Standard Notation: More Guitar Techniques

So, the last in our series on standard notation. We’ve already gone through how most guitar techniques are written in standard musical notation (or “musical notes”), but there are just a few last things to cover before we can call this one finished- vibrato, muting, pickslides, whammy bar dives, and volume swells…to be precise.

Vibrato

Vibrato is when you “wobble” a note slightly (usually at the end of a phrase). It can be done by bending the string up and down, or moving your finger back and fourth on a note. The good news is: this one is pretty straightforward. It’s exactly the same in standard notation as it is in tab.

Here is the notation:

…and here is the same thing in tab…


e---------------
B---------------
G---------------
D---7~-----------
A---------------
E---------------

So vibrato is shown by a squiggley line- both in tab and standard notation.

Left Hand Muting

Left hand muted notes- or dead notes- are when you place your finger on the fret but don’t hold the string down so you get more of a “chink” sound, rather than actual notes or chords. They are written in standard notation and tab in exactly the same way again- with an “x” for each note.

So this:

…is the same as this…


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

Pick Slides

To show a pick slide in standard notation you have to be a bit more creative. You see, standard notation is more showing you the sound rather than the actual technique. So with pick slides, you’re not actually playing a note (so we use dead notes), and you’re sliding…so the combination looks kinda like this:

…and in tab…


Pick Slide
e---------------
B---------------
G---------------
D---------------
A---------------
E-12\0----------

Divebombs

Again, this one is fairly straightforward. A whammy bar dive is the same, at least musically, as a slide or a bend (ok it doesn’t sound exactly the same, but you’re still going smoothly from one note to the other). So it’s written the same way, with a line going up or down.

Here is a divebomb (when you play the low E string and then depress the whammy bar) in standard notation:

Volume Swell

Lastly, we have the volume swell- you know, where you play a note and then turn the volume on the guitar up? They are treated like any other kind of volume change in standard notation (also known as “dynamics”), with kind of a hairpin looking thing:

The idea is, it gets wider as the note gets louder, so if the hairpin is round the other way it means turn the volume down.

Well, there are other aspects to reading standard notation, and other signs an symbols that you’ll see, but the ones I’ve covered in this series are the main ones that people believe just “don’t work” in traditional notation. Hopefully I’ve now proved that idea wrong.

Rob.

August 26, 2011 at 11:00 pm | Music Theory | No comments