GUITAR 41Guitar

Section 200, 500/ 0.5 Semester hours Lon Young, M.A. Copyright 2012 Brigham Young University. All rights reserved. Published by the Department of Independent Study Division of Continuing Education Brigham Young University 120 MORC Provo, Utah 84602-1514 USA

Introduction to this Lessons Packet

Thank you for purchasing the lesson packet for GUITR 41: Guitar. Included in this packet, you should have received these items: this introductory letter a copy of the readings from each lesson (the pages following this letter)

Begin your online course by reading the syllabus; it contains the information you need to successfully complete the course. As you begin, you will notice that each lesson includes a brief introduction, learning outcomes for the lesson, and lesson reading material. The reading material for each lesson is included in this packet, as well as in the online course. The lessons also have Speedback assignments and Self Check exercises associated with them, as well as instructor-graded played assignments; these are available only through the online course. This packet is designed to give you the best experience for reading the detailed lesson content and taking notes. To complete the course, you will need access to the online assignments and exams. Best wishes for your success in this course!

GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

Table of Contents
Lesson 1: About the Guitar...............................................................6
1.1: Guitar Parts...................................................................................7 1.2: Types of Guitars. .......................................................................... 8 1.3: Guitar Care.................................................................................10 1.4: Guitar Hold................................................................................. 12 1.5: Tuning.........................................................................................14 Lesson 1 Portfolio Assignment. ......................................................... 17

Lesson 2: Reading Music................................................................19

2.1: Pitches. ....................................................................................... 20 2.2: Beat, Measures, and Time Signatures.......................................23 2.3: Rhythmic Notes and Rests. ........................................................25

Lesson 3: Playing Notes..................................................................30

3.1: Strings 13.................................................................................. 31 3.2: Strings 46.................................................................................36 3.3: Arranging Music. ........................................................................39 Lesson 3 Portfolio Assignment.........................................................43

Lesson 4: Key Signatures and Accidentals. ...................................44

4.1: Accidentals. .................................................................................45 4.2: Key Signatures...........................................................................47 4.3: Performing with Accidentals.................................................... 48 Lesson 4 Portfolio Assignment......................................................... 51 Audio Portfolio 1 Assignment Instructions......................................52

Lesson 5: Chords and Strumming..................................................53

5.1: Chord Charts. ..............................................................................54 5.2: Basic Rhythm Patterns. ..............................................................57 5.3: Lead Sheets............................................................................... 60 Lesson 5 Portfolio Assignment........................................................ 66

Lesson 6: More Chords and Fingerpicking....................................67

6.1: New Chords............................................................................... 68 6.2: Fingerpicking Patterns..............................................................70

Table of Contents

6.3: More Songs. ................................................................................75 Lesson 6 Portfolio Assignment.........................................................79

Lesson 7: Songwriting.....................................................................81
7.1: Lyrics.......................................................................................... 82 7.2: Chord Progressions and Melodies............................................ 84 7.3: Accompaniment........................................................................ 86 Lesson 7 Portfolio Assignment........................................................ 88 Audio Portfolio 2 Assignment Instructions..................................... 89

Lesson 8: Guitar Tablature..............................................................90

8.1: Symbols......................................................................................91 8.2: Performing Tablature............................................................... 92 8.3: Online Tablature Resources......................................................95

Lesson 9: Styles and Influential Players........................................98

9.1: Lead Guitar................................................................................ 99 9.2: Rhythm Guitar......................................................................... 101 9.3: Classical Guitar........................................................................105 9.4: Influential Guitarists. ..............................................................107

Final Exam Preparation. ............................................................... 112

Lesson 1

About the Guitar

KNOW YOURE ANXIOUS TO START RIPPING OUT SOME AMAZING STUFF ON

the guitarbut before we talk about playing the guitar, we should introduce the guitar itself. What do you call its parts? How do you hold it? How do you get it in tune? How do you take care of a guitar? These are all questions answered in this first lesson. Boring, I know sort of like getting a brand new car from your dad but having to sit through a lecture on auto mechanics and oil changes before you get to drive it! But be patient . . . I promise not to be quite as boring as your dadand youll be jamming before you know it.

