Introduction
After posting some videos of mine, I have received some questions about how to read music notation, so I thought it might be useful if I wrote a short primer on the subject. Indeed, from what I’ve seen on the Hangout, most banjoists are either completely allergic to music, or very knowledgeable about music theory, but there aren’t many “casual” readers out there.
So let’s start out with the good news: reading banjo music written in notation can be a lot easier than you think. Don’t fret (no pun intended) if you’ve struggled with it all your life, if you just “don’t get” the dots, or if you think it requires years of hard study -- it doesn't have to.
Literally hundreds of thousands of banjoists have been reading music in the past two hundred years, and only a handful were geniuses. So, how did they do it? Well…
...editors have always had an interest in selling their product, and music is no exception; therefore, they have often strived to make music as accessible as possible to their potential customers in order to increase their target demographic. In order to sell music which could be read by people with even modest music reading skills, editors developed a system for notating banjo music which contains all the information you need at a glance.
So let's begin by debunking some stereotypes: music notation is not "poorly suited" to the banjo, nor is it ridiculously difficult to read. By the time you’re done reading this thread, you will be able to read most (well-annotated) banjo music notation with ease; this will broaden your musical horizons, and allow you to benefit from loads of music which is in the public domain, and therefore absolutely free.
Part 1: Specific symbols of banjo music notation
In order to accommodate the peculiarities of the banjo and banjo music, new symbols were devised to notate certain indications on how to play the notes on the banjo.
On the subject of stereotypes, an objection I have often heard against notation is that, "you can't tell when you have to strike the 5th string"! Well, yes you can -- banjoists a long time ago thought about it and decided that whenever the high G is played on the 5th string, it carries a small flag, like so:
So, whenever you see a dot with two stems, one of which is that little flag, you know it's the 5th string; the note is a G, that is, the first one above the top line in the staff; another way to notate the use of the 5th string is to add a 0 next to it (in music notation, numbers next to the notes stand for which fingers you fret the notes with; a 0 is an open string).
Another objection I often hear is, "notes can be played in many places on the banjo! Notation doesn't tell you where to play them!" Well, fortunately, that is also taken into account. There are several markings used for this: P., P.B., and numbers under the notes.
P. stands for "Position", and tells you which is the lowest fret your hand is fretting -- in other words, for instance, say you are fretting the 3rd string at the 10th fret, the 2nd string at the 9th fret, and the 1st string at the 10th fret, that would carry "P. 9" above, as you are in the "9th position".
Take this chord, for example:
What do the annotations tell you? Well, for starters, there's 8P -- so the fretting takes place from the 8th fret upwards. Then you've got 2, 1, and 4. This is a chord shape (we'll talk about chord shapes later) which you can simply form starting at the 8th fret. It tells us that the lowest note (on the 3rd string) is fretted with the 2nd finger (your middle finger), the note on the middle (on the 2nd string) is fretted with the 1st finger (pointer) and the note on top is fretted with the 4th finger (pinky); since your index finger is always on top, you know it goes on the 8th fret (from P. 8), and the other two fingers fall in place: the middle finger on the 3rd string, 9th fret, and the pinky on the 1st string, 10th fret.
Simples!
P. B. stands for "Position Barre" -- in other words, it's the same as P., only it's telling you to form a barre chord at the indicated fret; PB. 10 means a barre at the 10th fret, and so on. Of course, apart from the barre you might have to fret more notes; take this example:
Here you've got 5 PB, which means you're going to form a barre chord at the 5th fret with your pointer, and you've got 1, 1, 4: pointer, pointer, pinky. You know the 1's refer to the barre you're forming across the 5th fret, so you've already got the two lower notes in the chord. The 4 means that, apart from the barre, you're reaching down with your pinky to fret the 1st string (it's the 8th fret, but you can't tell because I've cut out the key signature which has 1 flat).
Numbers under the notes (do not confuse with the numbers which are next to the notes) come in two forms: plain numbers, and numbers surrounded by a circle.
A plain number (without a circle) indicates which fret a note must be played at.
A number with a circle indicates which string a note must be played at; this is helpful when a note is played on a string where it usually isn't played.
Here you have 16P, 2 1, 17 16, 3 4 (that's a lot of numbers!) What does this mean? It means that this is played at the 16th position, fretted with the pointer and middle finger, on the 17th and 16th frets, on the 3rd and 4th strings. In other words, you fre the 3rd string at the 17th fret, and the 4th string at the 16th fret.
Slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs (slurs and snaps) are notated with lines between the notes, as so:
In this case, you can see two slides, one upwards, one downwards, on account of all three notes being fretted with the same finger, which frets the string as it slides up and downwards.
On the other hand, pull-offs and hammer-ons start with one finger, and finish with another; for instance, a pull-off could be made by pulling off with the pinky (4) while the next note is fretted by the index (1).
Part 2: Starting to read
Now, I've been trying to keep this as theory-free as possible, but there are some basics which are absolutely necessary -- for instance, knowing where the notes produced by the open strings lie on the staff.
(Keep in mind that this illustration depicts standard C, also known as drop C, tuning; in open G tuning, the 4th string is a D note, which is in the space just above the C in this chart).
