On Learning to Reading Tablature

Subject: please help
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:29:03 -0700

Hello. I have never played an instrament before in my life. I've always loved music and my boyfriend just bought me a Breedlove Quartz KF. My problem is I am having a hard time trying to read and understand tablature, even off your site. Is there anything you can help me with? I just have never read music before and I don't know all the cords for a mandolin. Please write back.
Thanks
Chrissi Baumgartner

Greetings Chrissi,

Wow! You have a wonderful mandolin...the Quartz KF is a superb mando and quite versatile.

To learn to read tablature and sheet music, you can only take it from peg one. Understanding music fundamentals needs to come first...this is a process similar to learning a new language. You'll want to start with the alphabet and basic words before attempting to write entire sentences...to accomplish this step 1 to step 2 learning process, while learning music theory and learning to read tablature, you'll want to purchase some basic music theory books. Read them, study them, absorb them in every way possible, from the first page to the last. Upon learning the basics of meter, time signatures, key structures, etc., you'll be better prepared to learn to read tablature and standard notation. The nicest thing about learning music fundamentals is that it remains static across the board; in other words, most every instrument you might want to learn will have the same fundamental basis. By learning music theory, you will gain a lot of ground that cannot be accomplished simply by learning to play your instrument/s of chioce alone.

Hope this helps, Mickey