Learning Outcomes
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Identify the main parts of a guitar. Distinguish between types of guitars. Properly care for your guitar. Hold your guitar comfortably. Tune each string to its correct pitch.

1.1: Guitar Parts

Identify the main parts of a guitar Before we begin talking about the guitar, it probably will be helpful to introduce its parts. Below, I briefly describe those parts and explain their function. Ive also labeled a guitar so you will know where to find those parts on your own guitar. CLICK on the label of each guitar part to view its description below.

1.2: Types of Guitars

Distinguish between types of guitars. Youve probably noticed that there are different kinds of guitarsone kind is strummed around the campfire by a folksinger, a second type is caressed by a classical musician in a concert hall, and a third design flashes like lightning in the demon-fast hands of a Heavy Metal shredder. Lets compare three major guitar designs.

Acoustic Steel String Guitars

Acoustic guitars are characterized by the hollow body and round hole that amplify and project the sound of the vibrating strings. Acoustic guitars may have nylon strings or steel strings. Of the two types, steel string guitars have a brighter, more metallic toneand tend to be louder than their nylon counterparts. Steel string guitars are especially well-suited choices for playing folk, blues, rock ballads, and country. They are ill suited, generally, for classical music, jazz, and rock soloing. When playing along with a loud rock group or for large crowds, acoustic guitars should be fitted with electronic pickups or played in front of a microphone. Listen to audio clip titled STEEL STRING

Acoustic Nylon String Guitars

Nylon string guitars, like their steel-stringed cousins, amplify sound through the resonating cavity of the hollow body. The nylon strings, which would have traditionally been made from animal gut, produce a mellow but vibrant sound, making them the favorite of classical guitarists. The wider fret board characteristic of these guitars facilitates the finger gymnastics of classical playing, too. Folk singers

sometimes prefer these guitars, and they also perform well in Latin popular styles. Nylon strings should never be replaced by steel strings, or vice versa. If youre unsure which kind of acoustic guitar you have, or think it may have been strung with the wrong kind of strings, compare its head and tuning key design to the illustrations in this section. Listen to audio clip titled NYLON STRING.

Electric Guitars
Electric guitars have become synonymous with rock and pop, but they also do well in urban blues and jazz. And even though most classical musicians would prefer that electric guitarists were legally banned from ever desecrating the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Albeniz by performing it on an axe (electric guitar), I have tried itand loved it! Not all electrics are designed the same, and some designs are more readily embraced by particular styles. In jazz playing, for instance, most musicians prefer a hollow or semihollow body. Of the principal solid-body electrics, most are copies of the ubiquitous Fender Stratocaster or the Gibson Les Paul; the merits of each style are equally compelling, and the best solution is to own one of each! Of course, owning an electric guitar requires owning an amplifier, since the guitar, in and of itself, produces a sound too faint for others to hear. Your parents asked me to point out your amplifiers most exciting feature: the headphone jack. Feel free to use it, especially after 10 p.m. Listen to audio clip titled ELECTRIC GUITAR

1.3: Guitar Care

Properly care for your guitar.

