To Read or Not To Read (part three)

  Alright! You made it to part three! So by now you know how I feel about reading music. I really think that learning standard notation is "money in the bank" - a great investment. But investments take time to appreciate. If you just keep chipping away at it day by day, you'll be blown away by how your musical understanding will grow exponentially. Are you convinced yet? Ok, well here's my last shot at swaying you.

  Reason No.3- only guitarists understand tablature. Let's pretend that you and your friends made up a language that only you and your friends could understand. It would be fun until you really needed to communicate with someone other than your friends. In other words, you can't write a song out in tablature and hand it to your singer hoping that they'll understand it. Isn't it better to learn a Universal Language (hint, hint)?

  So there you have it. Sure, tablature is easy. If we're just starting out, learning that song we want to play couldn't be easier. And,  every guitar magazine on the planet has everything inside of it neatly tabbed out for us. But at what cost? Do we want to close the doors to all kinds of music as well as composition and theory? Do we want to ignore important foundational concepts such as rhythm, key signatures, and meter? How about shutting ourselves off from much communication with other musicians? Hopefully the answer is no. And, there are loads of great Teachers and Books out there who can help you - no excuses!

  In closing, here's a great exercise you can do once you start learning how to read notes. First, pick out any tune you want to learn. Next, however long it takes to figure out, figure it out by ear. After that, write it down using standard notation. For bonus points, use the theory you learned from being to read music to completely analyze your tune (chords, melody, rhythms, etc). You'll be amazed how much you'll get out of it.

Tune in next week to Have Guitar Will Travel for a guest article from Guitar Virtuoso, Ney Mello. Enjoy!