Originally written April 2007

“G” major is a movable chord. at the fifth fret it is an “A” major.

Movable major with root on the sixth string.

FRET NUMBER:   1,       2,       3,       4,     5,      6,      7,       8,       9,       10

CHORD NAME      F    F sharp  G    G sh    A    A sh    B        C     C sh       D

                                  G flat            A flat         B flat                      D flat

sh = sharp. No sharp or flat between B & C. (or E & F )

Yes A sharp and B flat major is the same chord. Weather it is designated A sharp or B flat depends on what “KEY” you are playing in. More than you ever wanted to know about that later.

Some handwritten stuff on the way via snail mail. It is designed to make it easy to start note reading in “Treble Cl ef” all guitar music can be written in this fashion.

This is just a start. I hand wrote it because the lesson books are generally designed with a coach in mind. If you get through this then we can go to a book for note reading.

Again, most guitar players are not prolific music readers. The fact is that over recent years another system has come about that is used exclusively by guitar players. It is called TABLATURE. The problem with tab it that it does not lend itself to music theory and it is not yet fully developed. Tab began as an attempt for people to teach each other how to play guitar without learning to read music. It has become a second language that a fully capable player needs to master. I have a friend that is trying to get into the Nashville studio scene and the fact that he doesn’t read TAB is a major problem for him. He is an excellent music reader. Tab does not have key signatures and is not understood by any other musicians. The diagrams that I am using to illustrate note reading to you are similar to tab. It may be my age but because other musicians read treble cl ef I think it is still the way to go. I would rather play with other musicians than just by myself. It is more interesting and just plain fun that way.

If we study Bass guitar at some point we will use bass cl ef music. It is similar to treble cl ef.

Oh yes, a piano player uses both at once.