Caring for Your Guitar

As instruments go, guitars are among the least fragile, but they can still be damaged. A few tips should keep you jamming problem-free for years to come. A guitar case is an absolute must. The more expensive your guitar, the more expensive case you should have to protect your investment. A cheap case will be fine if you rarely transport your guitar and are keeping it in your bedroom. If you carry it back and forth to school or private lessons, or to friends homes, consider a soft padded gig-bag. They are convenient to carry and can be slung over the shoulders and worn like a backpack. If you intend to perform frequently, travel on airplanes and buses with the guitar, or want to ensure the absolute safety of a valuable guitar, get a hard-shell case with a lock. Only a hard shell case protects a guitar from crushing pressure and jarring blows. Acoustic guitars are often cracked as a result of suddenly changing humidity and extremes of temperature. Because theyre made of wood, acoustic guitars should be kept at consistent humidity levels. Music stores sell small humidifiers, which can be kept inside the case or in the actual body of the guitar. Less expensively, you could make your own humidifier with a sponge moistened with salty water (salt inhibits mold growth) and kept in an unsealed Ziploc bag in the case. (Make sure the damp sponge is not directly touching the guitar.) Guitars mustnt be exposed to sudden changes in temperature, such as might occur from bringing a guitar from the hot trunk to an air-conditioned room, or from a winter walk into a home next to the furnace or heat vent. Cracking and warping occurs as different sections of wood expand or contract at differing rates, producing stress. Strings wear out as they age, sometimes snapping and other times just sounding lifeless and dull. Replace strings about every six months

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Lesson 1: About the Guitar

to ensure the strings sound vibrant. You probably will need to watch someone stringing a guitar a few times before you try it yourself, but one word of advice when you finally try it: dont take off all the strings and then replace them. The sudden release of many pounds of pressure normally maintained by the strings could seriously damage the guitar. Replace each string one at a time, so at any given moment there are five strings still on the guitar.

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1.4: Guitar Hold

Holding the Guitar

Hold your guitar comfortably.

The pictures below show the differences in holding the three kinds of guitars. From left to right, they are a steel string, a nylon string, and an electric. Notice the classical guitar rests on the left leg (which is propped up slightly by a foot stool), but other guitars rest on the right leg when sitting. Standing up requires a guitar strapand the wider the strap is, the more comfortable youll be. Some left-handed people think that they should hold the guitar backwardsthey shouldnt! Each hand of a guitarist has an equally challenging responsibility, and switching doesnt make it any easierin fact, the complications of playing backwards only ensures frustration (unless, of course, youre Jimi Hendrix!).

Fig. 1.5. How to hold a steel string acoustic guitar, a nylon string acoustic guitar, and an electric guitar.

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Lesson 1: About the Guitar

Left Hand
The left hand is in charge of forming chords and fingering notes. Keep the fingers arched and curved. The thumb presses against the neck opposite the fingers. Dont collapse the wrist against the neck. Fingertips are placed just behind the fret wire and pressed down hard enough to produce a clear sound when the string is plucked. Fig. 1.6. Left hand By the way, if your left hand fingernails arent clipped short, your fingertips wont be able to press directly down into the fret boardso keep them neatly trimmed.

Right Hand
The right hand is responsible for strumming and plucking. In general, the hand is placed over the sound hole (figure 1.7, left). Plucking and strumming will be explained in later chapters, but take a close look at how the fingernails grip under the strings when plucking (a good reason to allow the right hands nails to grow out a little). Also, notice how to hold a pick (figure 1.7, right).

Fig. 1.7. Right hand, plucking and picking

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1.5: Tuning

Tune each string to its correct pitch. Each guitar string needs to be at a particular tension or tautness to produce a particular pitch. That tension changes over time as the guitar is played, subjected to temperature changes, and is knocked around. Dont assume that your guitar is in tuneit probably isnt. Guitars that are out of tune, even slightly, will sound awfuldiscordant and soureven if the performer is playing all the right notes. Its critically important that the guitar be tuned before it is played. The trouble is, tuning is one of the skills most frustrating for young players. It isnt that the process itself is hard, its that the ability to discern whether or not a string is or isnt in tune is hard, very hard, at first. If you know a violinist or cellist, ask them for help (because they become experts at tuning strings accurately and quickly). If a properly tuned guitar werent so important to your success in this course, Id save this skill for last. There are three main systems for tuning guitars; each works, and mastering them may someday come in handy. Each system requires you to understand the general mechanics of tuning: tightening a string makes it sound higher; loosening a string makes the pitch sound lower. The tuning keys are just screws that wind the string tighter or unwind the string looser, and if you follow any string up past the nut it will lead you to its corresponding tuning key (sometimes called a tuning peg). To follow the steps of tuning, youll need to know some terms. The first string is the string nearest your lap and is the skinniest. The sixth string is the thickest and farthest from your lap. Frets are the steel wires half imbedded in the fret board and spaced about every inch or so. The fifth fret is the fifth wire from the nut.

