Odd struggle with reading music

[kibod67366]

I have no idea where to start, but I will try my best to describe this thing.

When I was really young, I was taught some music theory along with learning to play piano and some ancient accordeon that was unearthed by my grandma from depths of attic. So I was taught solfa but not musical alphabet for some reason. So now I can read sheet music and if given some time to practice - could play it on piano, maybe even accordeon. But I can't comprehend uhh.. music written in letters.

Now I'm 22, I've been trying to learn guitar since my teens and I still very much want to, but it's all just confusion and panic because I do understand familiar sounds but I don't understand much else. And taking lessons both irl and online just makes me more lost because WHY FAMILIAR SOUNDS BUT IN LETTERS WHERE ALL FUNKY LITTLE MARKS? I know this shouldn't be this hard, but I also don't understand how to solve this issue. And I struggle to memorize new set of sound names but now in form of letters.

(Also re-learning to play drums, but it is just so much easier because with drums everything seems to be different enough to not be as confusing as solfa vs. letters)

please help, I am not stupid, just very confused.

 

[Harry]

I won't be of much help, but I can surely identify with your problem. I too was given piano lessons for a number of years in childhood and can read music on the general staff system, used to play in church, etc.. Admittedly, it takes me time after years of rust, but I can still play each chord or run as written on music staves. Now, when it comes to guitar, I find that whole instrument and its music system of chord names to be total sorcerer's' magic. A piano keyboard is laid out so logically. Guitar strings? Not so much from my perspective...

 

[Rudy]

I think this comes with being regularly exposed to it. As the last couple of decades have been mainly playing by ear, I'm a little rusty at reading the treble clef and bass clef staves, but with enough practice I could hop right back into it.

I believe you're talking about guitar tabs. The advantage to guitar tabs (aka guitar notation) is that it can be written out to specify a given chord, but without having to write each note on a staff. Also, the interpretation by the individual player can mean that one person's C-major chord might be played (fingered) differently from another's, yet anyone hearing it will still hear that it is a C-major chord.

The disadvantage, though, is that some measure of music theory is needed to understand guitar notation. What is a diminished chord? What is an augmented chord? A major or minor ninth? A diminished 7th? Those chords, in essence, are a relationship between each note, and where they fall in the chord. Learning what these types of chords represent is half the battle.

The advantage to the guitar is that the way a chord is fingered is often the same regardless of what key it is in, so, moving up or down the fretboard can result in the same chord, but in a different key. A G-major and A-major chord might only be two frets apart, in other words.

I do have a nylon-string classical guitar and electric bass but have only taken to the bass for now, as it doesn't require chords, and all the strings are a fourth apart. (Same as the four bottom strings of a guitar.) And I should note also that I'm cursed with perfect pitch, so if I see the note on a staff, or see it written out (ex: B-flat), I hear in my head what pitch it is, know what it should sound like, and know (or learn) how to get that note on whatever I'm playing.

I think it will just take some time to get used to guitar tabs and how they work. It's not something that can be learned overnight.

 

[3Favorites]

Well, since you said letters, you might mean the chord designations above the staff. Like.....

C Am7 Dm7 G7

C means to play the major C triad or the notes CEG
Am7 would be a A minor 7th chord (ACEG)
Dm7 would be D minor 7th chord (DFAC)
G7 would be G major 7 (GBDF)

C+ (Caug) would be a C augmented chord (CEG+) You raise the 5th of the chord a half step)
Ddim would be a D diminished chord (DFA flat) . You lower the 3rd and the 5th of the major chord a half step each
C(add2) would be CDEG
Csus would CFG. You play the 4th instead of the 3rd.