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I am a second day beginner on learning to play guitar and read sheet music(via Hal Leonards Guitar Methods Book 1).

I searched a lot and could not find the answers to these questions:

notes on the staff, sometimes you see the attached up and down line on the note.  Why does it sometimes go straight up and others it goes straight down......Hal fails to explain this little tid bit.

The Staff....the book starts out with showing 5 lines on the staff.....and then later on in the book it introduces "ledger lines", there is no description on what ledger lines are and what to do with them.   So any help here would be great!

3/4 time and the little dot after a note....I understand that if you see a dot after a quarter note it adds 1 beat to it to which it becomes 3 beats.  But when I see this on the staff in a particular measure say a G quarter note with a dot and that's it for that measure what do I do?  Does this mean that I simply play the G note and then count 2 beats and play nothing?  If so, why don't they just say it's 3/4 time and play the G note and 2,3 and then start the next measure?

thanks for any help that comes along!