A big part of what we’re trying to do with these reading lessons is get better at recognizing things we see on the page, and to do it quickly. There is a ton of info in each bar, but a lot of it is the same info. There are only 12 notes, lots of guitar songs are played in the same keys and use the same chords, etc. Remind yourself that you’ve seen most of this before and a new chart won’t seem so freaky.
Last time around we talked about key signatures—the sharps or flats at the beginning of a line that tell you what key a song is in. These are a huge time saver, because when you know what key you’re in, you can move to one of your comfy positions for that key and find your notes and chords much more easily. To do that, you need to be able to decipher the key signature. There are a lot of things that go into knowing what makes up a key signature: The sharps follow the cycle of fifths, the flats follow the cycle of fourths, etc. We’ll talk more about that later, but for now, here’s an excellent cheat: In sharp keys, your key is a half-step above your last sharp. If all you see is F#, go up a half-step and you’ll know you’re in the key of G. Two sharps, F# and C#, go up a half-step from your last sharp and bam! Key of D. A lot of guitar music is written in sharp keys, and we’re going to focus on those in this lesson. (Just so you know, though, your cheat for flat keys is look at your second-to-the-last