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Lesson 1: About the Guitar

Tuning with an Electronic Guitar Tuner

For twenty to forty dollars you can purchase an electronic guitar tuner. They come with directions, but a store clerk would be happy to demonstrate how particular brands work. Most use a needle or LCD display to indicate if the string is too low sounding (sometimes referred to as flat) or too high (sharp). Turn the tuning key in small increments, pluck the string, and check the electronic tuner. If its getting closer, keep turning in the same direction until its perfect; if its getting worse, turn the tuning knob in the opposite direction until its right. Electronic tuners are very accurate, convenient, and quick. That is, once youre familiar with using them. Note to Electric Guitarists: Most have inputs for electric guitar cordsif you have an electric guitar, take your cord and run it from your electric (guitar) to the input jack of the tuner (no need to run it through an amp first) and turn up the volume knob on your guitar. With the (electric guitar) cord in the input jack, the tuner can perfectly hear your strings even in the noisiest settings.

Relative Tuning
Listen to track 4, titled RELATIVE TUNING. To tune your guitar without a tuner, or to get the strings approximately tuned before fine-tuning with an electronic tuner, try relative tuning. Relative tuning is so called because the strings are tuned by their relationship to each othereven though the strings might not actually be the correct pitches (E-A-D-G-B-E). What matters is that they be perfectly tuned relative to each other. 1. Assume the sixth string is already in tune (its the least likely to have gone out of tune). 2. Make the open fifth string match the sixth strings fifth fret. Do this by plucking the open fifth string and comparing it to the sixth strings fifth fret. Adjust the fifth string until it matches. 3. Make the open fourth string match the fifth strings fifth fret. Do this by plucking the open fourth string and comparing it to the fifth strings fifth fret. Adjust the fourth string until it matches. 4. Make the open third string match the fourth strings fifth fret. Do this by plucking the open third string and comparing it to the fourth strings fifth fret. Adjust the third string until it matches.

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

5. Make the open second string match the third strings fourth fret. Do this by plucking the open second string and comparing it to the third strings fourth fret. Adjust the second string until it matches. 6. Make the open first string match the second strings fifth fret. Do this by plucking the open first string and comparing it to the second strings fifth fret. Adjust the first string until it matches.

Tuning to a Pitch Source

Listen to audio clip titled TUNING TO A PITCH SOURCE. If you have a source that can produce the six pitches of a guitar, you can match your guitars strings to the reliable source. These might be a pitch pipe, piano, or audio sample. For your convenience, I have included an audio track on this courses CD that gives the six pitches youll need, in order from lowest (string 6) to highest (string 1). Listen closely to each pitch and adjust the appropriate tuning key until your string matches the one on the CD.

Summary
There, that wasnt so bad, was it? Youve got a good foundation now for learning how to play. You know the parts of the guitar and how to hold it correctly. You know the steps to tuning your guitar and will get better and better at it as we go along. You know how to keep your guitar from cracking or splitting. And you recognize the different kinds of guitars: acoustic steel string, nylon string, and electric. Time to dive ahead with the next lesson. Youll learn how to read music symbolsnotes and rhythms. Best wishes!

