Doctor Freckles asked:


*I have two electric guitars and a small amp that used to belong to my brother. Both of the guitars are missing strings, the black one it’s biggest string and the red(and black) one it’s smallest string (I don’t know the proper names of the strings). I don’t have any spare strings, I don’t know how to get new ones (yes, I have been to music store before when my brother used to play to buy strings, I just always got confused at all the different sizes and names and types, I would have no idea WHAT to buy) and I have no clue how to restring a guitar.

*I also don’t have a guitar tuner, so they are often out of tune. I do get the opportunity to retune them every once in a while, and do so every chance I get.

*I practice evey day, although for me that means listening to music as I practice to make sure I am playing the correct notes up to speed.

*I have a guitar pick, but I prefer to play without it. I mostly used it when I was just starting, and my fingers often got huge bubbly blister and hurt to much to play with. Now that my fingers are calloused I usually don’t use it.

*What I mainly want is to learn how to read music. My brother said I should learn tab, (what he started to learn), but I’d rather learn to read music properly.

My main problem is that I have no means of learning. I have pretty much infinite opportunity to play, having two electric guitars at my moms house and an electric and acoustic (missing a string) at my dads. I just am not able to be taught WHAT or HOW to play. No one in my family has any experience (except my brother) who stopped years ago and has now forgotten absolutely everything he learned.

I can’t afford lessons, and I don’t work well with books, (though I suppose I can use one when I have to). Also, I can’t take guitar at my school. I’ve tried to use YouTube videos (because people post lessons on there all the time) but they usually expect me to know certain things already, or don’t explain what I want to know.

I am a quick learner (when it comes to music), I have quick fingers (from playing piano), and I can play by ear (play a song just by listing to it once, usually), and I can sight read fairly well on the other instruments I play (perfectly on clarinet, fairly well on alto sax, and I’m improving on piano). So I am always getting better at guitar. My family doesn’t understand that even though I’m getting better, I’m only figuring out how to use the instrument really. Without a teacher, I can’t actually learn how to get good at it, or anything other than operating it. Like how to read music, among other things. The same thing happened when I learned piano, after I certain point I stopped making progress. I still practice and don’t degress, like my brother did with guitar, but I just can’t make progress anymore (with a half size keyboard without petals and absolutely ZERO touch sensitivity.

There is no way to convince my family I need lessons. Please just try to help me figure out what to do. I don’t want to learn how to play by ear at first without learning to read music. I did that with piano and screwed myself from th start. I had to unteach myself everything (a hard enough thing to do as is) and then reteach myself from square one. I want to learn properly this time!!!

SORRY MY QUESTION IS SO DARNED LONG. PLEASE READ IT OVER AND ANSWER.

(To make it a bit shorter for you, I put *’s beside the more important paragraphs. Also most of the stuff in brackets is unimportant. It’s just me going on about myself.)

Learning to Sight Read Music