#1 resource for Cigar Box Guitars, Free Plans, How-To, Parts & More!

Help - Still trying to figure out the notes and read music - open D tuning

I am still trying to figure out the notes on an open D, 4 string in relation to reading music scores.

Does the first D string note fall below the position shown on my chart?

Where is middle C on an open tuned 4 string CBG on the chart below?

So where do the high notes occur on a music score then or are the duplicates ?

If this was chromatic this would be sequential but as it's open tuning its surely not?

I'm not quite getting the translation to music score notes can anyone clarify?

0 members like this

Comment

Comment by BUGGY (C) on December 10, 2014 at 1:14am: Thanks I tried tuning my Cbg last nigth like a guitar
But in fairness it's sounded a bit off..
But I get the gist so will try this on a baritone Uke
as that should a treat..
Either that or I will go back to a 3 string
For less strings to get my head around note reading
Starts simple and build up from there...

Comment by BUGGY (C) on December 9, 2014 at 8:40pm: This link might be quite useful too

http://droolfactory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/cigar-box-guitar-open-g-...

Comment by BUGGY (C) on December 9, 2014 at 8:37pm: Useful chord chart:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/gdgb-basic-chords

Comment by BUGGY (C) on December 9, 2014 at 8:35pm: This was by ear and a bit of messin about..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsWd1TcGZ5A

The Chord chart below was off CBN might be handy

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on December 9, 2014 at 7:47pm: Don't beat yourself up too much, reading the staff down onto a guitar neck is very bloody difficult, no matter how you tune it.

It's a common experience to see a nine year old sight reading at the piano stool and start beating yourself up. Fact is the staff is designed for reading down onto a piano keyboard, that is around 1000x easier than reading it down onto a guitar neck, which is like six parallel piano keyboards with an offset between each and without the super nice benefit of squeezing all those pesky accidentals up top and out of the way :)

So there's no shame in not being able to do it at playing tempo or having to work/tab it out first, plenty of pros do that too...

Comment by Patrick Curley on December 9, 2014 at 7:30pm: Yeah but....the way that you learn to read is by reading, and along the way you learn new tunes to play as well. The two things go together. I guess if you haven't done a lot of fingerpicking and dive in to too difficult a piece you could struggle. So you find an easier one, that's the point, if you can read there's heaps of material out there.

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on December 9, 2014 at 7:17pm: I know the piece I played wasn't in an open tuning, but horses for courses, and I felt standard guitar or tenor banjo / uke tuning was the way to go for this sort of style.

I'm not wanting to put people off learning to read music, but I think it's too much to jump in and think you can learn to play a complicated rag and learn to read at the same time is simply too much to take on. I'd suggest by all means learn to read the dots, but that's going to be a fairly long term project, and like learning anything from scratch, you'll need to start slow and simple. Good luck with it.

Comment by Patrick Curley on December 9, 2014 at 7:06pm: Good Stuff Chickenbone. I do find being able to read is helpful though and it's while it may take a little time to start with it's worth the effort if you want to increase your repertoire, especially on a 3 or 4 string when there's so little in the way of resources available.

Next year will be my 40th as a guitar player, I've never stopped learning and I hope I never will. One of the things I've discovered is that your time is best spent working on stuff you don't know, not stuff you already do.