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Lesson 1 Portfolio Assignment

Audio Portfolio #1 Introduction to Audio Portfolios
Submitting an audiocassette lets you demonstrate the progress you make as a guitarist. It also gives me the opportunity to offer helpful feedback on your skills. Ideally, wed be sitting across from each other and I could make instant suggestionsor even demonstrate something on my own guitar for you. But this is the next best thing! Dont be nervous. Im expecting you to sound like a beginnerafter all, this is a beginners course. Ill be pleased with the progress youre making. When you feel well prepared, record the following parts. Youre welcome to make as many takes as you needjust erase over what you dont like and try again as many times as youd likeeven professionals do that. I want this to represent your best work, something youll be proud of. By the way, some students have recorded themselves on video. Thats great, too. Watching your technique might give me some insights into your playing, and youll end up with even better feedback. The following audio/video files will be the only acceptable files for your portfolio: .WAV files .MOV files .WMF files .MP3 files .MP4 files Links to online websites where you have uploaded your audio.

If you submit your portfolio in another format, it will not be accepted.

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

Part 1: Introduction
Before speaking, make sure that the tape is cued a few seconds beyond the beginning, then just casually talk into the tape recorder. Tell me your name and grade in school. Then Id like to get to know you better. What interested you in the guitar? What are your goals? Do you play other instruments? What are your hobbies and interests? (2 points)

Part 2: Tuning
Next, Id like you to demonstrate for me that you know how to tune your guitar. Using the relative tuning approach, record the process of tuning, from start to finish. Assume the sixth string is in tune and compare its fifth fret to the open fifth string. Tighten or loosen the tuners as necessary to match the pitch perfectly. Repeat the process with the other strings as detailed in this lesson. Then, when you have finished tuning the guitar, pluck each open string one at a time, starting with the sixth. Each accurately tuned string is worth 3 points. (18 points) Remember: Do not submit any assignment until you have completed all of the assignments for the portfolio!

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Lesson 2

Reading Music

OURE EXCITED TO BUST OUT THAT GUITAR AND START JAMMING, ARENT

you? Go ahead. Hang out with friends who play and have them show you some cool stuff and start rocking out. Eventually, though, youll want to learn how to read music. Why? Two reasons: First, even though your guitar-playing buddies are totally awesome, and know lots of neat stuff, they dont know every song in the world. Second, most of the other great guitarists out there are either too busy or too dead to personally show you how to play their stuff. View the video clip titled JAM SESSION. Knowing how to read music opens up a world of songs for you; youre not stuck knowing only what your friends know. You can read the solos in guitar magazines or play new songs youve never heard. You can even write down something youve composed, in a way that can be read and played by musicians from anywhere on the planet, long after youve climbed your stairway to heaven.

Learning Outcomes
1. Identify pitches written on the music staff. 2. Identify beat, measures, and time signatures. 3. Interpret rhythmic notes and rests and perform them by clapping.

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2.1: Pitches

Identify pitches written on the music staff.

The Musical Staff

Music has been around thousands of years before anyone had created a written system for recording it. Think of why that would be, for a minute. Since music has nothing to do with our eyesits all about our sense of hearingwhy convert it into a form your ears cant even enjoy? And how would you, anyway? Someone eventually decided that high pitches could be represented on paper as high marks, and low pitches could be drawn as lower marks. In that early system for converting music into symbols, the first part of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star would have looked like figure 2-1. This method of notation (how we write music on paper) works well when you already know the song and just need to be reminded how the tune goes, but its not accurate enough for songs weve never heard. The problem is, we cant tell from these notes exactly how high or low a note should sound. Thats why staves were invented. A staff (one staff, two staves) is a set of five linesand the spaces between themupon which music is written (see figure 2-2). With a staff, high notes are still drawn high, and low notes are drawn low, but now they can be drawn precisely on the line or space

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Lesson 2: Reading Music

representing their pitch. We dont have to guess how high or low a note sounds because if its on a specific line or space, its a specific pitch. Our song Twinkle on a musical staff looks like figure 2-3.

If a note is too high or low to fit on the five lines of the staff, we just mark out enough lines above or below the staff to make it work. Those extra lines are called ledger lines, and they come in handy for flute players, who play extra high notes (as in figure 2-4) and guitarists, who can play very high notes and low notes (as in figure 2-5).

