Guitar sheet music

Notation, tab, or both

Standard notation shows pitch and rhythm on a staff; guitar editions may add string and fingering indications. Tablature maps notes to strings and frets. Some tab includes rhythmic notation, while simpler formats rely on a recording or an accompanying staff. Notation plus tab presents the two together. Check the sample for the information you need.

A chord chart or lead sheet is neither: it gives lyrics with chord names above, and assumes you know the shapes and can invent a strumming pattern. It is the cheapest format and the least prescriptive. If you want to play a song at a campfire, that is the right purchase. If you want to play the recorded arrangement note for note, you need tab.

Classical guitar has different conventions

Classical editions notate on a single treble staff sounding an octave lower than written, with right-hand fingering marked p, i, m and a, left-hand fingers numbered 1 to 4, and strings circled. Position markers appear as Roman numerals. None of this appears in popular tab editions, and an edition that omits fingering entirely is a scholarly one rather than a cheap one.

The core repertoire — Sor, Giuliani, Carcassi, Tárrega, Villa-Lobos, and the Bach lute suites in transcription — is largely out of copyright, so free editions exist for much of it. The catch is that transcriptions differ significantly between editors, and a good modern edition of a Bach transcription is doing real interpretive work that a free scan may not.

Tunings and capo positions

Popular guitar arrangements frequently assume something other than standard tuning. Drop D, DADGAD, open G and half-step-down tunings all appear regularly, and an arrangement will be unplayable as written if you miss the note. Capo position is the same problem in reverse: many published arrangements place a capo to make the original key playable with open shapes, which changes every fingering on the page.

Both are usually stated at the top of the first page rather than in the shop listing, so it is worth checking the preview before buying if you have a strong preference.