How to Read Music - Notation

Understanding Tempo, Bar Lines, and Time Signatures

We're now looking at tempo, bar lines, and time signatures.

Tempo

• Definition: The tempo is the speed of the song, measured in beats per minute (BPM).
• Examples:
  • A slow tempo would be slower beats.
  • A fast tempo would have beats coming by faster.

You can hear whether the music is coming faster or slower, and that's determined by the tempo.

Bar Lines

As we said earlier, we were looking at the tab and the stave, which is a long line. These are broken into sections by bar lines, as we saw earlier.

• Diagram:
  • The tab music and the stave run along in a line,
  • The bar lines come down, acting as a full stop at the end of a sentence.

Time Signatures

The time signature tells us how many beats are in a bar.

• Top Number: Specifies how many of the notes we have.

  • Example: In a 4/4 time signature, we have four beats: 1, 2, 3, 4.

• Bottom Number: Represents what type of beat it is. However, we will come onto that later.

You might hear a drummer count in with their sticks at the start of a song: 1, 2, 3, 4. This sets the tempo and the time signature of the piece.

Clef

Looking at some other elements when reading music, we've got the clef. This comes at the start of each line and indicates which set of notes we have on each string.

• For the guitar, we will only be reading the treble clef, which tells us which pitch we have on each line and in between each line.

Notes

We can find notes represented as dots on or between the lines. These dots tell us which pitch we need to play, indicating where on the guitar to find those notes.

Remembering the Notes

To remember what the dots are called, we use two phrases:

1. Lines: For notes with a line going through them, use the phrase:

   • "Every Good Boy Deserves Football."
   • This phrase corresponds to the five lines on the stave:
     • Bottom to top:
       • E (Every)
       • G (Good)
       • B (Boy)
       • D (Deserves)
       • F (Football)

2. Spaces: For pitches in between the lines, remember the word:

   • "FACE."
   • This has four letters, corresponding to the four spaces:
     • Bottom to top:
       • F, A, C, E.

Using these two examples, you'll be able to identify all the notes on the stave.

Applying to Guitar

You can try translating this onto your guitar by working with the tab to determine which note corresponds to which letter and what they're called.