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Old 04-24-2021, 02:59 PM
DevilsFan DevilsFan is offline
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Default Mel Bay Modern Guitar Books

So I decided to finally learn to read music for the guitar. I can play a bit of piano and I can read the grand staff (treble clef better than bass clef), but I had always reverted to tablature for guitar pieces that I wanted to learn.

Anyway, I've gone through the first book in the Mel Bay Modern Guitar series and am now about 20% of the way into book two, and not only can I now read music for the guitar (at least in first position for keys of C, G, Am, and Em), but I'm actually sight reading pretty well. I'm actually a bit shocked at how fast it's happened (maybe about a month of practice of about 15-30 minutes a day on average). There are a ton of picking exercises in those books that are really helpful for working on this.

Just wanted to share this in case anyone else wants to learn to read music notation for the guitar but doesn't know where to start.
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Old 04-24-2021, 05:32 PM
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Toby Walker Toby Walker is offline
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Congrats and keep going!! It's rare for folks to make it past book 3, so there's your goal.

Mel Bay also has a book out called Melodic Rhythms for Guitar. It's not about strumming, but rather being able to read various different note values. You can find it on Amazon.
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Old 04-24-2021, 07:08 PM
icuker icuker is offline
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I was surprised too that it didn't take all that long to get the hang of reading notes on the guitar. Rhythm is another thing, that's a bit harder for me. But I enjoy(ed) the Mel Bay books and I also use Leavitt's book also, even more than Mel Bay but no knock against either.
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Old 04-24-2021, 08:06 PM
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My local instructor uses the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method books for her steel string students. I got through all seven volumes, her first student to get beyond book 4. The last two books got pretty esoteric with things like the keys of F# and Gb (so many sharps and flats!) but overall I’m glad I went through them.
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Old 04-24-2021, 08:27 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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All the Mel Bay books are available directly from the publisher at melbay.com
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Old 04-24-2021, 09:30 PM
Steve DeRosa Steve DeRosa is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DevilsFan View Post
...I had always reverted to tablature for guitar pieces that I wanted to learn.

Anyway, I've gone through the first book in the Mel Bay Modern Guitar series and am now about 20% of the way into book two, and not only can I now read music for the guitar (at least in first position for keys of C, G, Am, and Em), but I'm actually sight reading pretty well. I'm actually a bit shocked at how fast it's happened (maybe about a month of practice of about 15-30 minutes a day on average). There are a ton of picking exercises in those books that are really helpful for working on this.

Just wanted to share this in case anyone else wants to learn to read music notation for the guitar but doesn't know where to start.
There's a reason this stuff has been around for the last 75 years or so - because it works, and I never used anything else with any student nine years or older...

FYI the results you're getting are pretty much in line with what I'd expect from any student who put in a modicum of practice time - which makes me wonder to this day why anyone would possibly want to learn only tab...

Had more than a few potential students like that over the years, to whom I always posed the question, "Why only tab - do your friends in the school band who play trumpet/flute/sax/clarinet/trombone read tab, or do they read music?"...

Never really got a satisfactory answer from any of them - a couple said it's "too hard," to which I suggested they put in the same honest half-hour a day that you do - since they were spending 3, 4, 5 times that on their video games they had more than enough time to spare - and we'd talk about it again in three months' time...

As expected the dabblers and slackers packed it in quickly; kept the ones who took up the challenge - and succeeded...

Keep up the good work - IME the more fluent and comfortable you become with reading/theory the more musical horizons will be open to you...
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Old 04-25-2021, 07:06 AM
musicman1951 musicman1951 is offline
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Originally Posted by icuker View Post
I was surprised too that it didn't take all that long to get the hang of reading notes on the guitar. Rhythm is another thing, that's a bit harder for me. But I enjoy(ed) the Mel Bay books and I also use Leavitt's book also, even more than Mel Bay but no knock against either.
Rhythm is everyone's bugaboo, but I don't think it should be. A whole note looks like a basketball and you tap 4 times (beats). A half note looks like a whole note with a stem and it gets 2 beats. A quarter note looks like a half note with the ball filled in - one beat. If you can tap your foot you can learn these in about 3 minutes.

There are really only 5 other rhythms in 98% of the music you'll see. They're a little strange at first, but how long would it take to memorize 5 rhythms?

Reading the notes and counting the rhythms at the same time does take some practice, for sure. But I don't think it's as difficult as most people believe.
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Old 04-25-2021, 07:49 AM
elninobaby elninobaby is offline
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I learned on the Mel Bay series when I first took guitar lessons 55 years ago. I got through books 1 through 4. I kept those books over the years and would haul them out whenever the “I gotta get better at playing guitar” urge hit. Over the past year, the urge really took hold—and when the dried out old pages started crumbling all over my floor, the cheapskate in me said enough, and I decided to look into replacement. I bought all 7 volumes in one book, for $40. Volumes 2 and 3 had a few challenging pieces, and 4 has some really hard ones. I don’t know how I got through them 55 years ago (I may not have, really: I think my teacher probably moved me along well short of mastery). I’ve been working on “Beautiful Dreamer” for six months. I have it down now. It was hard. Mel Bay is not the only thing I use; I have some fingerpicking books and TrueFire on line, but I like to think that working through all 7 volumes is going to make me a better player. Nice to see others finding them valuable.
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Old 04-25-2021, 08:52 AM
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Tabs can be a good tool. But just that, a tool. They show where a note is played but typically not the rhythm.

Keep at it with reading music. By reading music you can get most any song you want to play. I have books from Kiss, Johnny Cash, ELO, Beatles, and Queen. Also a book from Readers Digest.

I also have a book called the Bluegrass Fake Book. Really helped me out when I started going to Bluegrass jams.

