A few questions about reading sheet music

[StonedSandman]

I have a couple of of questions about reading sheet music, I don't have any problem with reading the notes on the staff or anything like that it's just all this other stuff.

1. What does this Coda thing mean?

2. If (for example Metallica) a band only has 2 guitarists how can there be 4 or 5 different guitars in the sheet music?!

3. What does it mean by "Vol. swell"?

4. What do you do when on the tab and the notes on the lines have an X through them?

5. What does tacet and divisi mean?

I think that's all, thanks in advance for helping me.

[eische]

ok...

1. »coda« means finish/end, so if you play and a »da capo al coda« appears, it means you play everything again till you come to the »coda«-sign (a crossed O normally), because that is meant to be the end of the song...

2. errrrm, don't know??? - you can play two voices on one guitar, but that should be at least on the same sheet (sometimes within the same staff, sometimes in two staffs directly under each other bound with a big bracket before the lines)

3. »vol. Swell« sounds like »forte« (f. or >), so you should do exactly what is written there and increase the volume of that passage compared to the one before (sometimes slowly and over some measures) to put a stress on it...

4. »x« means muting the string or sometimes (but then it's written out above the sheet normally) it could mean a full tap on all the strings like a clap on the guitar...

5 a) »tacet« (tac.) means silence for one voice so just all the other instruments play. It's more or less like a big brake or pause

b) »divisi« (div.) means parted, so you play two-voiced passages as two parted voices (normally two players) and not as »chord«-like grips where the notes are played together

- but these both are normally just prescriptions for orchestral works - which Metallica-song do you learn there???

[StonedSandman]

Thanks for the help. That really clears some things up for me. I was just looking through a bunch of different tab books the other day at a music store and saw those few things that I didn't understand.

[MadMattUK]

2) They have more than 2 guitar parts because for their studio albums they would have recorded more than 2 guitar parts :D

Obviously when they play it live they cut it down to the real meat and have only 2 parts. You will find that in the Metallica Music Books guitar parts 1 and 2 are the main 'meat' of the music. Guitar parts 3 and 4 say, are added just to give the studio recordings extra flavour.

:)

[StonedSandman]

How would you know whether Guitar 3/4 is lead or rhythm? I really didn't get a good chance to really look in the tab books that just sort of caught my eye and got me thinking.

[MadMattUK]

Its pretty easy to know. The rythm will usually consist of power chord slashes and have a repetitive pattern. Lead guitar usually consists of single notes, more sporadic without pattern. Usually notes higher up the fretboard too.

The TAB books usually say "Guitar Solo" or smthin like that when a solo kicks in. But Guitars 3/4 are usually neither lead or rhythm, they are usually just single chord slashes or little phrases added here and there to spice things up.

Best way too tell is to follow the Notation or TAB and listen to the song at the same time to tell which is which.