How To Read Music?

How to teach myself to read and write music?

• My biggest dream in life is to someday be in a rock band and tour the world and perform for people. I've wanted to do this for a long time, and I've thought about a backup plan for if my band doesn't work, I'll still have something to do, and I know people who can play other instruments to help me out. So I have a very positive outlook on my dream coming true. And even though I'm not sure rather I'm going to play guitar, I'm teaching myself how to plan anyways. I have learned alot of chords very quickly, and I've been working on learning a song, as well as how to do chord progression. It's gonna take time to learn, I know, but I'm just gonna keep working at it. Along side learning to play guitar, I write song lyrics all the time.I probably have over 40 song lyrics wrote and as I write them, I sing them in my head and figure out what tune I want it to be in. Sometimes I can also place parts where music should stop and the singing should still be, or good times in the song for guitar solos. But I don't know how to write my own music or even read music, and I'm sure it's a very necessary thing for being a guitar player, as well as being in a band. And right now, there's one set of song lyrics that I wrote that I really wanna figure out how to put some acoustic guitar to. How can I go about teaching myself? Please, I need help!

• Answer:

  I'm a long time teacher and musician. Reading is not that hard and here's a good place to start. http://datadragon.com/education/reading/ Start with treble clef reading. Learning guitar tab is a good idea in your case and learn what major/minor/diminished/seventh chords really mean. Don't be daunted, because all the info you need is on the net. A few lessons wouldn't hurt, either, by the way. Teachers can save you a lot of time and effort.