If notes are so low that it would take zillions of ledger lines, we use a bass clef (see figure 2-6) instead of the treble clef youve been seeing in the examples so far. The bass clef changes the lines of the staff so they represent low notes. But guitar notes dont go that low, so we stick to the treble clef, like the one in figure 2-7.

Figure 2-6 Bass clef

Figure 2-7 Treble clef

Pitches
Pitches (or sounds of specific frequency) are assigned the names of the first seven letters of the alphabet, A B C D E F G. The same seven pitches are repeated in other octaves and are called by the same letters. You remember that the staff was invented so we could easily tell one pitch

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

from another, so lets take a look at where these notes are positioned on the staff. Starting from the second space on the staff (from the bottom), we have the pitch A (see figure 2-8). Ascending pitches advance through letters of the alphabet until arriving at the pitch which is exactly twice as high sounding as the A with which we began; and so were back at A, and we could keep ascending until we arrive at another, even higher A. Listen to audio clip titled ASCENDING NOTES

What about lower notes? If we start on our same A in the second space (see figure 2-9) and descended, we would go backwards through the alphabet, starting on G. When we get to the lower A, the next lower note would be G, and the backward alphabet would continue with each lower note. Listen to audio clip titled DESCENDING NOTES.

With figures 2-8 and 2-9, youve been introduced to each of the notes typically played on the guitar. For your convenience Ive included each of these notes below (see figure 2-10) in random order so you can quiz yourself on their names. At first you will need to refer to the figures above, but with practice you should be able to name each note without any help.

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2.2: Beat, Measures, and Time Signatures

Identify beat, measures, and time signatures As you have probably noticed, music is organized into beats, or pulses. When you find yourself tapping your foot along with the radio, youre sensing the musics beat. When we write music down, we group those beats into the patterns created by their strong and weak beats. If a song follows the pattern Strong-Weak-Weak, then we say it has three beats per measure (or the space in which we group beats, separated by vertical lines), and the strongest beat is expected to land on the first beat of each measure. If a song follows the pattern Strong-Weak-Weak-Weak, then we say it has four beats per measure, and the strongest beat is expected to land on the first beat of each measure. Before we play a song, its helpful to know how many beats are in each measure. Thats why composers draw a time signature at the beginning of written music. The most common time signatures are shown below, in figure 2-11, with explanations. Listen to audio clip titled TIME SIGNATURES 3/4, 4/4, 6/8.

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

So youve figured out that the top number of a time signature informs the reader to expect a certain number of beats in each measure, but what about that bottom number? Its job is to let us know what kind of note gets the beat. In other words, the top number answers the question how many, and the bottom number reveals how many of what. In the first example above, 3/4, the number 4 represents quarter notes. In the third example, 6/8, the number 8 stands for eighth notesand as you can see, there arent six quarter notes in the example, but six eighth notes. Well talk more about quarter notes and eighth notes in the next section. After you finish learning about them, come back to this section and see if time signatures make more sense.

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2.3: Rhythmic Notes and Rests

Interpret rhythmic notes and rests and perform them by clapping. In the last section we talked about time signatures and how they tell us about the beat. Now well talk about rhythm. Rhythm refers to the patterns formed by sounds and silences of various lengths. For instance, Beethovens Fifth Symphony opens with one of the most memorable rhythms in all of music: dit dit dit DAAAAAH . . . dit dit dit DAAAAAH. This strong musical idea is simply composed of three short notes followed by a very long note, and a slight pause precedes the repeating rhythm, which thunders back in lower pitches. How is rhythm different from beat? The beat is the steady pattern to which we could tap our foot; it is the underlying pulse of the music that is felt and perceived in the more flexible and changing patterns of rhythms. The best way to experience this for yourself is to pop a CD into your sound system, crank up your favorite song full blast (hey, just tell your parents its for an assignment) and feel the underlying beat. Can you sense the steady beat even during long notes that may last four beats, or during quick flurries of notes where four or eight notes take up only one beat? You may find that some of your favorite songs rely on an exciting interplay between beat and rhythm; in other words, theyre groovy, dude! Lets learn the symbols that represent long and short notes, as well as the symbols that represent the sound of silence. Listen to audio clip titled WHOLE NOTE.

