Reading primer
This page adds rhythm, lead-sheet letters, and the staff on top of tablature. Symbols and grid rules live on Foundations · Tablatures — How to read tabs. Interactive staff lessons with the guitar drawn on the page are Sight Reading Practice. Durations are named on Western theory · Note values; you strum them on Strumming. First-position seats also sit on Classical · C ladder.
From tablature to this page
Full tablature reference — grid, symbol list (h, p, slides, bends, harmonics, pick direction), worked example, and open-string drills — stays on Foundations · Tablatures — How to read tabs. Come back here when you can read where on the neck and want how long, chord letters above a line, and staff pitch at the end of the book.
Rhythm reading cards
You already read where from TAB. Clap, or play open G (one pitch, so the job is duration). Count out loud. The names are on Western theory · Note values.
A rest is silence of that length — keep counting. Beams on eighths show the beat. Stem rule still applies; here every attack is the same open G.
Chord symbols above the staff
Lead sheets put chord letters above the melody staff. This room usually prints the letters and TAB without a melody (no copyrighted tunes). The idea is the same: play the harmony from the letters while someone else has the notes — or while you strum and sing.
G C D G e|--3-----------------0-----------------2-----------------3-- B|--0-----------------1-----------------3-----------------0-- G|--0-----------------0-----------------2-----------------0-- D|--0-----------------2-----------------0-----------------0-- A|--2-----------------3-----------------x-----------------2-- E|--3-----------------x-----------------x-----------------3--
The staff would hold a melody we do not print. You own the letters. Same G–C–D map as Play along.
Staff reading
Guitar music is written in Treble Clef, but because of the instrument's register, guitar is a transposing instrument: it sounds one octave lower than written. For example, written G on line 2 sounds as your open G string; written Middle C sounds as fret 3 on the A string.
G on the second line (written). Play sounds the open G string — an octave below the written pitch.
Combining Tab and Staff — First-position notes
First position means every note sits in frets 0–4 with one finger per fret (index 1, middle 2, ring 3, pinky 4) and your hand never slides up the neck. The drill below is the same pitch three ways: written on the staff (guitar sounds an octave lower than written), the full C ladder on TAB, and the neck under both. Press Play on a ladder; each step updates all three so you learn how method-book notation maps to your fingers.
Staff (written)
TAB · C major scale
Press Play. Staff, TAB, and neck move together.
Play C major scale follows the TAB left to right — staff and neck step together. Play all first position naturals swaps TAB, staff, and neck to the full low-string-to-high walk (every natural in frets 0–4). On guitar, written staff pitch is an octave above sound; use TAB and the neck for where to press, and the staff for what the book prints.