------------------------------

If the roman numeral is next to a “B”, it means to barre that fret. So this:

…would be played by barring the 3rd fret, like this:


e-------
B--5--3-
G--5--3-
D--5--3-
A--3----
E-------

With me so far? This is just the beginnings of what standard notation can do for guitar!

Next week, I’ll be talking about how we write legato in notation (along with the guitar techniques used and tab for each example).
Rob.

July 29, 2011 at 5:31 pm | Music Theory | 2 comments

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