I'm assuming you already know about FACE and EGBDF -- no need to go over all that here -- so here are the notes on the banjo; the three lines in the middle are your 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings; the 5th string, G, is just above, and your 4th string (C or D) is below the staff. These notes are often (but not always!) notated with a 0, meaning they are played open.
Here is the intro to Freckles, a solo I've recorded, which we will read through step by step:
So, let's see; the first note is a G, just like the G on the 5th string, as we saw in the chart; however, next to the note there is a 3, underneath there is a 12, and a 3 in a circle. As we saw earlier, this means that: with your ring finger (3), you are fretting the 3rd string (3 in circle) at the 12th fret (12) -- which, as it turns out, gives the same pitch G as the 5th string. This note is a minim (half note), so you're going to let it ring while you play the next chord.
After that, you play three open strings (0 0 0), which are -- (as you may see by glancing at the chart of the notes and strings) the 5th, 1st, and 2nd open strings.
Notice how the circled 3 has a line of dots which extends to the right -- this means that you're still using that 3rd string. The next note is the 3rd string fretted at the 11th fret, and then at the 9th fret, as you may see from the numbers underneath the next notes.
In the next measure, you play the 3rd string at the 7th fret, then another pinch of the open 5th, 1st and 2nd, then the 3rd string at the 4th fret, and another pinch.
In the next measure, you play the 3rd string fretted at the 2nd fret with the middle finger, the 2nd string open, then the 2nd string fretted at the 1st fret with the pointer finger, then the 1st string fretted at the 2nd fret with the ring finger; this 2, 1 3 is a chord shape; as I said, more on chord shapes later.
Then back to the open 2nd string, 3rd string 2nd fret, and finally, open 3rd and a pinch of the open 1st, 2nd and 5th.
That wasn't so hard, was it?
Part 3: Chord Shapes
I've already made several references to moveable chord shapes; indeed, chord shapes make reading banjo music much, much easier, and there aren't all that many chord shapes to learn. Learning these chord shapes will allow you to instantly sight-read most banjo music just by seeing the fingerings and positions, and will also really open up the fingerboard for you.
The best resource to learn these chord shapes is a chart produced by BHO members Ian (thereallyniceman) and Marc (trapdoor2) which really allows those numbers to come to life; these have been produced for the excellent Classic Banjo beginners' tutorial.
Download this and open the PDF file called "Chord Shapes for Classic Style Banjo.pdf"; however, these chord shapes do not only apply to Classic Banjo, but to any style of banjo music in Standard tuning. Here you will find all the basic chord shapes, with:
What they look like in music notation;
What they look like in tablature;
What they look like on the fingerboard;
And a photograph of the hand, fretting each one of them.
These chord shapes are moveable, so once you know the chord shape, you can just have a look at which position it is played at, and form it there. Take your time, look at the PDF chart, and once you've had a feel for the chord shapes, we'll try the following exercise:
These are the first few measures of another solo I've recorded, "The Syncopatin' Shuffle". With what you've learned about chord shapes, you can easily figure out how to play this challenging solo; let's take it measure by measure.
The 1st measure has the same chord played 4 times; it is a 311 chord at 15PB; this is the same as the 411 chord on page 5 of the chord shapes chart, but you use the 3rd finger because it's a much shorter reach from the 15th to the 17th fret! So, by forming your chord shape at the 15th fret, you get:
3rd and 2nd strings, fretted at the 15th fret; 1st string, fretted at the 17th fret.
In the next measure you have another chord -- a 231 chord at 9P; if you look at your chart on page 3, you can see how to form a 231 chord; you get the 3rd string at the 9th fret, 2nd string at the 11th fret, and 1st string at the 10th fret. The note between the chords corresponds to the open 4th -- as you may see, a low C with a 0 next to it.
In the next measure, you get a 411, which you form just like the 311 in the 1st measure, only at 3 PB; and, finally, in the last measure, back to the 231 at 9P.
Block chords are easy to read with this method; but it also applies very well to spread-out chords. Since banjo music is often chord-based, you can easily recognize where there is a chord shape, and pick the individual notes in the chord.
Conclusion: Putting it all together
With this knowledge, you can now attempt to read some easy banjo music -- or even more advanced pieces. Little by little, as you read by using these crutches, you will become more and more familiar with the notes and where they fall in on the banjo fingerboard, and you will hardly need them anymore; this is a good long-term goal.
Eventually, you will want to learn more about playing in different keys; learning the chords in different keys, as well as the different scales; this is all useful and necessary if you want to play more advanced music.
However, on the short term, it is also gratifying to be able to read music without needing to memorize the notes on the fingerboard, and, as you have seen, this is not necessarily a difficult or unpleasant task. Once you're used to this method, you'll see it's as easy to read as tablature -- and often easier, because the chords and chord shapes are more obvious on the notation than on tab.
If you spend but a little bit of effort learning to read notation, you will expand your musical horizons considerably, and will probably save some money as well rather than pay through the nose for tab books. Understanding music will also help you to understand other instruments, and to arrange banjo parts based upon, for instance, fiddle music or piano music.
I hope this brief primer has been useful to those who were struggling with musical notation or thought it was too difficult, and I hope it motivates them to learn more about this crucial aspect of a musician's education.