Figure 2-12 shows a whole note, which lasts four beats. We call them whole notes because they usually take up the whole measure. Whole notes are always hollow, like a bagel, and dont have a stem attached to them. By

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

the way, it doesnt matter what line or space these rhythms occur on; their shape, not their position on the staff, determines their rhythmic value. Listen to audio clip titled HALF NOTES.

Figure 2-13 shows two half notes, each of which lasts two beats. We call them half notes because, usually, they each take up half the measure. Half notes are hollow, like whole notes, but they have a stem attached, which may point up or down. Listen to audio clip titled QUARTER NOTES.

Figure 2-14 shows quarter notes, each of which lasts one beat. We call them quarter notes because, usually, they each take up a quarter of the measure. Quarter notes have solid heads and a stem attached, which may point up or down. Listen to audio clip titled EIGHTH NOTES.

Figure 2-15 shows eighth notes, each of which lasts half of a beat. It takes two of them to equal one count. We call them eighth notes because, usually, they each take up an eighth of a measure. Eighth notes have solid heads and a stem attached, and a single flag hangs from the stem. When two or more eighth notes are connected, a single beam joins their stems. This example demonstrates both individual and joined notes. Listen to audio clip titled SIXTEENTH NOTES.

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Lesson 2: Reading Music

Figure 2-16 shows sixteenth notes, each of which lasts a quarter of a beat. It takes four of them to equal one count. We call them sixteenth notes because, usually, they each take up a sixteenth of a measure. Sixteenth notes have solid heads and a stem attached, and a double flag hangs from the stem. When two or more sixteenth notes are connected, a double beam joins their stems. This example demonstrates both individual and joined notes. Listen to audio clip titled DOTTED RHYTHMS.

Figure 2-17 shows dotted notes. Adding a dot after a note increases its value to one and a half of the normal value. A half note (two counts) becomes a dotted half note (two counts plus one more count) and lasts three beats. A quarter note (one count) becomes a dotted quarter (one count plus half a count) and lasts one and a half beats. The example above shows how these dotted rhythms might typically look in a measure of music, with other rhythms included to add up to the correct number of beats to fill a measure.

Rests
Weve looked at note rhythms, which are symbols expressing how long sounds should last. But what about silence? Since music is the organization of sound and silence, we need a way to express that silence. We refer to these silences as rests. Each rhythmic value weve learned has a corresponding rest. Remember that the beat (imagined pulse) continues even during the silences in music, so make sure your foot is tapping during rests, too. Below (figure 2-18) are the rests well be using in music. They are whole rests, half rests, quarter rests, eighth rests, and sixteenth rests. Dots can also be applied to rests, but its not commonly done.

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GUITR 41: Beginning Guitar

Does your brain hurt yet? I know there are a lot of note rhythms and rests to remember, so well work through a few simple exercises (see the figure on the following page) to let things sink in. For each exercise you should tap your foot to a steady beat while clapping the rhythms. If its hard for you to tap your foot while clapping a different rhythm with your hands, dont give up. Its important your body develops the coordination before you try this with a guitar. Best wishes on these exercisesthink of them as a workout for getting your music muscles pumped up and ready for guitar playing. Listen to audio clip titled RHYTHM EXERCISES 110.

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Lesson 2: Reading Music

Summary
Just think, using the very rhythms and notes weve learned in this lesson, Bach wrote stuff that still gives me goose bumps, 250 years after he stopped composing (and started decomposing). Your creations can become permanent, too. And even though getting the hang of music notation is going to take consistent practice and effort, youll enjoy the freedom you gain through mastering this new language.

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