If you can read music you can play anything. Just learn to apply feeling and soul to what you are reading and playing.
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Old 04-25-2021, 08:57 AM
MikeB1 MikeB1 is offline
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[QUOTE=musicman1951;6699916]Rhythm is everyone's bugaboo, but I don't think it should be. A whole note looks like a basketball and you tap 4 times (beats). A half note looks like a whole note with a stem and it gets 2 beats. A quarter note looks like a half note with the ball filled in - one beat. If you can tap your foot you can learn these in about 3 minutes.

There are really only 5 other rhythms in 98% of the music you'll see. They're a little strange at first, but how long would it take to memorize 5 rhythms?


This is a great synthesis Keith!

I was introduced to the book by Robert Starer called "Rhythmic Training," and that has been pretty good for me. I've gone through the basic notes you described and I've also learned how to count triplets and sixteenth notes. That's enough to hold me for right now.

I would really appreciate, if you or someone else would be so kind, to go a little further and explain what the 5 other rhythms are. I just wanted to get an idea of what lies ahead on my path.
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Old 04-25-2021, 12:47 PM
DevilsFan DevilsFan is offline
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[QUOTE=MikeB1;6699984]
Quote:
Originally Posted by musicman1951 View Post
Rhythm is everyone's bugaboo, but I don't think it should be. A whole note looks like a basketball and you tap 4 times (beats). A half note looks like a whole note with a stem and it gets 2 beats. A quarter note looks like a half note with the ball filled in - one beat. If you can tap your foot you can learn these in about 3 minutes.

There are really only 5 other rhythms in 98% of the music you'll see. They're a little strange at first, but how long would it take to memorize 5 rhythms?


This is a great synthesis Keith!

I was introduced to the book by Robert Starer called "Rhythmic Training," and that has been pretty good for me. I've gone through the basic notes you described and I've also learned how to count triplets and sixteenth notes. That's enough to hold me for right now.

I would really appreciate, if you or someone else would be so kind, to go a little further and explain what the 5 other rhythms are. I just wanted to get an idea of what lies ahead on my path.
Tied-eighth notes are one and they can be tricky. These result in a syncopated beat like in rags. This is when counting 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and helps quite a bit instead of counting 1-2-3-4. Tied eighth notes fall on the 'ands'
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Old 04-25-2021, 01:25 PM
fpuhan fpuhan is offline
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Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa View Post
FYI the results you're getting are pretty much in line with what I'd expect from any student who put in a modicum of practice time - which makes me wonder to this day why anyone would possibly want to learn only tab...
I'm showing my age again, but when I first picked up a guitar in the 1960s, TAB (at least as we know it now) DID NOT EXIST. In fact, the first recollection I have of seeing tablature was in a 1975 Robin Trower songbook, where the first part of the book was the standard clefs, notes and chord diagrams, and the second part was tab -- which had to be explained by the tablaturist (is that a word?). And his explanation was not at all what we now see as "standard" tab.

So I avoided tab early on because there wasn't a standard. The Internet (USEnet in particular) helped promulgate tab because it was easy for anyone with a standard keyboard to write it. The web site Ultimate Guitar boasts 1.1 million tabs. Is it any wonder any kid with a guitar and an Internet connection prefers them?
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Old 04-25-2021, 06:05 PM
cdkrugjr cdkrugjr is offline
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I'm showing my age again, but when I first picked up a guitar in the 1960s, TAB (at least as we know it now) DID NOT EXIST. In fact, the first recollection I have of seeing tablature was in a 1975 Robin Trower songbook, where the first part of the book was the standard clefs, notes and chord diagrams, and the second part was tab -- which had to be explained by the tablaturist (is that a word?). And his explanation was not at all what we now see as "standard" tab.

So I avoided tab early on because there wasn't a standard. The Internet (USEnet in particular) helped promulgate tab because it was easy for anyone with a standard keyboard to write it. The web site Ultimate Guitar boasts 1.1 million tabs. Is it any wonder any kid with a guitar and an Internet connection prefers them?
But the earliest music for Renaissance (4-course) guitar in the 16th Century, like its contemporary music for vihuela (6-courses) is in tab, not notation. This is interesting in that some of the string assignments are "interesting" . . suggesting that Mudarra had a score, but only published the tabbed version.
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Old 04-25-2021, 08:11 PM
DreadFred DreadFred is offline
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Mel Bay operated a music store in Kirkwood (St. Louis) Missouri for a number of years. When I first started playing in the mid 70's, I would go to the store to buy his books. I think I remember getting stumped by about book 4, but I learned a lot from his books up to that point.
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Old 04-26-2021, 05:01 AM
musicman1951 musicman1951 is offline
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Originally Posted by MikeB1 View Post
[

I was introduced to the book by Robert Starer called "Rhythmic Training," and that has been pretty good for me. I've gone through the basic notes you described and I've also learned how to count triplets and sixteenth notes. That's enough to hold me for right now.

I would really appreciate, if you or someone else would be so kind, to go a little further and explain what the 5 other rhythms are. I just wanted to get an idea of what lies ahead on my path.
You've really got everything covered except maybe 6/8 time, which is really pretty easy. It's based on 6 beats in a measure with the eighth note getting one beat, but at faster tempos it feels like 2 beats in a measure (each beat feeling like a triplet, or a group of 3).

Some people have fits with ties, but I believe this is totally unnecessary if you think the tied notes individually and simply don't articulate the second (tied) note. If there is any question, play the passage without the ties and then count exactly the same way with the ties (but don't articulate/pick the tied notes). In other words, don't do any math (addition): two tied eighth notes do add up to a quarter note, but continue to think of them (and count them) as two eighth notes.
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