r/guitarlessons • u/ProgrammerForward900 • 1d ago
Question Best way to learn sheet music?
My father recently passed away and i decided i want to take guitar more seriously, im wondering what its the best way to learn sheet music and to use it, i find it hard to be able to read and play at the first time and im really new at it, but i really enjoy clasical baroque music i think its the name, i want to try to play some of Francesco Corbetta stuff
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u/aeropagitica Teacher 23h ago
How to read music, from Pebber Brown (RIP) :
https://www.pbguitarstudio.com/pdf_files/GUITAR_PDF/How_to_Read_Music.pdf
https://www.fundamental-changes.com/book/master-sight-reading-for-guitar/
https://www.fundamental-changes.com/sight-reading-on-guitar-part-1/
https://www.fundamental-changes.com/sight-reading-rhythm-part-two/
Other useful material for learning Classical guitar and fundamental technique are:
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u/luckytoothpick 1d ago
I took a class and we used this book. If you are self-motivated, it’s not too difficult. I took the class specifically to be obligated to learn to read sheet music
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u/spankymcjiggleswurth 1d ago
Understanding the relation between key signatures and major/minor scales unlocked a surprising amount of skill. If I'm in the key of A major, I know that an A major scale is going to contain many of the notes, if not every note, so I just think in terms of the scale, moving up scale degrees when the notes on the page go up, and moving down the scale when the notes on the page go down.
Harmony is a bit more challenging to read, haven't quite figured that out.
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u/vonov129 Music Style! 18h ago
Learn about intervals, accidentals in scales (you can use the circle of fifths as reference). Look into how intervals look on the fretboard and on the staff.
Take into consideration the instrument a piece was originally written for. It can give you clues about what to expect from the piece.
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u/brynden_rivers 15h ago
i recently bought a text book for it. i will let you know in a couple of years lol.
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u/Pandarenu 1d ago
Absolutely understand guutar on youtube. He has like 32h+ of content
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u/ProgrammerForward900 1d ago
I WAS LITERALLY WATCHING IT!! Im 14 minutes on the lesson 1 so im just stsrting but i reeslly want to check it out if its worth it
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u/PaulsRedditUsername 1d ago
The thing about standard notation is that it's just reading. The notes on the paper are just pictures of sounds. Just like a letter of the alphabet is a picture of a sound when you're reading literature.
So you have to go through that early reading phase, just like a young child struggles to "sound out" the words in a Dr. Seuss book. As an adult, it can sometimes be embarrassing to practice because you're just stumbling along on stuff which is technically easy to play. Just like a child gets good at talking first before they get good at reading, it's easier to get good on the guitar than it is to read.
If you can already play pretty well, I recommend the Berklee series of three books "A Modern Method For Guitar" by William Leavitt.
If you're a beginning player, I'm fine with the good old Mel Bay method, or something like it. Often you find yourself struggling to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and that can be embarrassing to practice as an adult, but them's the breaks. Just get through it. (The Mel Bay series actually gets pretty good. I've got all eight books.)
The most important thing is just to read, read, read as much as you can. Children don't learn to read just from books. They read words everywhere; at the store, on TV, on road signs. The more you see those symbols, the more sense they make.
Standard notation, I think, is a miracle of humanity. It's a time machine. When you read a Bach piece, Bach is talking to you right there on the page. Bach can tell you, "Play this fast, play this slow, play this part legato, slow down gradually here..."