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Old 01-31-2013, 09:46 AM
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Default Alternative way to learn to read...?

Would there be any issues with learning to read sheet music on piano and then transferring that knowledge to guitar? Would that give me a head start on reading for guitar or just complicate things?
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Old 01-31-2013, 09:53 AM
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Would there be any issues with learning to read sheet music on piano and then transferring that knowledge to guitar? Would that give me a head start on reading for guitar or just complicate things?
I learned standard notation on the piano way before even playing a guitar. The name of notes and layout of chords is easier to pick up on the piano.
It should be helpful. You will need to transfer that knowledge to note positions, scales, and chord shapes on the guitar.
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Old 01-31-2013, 10:24 AM
Paikon Paikon is offline
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piano music is written in two clefs while guitar in one ...there are more things to learn to read on a piano ...
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Old 01-31-2013, 11:01 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Would there be any issues with learning to read sheet music on piano and then transferring that knowledge to guitar? Would that give me a head start on reading for guitar or just complicate things?
It's the exact same system, so yes a definite head start.
Three points to bear in mind:

1. Guitar is in treble clef ("G" clef) only (piano right hand).

2. The guitar staff is lowered by an octave, so middle C appears on the 3rd space up. (This doesn't matter unless you wonder why a piece you can play on piano sounds an octave lower when you play it on guitar.)

3. Many notes can be played at several different places on the fretboard. (This is what confounds many guitarists learning notation.)
Eg, middle C (3rd space up) can be played on:
2nd string fret 1
3rd string fret 5
4th string fret 10
5th string fret 15
6th string fret 20

It's highly unlikely you'd ever want to play it on 6th string 20th fret, of course, but any of the others could be useful.

The question beginners ask is "how do I know which position to use?"
Answer: the easiest one .
(However, this may not be a straightforward choice, because it depends what you are playing: one note, a group of notes (scale, riff or melody), chords, etc. What's easiest for one phrase may not be the easiest for another phrase, even if the same notes are involved.)

If you think this is going to confuse you when learning, I suggest you always play everything below 5th fret if possible, where there is only one place for each note. That takes you from bottom E (3 ledger lines down) to G above the staff (1st string 3rd fret), which is 2/3 of the entire range of guitar.
Any notes higher than that can be played up 1st string.

"Position" playing - where you play scales, melodies or chords anywhere above 2nd fret (index on fret 2) - can be approached once you know everything in 1st (open) position. Or any time you feel comfortable finding notes in alternative positions.
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Old 01-31-2013, 11:18 AM
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Sweet! Thanks guys. I think I'm gonna for it!
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Old 01-31-2013, 02:32 PM
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Would there be any issues with learning to read sheet music on piano and then transferring that knowledge to guitar? Would that give me a head start on reading for guitar or just complicate things?
Hi Brian...

I don't think it would complicate things, but it would take a bit longer. I learned to read notes in order:
  • Accordion
  • Trumpet
  • Voice
  • Other Brass instruments
  • Piano
  • Guitar

I actually can think in trumpet or piano (keyboard), or accordion (left hand chords). I learned about songs on the accordion (melody and simple harmony right hand and chord progressions left hand). I learned to play lyrical melodies on trumpet.

It all kind of leaks out of my guitars these days...and yes, I can think guitar as well (either hand). But as an arranger and transcriber, I still think vocal harmonies in relationship to pianos.

My wife and I were walking down the street holding hands and she was playing fingerings in my hands (she was a French Horn player in college, but had previous experience with both trumpet and baritone and ended up playing Eb Tuba).

I finally asked what song she was 'playing' in my hand, and she instantly told me. She can read notation and was fingering the melody of whatever song was in her head.

Sometimes when I'm arranging vocal parts I think piano voicings, and then translate those during rehearsals to guitar to play them in the proper range for a singer who is working through a part.

All that aside - if you are only going to read scores, it would be difficult if not impossible, to read piano scores directly to the guitar. They are written differently (two staves as opposed to one and all treble versus bass clef), and the piano can play up to 10 notes simultaneously and cover an 7⅓ octave spread...and that doesn't even include the use of the sustain pedal.

So you'd need to be familiar with the piano and guitar to transcribe pieces to guitar. A great example of this is Muriel Anderson's 'Nola' which she transcribed for guitar from a piano score.

Kind of depends on what your intentions are as to how to approach it.

A simple guitar method book would cover getting started with reading notes on the guitar, which would be part of the process either way you decide to go with note reading.


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Old 02-01-2013, 12:52 PM
stanron stanron is offline
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Would there be any issues with learning to read sheet music on piano and then transferring that knowledge to guitar? Would that give me a head start on reading for guitar or just complicate things?
Hi Brian. Having checked your link, nice playing by the way, my next observation would be that it will take a lot of work for you to be able to sight read (play a piece at speed on first sight) to the level you are playing. The way you play shows you are capable of doing that work but people who learn to read after learning to play face a harder road, and the better the playing, the farther you have to go.

Also unless you definitely want to learn to play, or already do play piano, go straight to learning to read on guitar. There's plenty of free stuff online showing note values, time and key signatures. You can probably already locate notes up and down the fretboard. After that it's just a slog, slog, slog until it's easy.

Here's a link pasted by Paikon in another thread which might prove useful.

http://www.classicalguitarschool.net/music/1018.pdf

One thing you will be able to do sooner than sight reading is notate your own arrangements and that's a useful skill.
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Old 02-01-2013, 01:22 PM
Mtn Man Mtn Man is offline
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I would recommend learning on guitar first if that’s your main instrument. The reason being, for sight reading there should be a direct channel from what your eyes see on the page, to where your fingers go. In other words, you see the note and your finger automatically goes to it. That’s one of the beautiful things about standard notation. They’re just dots that tell your fingers where to go. There’s no thought. It’s just like reading text. If you read at a high level, you comprehend as you read. There’s no sounding out, or thought about the individual words and their meanings, there’s just comprehension. Sight reading at a high level is the same way. You see the notes, and you know what to play without even thinking about it. It essentially becomes muscle memory, and the memory is associated with a particular instrument.

If you learn on another instrument, you will learn to think in terms of that instrument, and there will always be a moment of translation when playing a different instrument.

My son’s first guitar teacher was a classically trained violinist. He could read music for guitar, but on difficult pieces he would always reach for his violin to figure it out. That’s because he learned on the violin.

I’m not saying you can’t overcome this. Many people have, just like many people have learned to think in foreign languages after years of living abroad. But how many people do you know that have lost their native accents after moving to a different country? It’s very rare. You always carry that first language with you, and it will accent everything you do.
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