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Learn to Read Music Notes on Guitar
- Covers notes from drop D to high B.
- Four levels of difficulty.
- A great way to expand your playing!
How do you make the fundamentals of learning guitar fun? As it first appears because of the cartoon format one may say "looks fun for kids". The truth is all of us have kid in us. So don't let the light hearted humor and colorful animation fool you. Behind this light heartedness is an amazing collection of very effective teaching tools. -Peter Pupping
Professor of music & recording artist
Note Squish is a game designed to help guitarists to read music better. It does this by creating a strong connection between the name of the note and its location on the staff. It will help you learn music notes, which will help you to learn the guitar notes and play music better!
Notation
The Names of the notes are easy to learn. First notice the big fancy clef on the left hand side of the music. That is the treble or "g" clef. It was originally the letter "g" but it got so fancy it became its own symbol. Notice how it makes a cross hair with the line second to the bottom? Surprise that is the note "g". Once you know that you can figure any other note out. No really you can. How? Well its all alphabetical go up one spot (from a line to a space or a space to a line) or down one spot and you simply move one spot in the alphabet. So what is one lower than "g" in the alphabet? (Please tell me you are not singing the alphabet song right now.) That's right "f". And what is one higher than "g"? Wrong, it's "a". Huh? Well, that is because there is no "h" in music (except in Germany, but I digress). So instead of going to "h" it goes back to the beginning. Easy as pie.
Want an easy way to remember the names on the staff? The notes on the lines are "E G B D F" which can be remembered with the old "Every Good Boy Does Fine". The notes on the spaces are "F A C E" which spells the word face. For notes that don't fit on the staff you are out of luck, no cool tricks. Did I mention they were alphabetical, that ought to help. see below.
The Game
There are two parts of the screen to focus on. First, notice the staff at the top of the screen:
On the staff is a note whose name you need to figure out. Once you have figured it out move the mallet (using the mouse) over a mole who has the name of the note above his head. Click the mouse and "Blam" you got him.
Be careful if you click on the wrong mole you will lose points and he will ridicule you (not very nice). The game starts by giving you 30 seconds. For every correct answer you get 2 more seconds and for every incorrect answer you lose 2 seconds. The time remaining is shown at the bottom of the screen:
Settings
The settings page allows you to make the game harder or easier. You can choose to work on the notes below the staff, above the staff, or way above the and below the staff, which is perfect for learning the notes on guitar.
Enjoy!
