[Fretsource]

Lesson 2 - 1st string notes E, F & G + timing

The next step is to place notes on the staff that can be read and played.
The first notes to learn are the three notes, E, F & G that appear on the first string on frets 0, 1 & 3. On the staff, these three notes appear as follows:

Fig 2-1: The first string notes E, F & G

Practise the following exercise until you are familiar with those three notes. Don’t worry about the duration of each note. We’ll come to that next. You can speed up the memorisation process for all the exercises in these lessons by naming aloud each note as you play it. Singing the notes is even better as it also trains you to hear in your head their relative pitch just by seeing their position on the staff. You can develop this skill to the extent that you can read and hear a complete piece of music in your head without using any instruments. The ultimate example of this skill comes from the composer, Beethoven, who in later years was profoundly deaf, yet managed to compose some of the world’s greatest choral and symphonic music.

Fig 2-2: Notes E F & G in random order

Timing and duration
So far we’ve dealt just with the pitch of notes, and seen how their pitch corresponds with the height of their position on the staff. An equally important element of notes is their duration. Different durations use different note symbols.
To be more precise, the durations are measured relative to each other, We don’t show the duration of notes in seconds or fractions of a second, we show them in relation to each other, as in one note might be twice as long as another, or twice as short. We show these relative durations by using different symbols for the different note lengths.
The one used in the above exercise is called a whole note. It equals two half notes, which equals four quarter notes, as shown below:

Fig 2-3 Whole note, half notes and quarter notes.

How can we know, when playing a note that it’s exactly twice as long or short as another? Simply, by following the beat. When notating a song, a songwriter chooses one of those note duration to make the beat equal to. For example, a quarter note may be chosen as the unit for one beat so a half note will automatically last for two beats and a whole note for four beats.

Stem direction
Note that the stems attached to the half notes and quarter notes point down. That’s because the notes are high up on the staff. Notes lower than the middle line have upward pointing stems. There is an exception to this rule which occurs when music is written in two parts such as a high melody being accompanied by a bass melody. In that case high melody notes are shown with upward pointing stems and bass melody notes with stems pointing down.

The time signature and measures
A time signature is two numbers stacked vertically at the beginning of written music. The bottom number tells us the note duration that the songwriter has chosen to equal one beat. There is no way to know this by listening, only by seeing the notation. The top number tells us how the beats are naturally grouped in the song. Most songs have a definite pattern of beats that can be easily heard. A waltz can be heard as one two three, one two three, constantly repeated, while many other songs are heard as one two three four, one two three four etc.
The music is divided by vertical lines, called bar lines into equal measures (or bars). The total duration of the notes in each measure must equal the top number of the time signature. Fig 2-4 shows a 'four four' time signature. That means a quarter note is fixed as being equal to the beat and every measure (or bar) contains four quarter beats.

Fig 2-4 Time signature

Listen

Tempo
The tempo or speed of the beat is often not indicated, but left to your discretion. When it is indicated, it can appear above the beginning of the staff as a number of beats per minute, or more generally, by terms (often Italian) such as moderato, (= moderate tempo) or fast, slow, etc.

Now practise the following reading exercise, which is exactly how notation appears in real music, i.e. with no beats or note names added. Reading exercises will form the main feature of all the lessons in this tutorial. Constant practice is the only way to advance.

Reading exercise 1

Listen

The time signature is four-four so every bar (or measure) has notes that add up to four quarter notes. There is no tempo indication, so play it 'slow to moderate' and keep strictly in time, even if you have to go slower than you'd like.