ok, so I have a guitar and I'm just playing around familiarising myself with the chords and note positions. I can read music, although not particulalrly fluently yet, and I really want to stick with that rather than using tabs. The problem is, I don't know how to read chords in musical notation, as I've only played the clarinet up until now - can anyone recommend a good book, or preferably website that will show me how to read these?

Thanks!

Do you know the notes that make up the chords?

After that it's just about recognising them.
The trouble is the notes are not always neatly arranged (eg C E G from bass up) but can be in any order.

What sort of music books are you thinking of using?

Not sure really... the thing that's confusing me is how to follow the notes - sounds daft, but I assume for emaple if the music says to play C, E and A, I play the chord that uses those three notes. It's quite confusing when you're unused to playing more than one note at a time!! What I really need is a book that explains how chords work. (At this point, it may be quite obvious that I've never studied music theory! ) I have taught myself some theory and I find it quite logical and easy to learn (much easier than learning to play anyway).

Anyone recommend a good chord book?

A keyboard chord book might help.

The other thing is how well do you know your arpeggios on clarinet?
And did you realise that these are chords but with the notes played one after the other instead of together?

Ahhh.... did not know that, I haven't really come all that far in theory - that piece of info helps massively, thank you!

I thought it would have been easy to find this on the web, but it isn't.

As a suggestion: you don't want to resort to tab (and I agree with you), but being able to read basic chord diagrams would be a great help. The are loads of articles on how to read diagrams on the web and also lists tables of diagrams. You could try this site (www.guitarchordsmagic.com) and follow the links "how to read guitar chord charts" and "guitar chord charts" further down the page.

Then, as you can read music you can work out the notes in the basic chords from the charts and knowing where the open strings are on the stave. Write them in standard notation so that you begin to recognise which notes are in which chord. It's a sort-of diy instruction book.

I suggest you start with chords such as E, A, B7, D, G and so on rather than C and F. C doesn't sound good unless your guitar is exactly in tune and F sounds awful until your fingers are strong enough to hold the strings down. Don't mess around with strange shapes for chords such as Bb because it will be easier to play them when you can barre chords.

Hope this helps.

Teaching people chord guitar, I always used to start out with the D A E, C D and G collection felix suggests. Definitely avoid barring till you've built up some finger strength.

I'm not clear (this may just be me not reading properly!) whether you want ultimately to just understand chord structures, or whether you'd like to ultimately be able to play from music on the guitar?

Hi Sianie,

You might like to have a look at the following site:

www.8notes.com/theory

I haven't had a chance to have a detailed look at it (aside from the table of contents, which contains an introduction to major & minor chords which might be of use to you), but quite a few of my theory students say the site is very useful to them, so perhaps it is worth a look!

Thanks for the help guys - I have to admit, I've just got a cheapo guitar and not aiming to become particularly proficient - it just seems a shame to start relying on tab when I can already read music to an extent and it would make sense to develop that.

Thanks for the tip Nic, I'll check that website out!