For some people learning to read music comes naturally while for the majority it can be quite hard to do. But like many things in life it can be very rewarding to do. Either way like many other things in life it will require some effort, patience and practice to get to grips with it properly.
Once you have mastered it people will see a big difference in the way you perform. A person’s ability to read music well is the difference between an average player and being a world class performer that always has the audience mesmerized with their skill. Of course like many things you cannot master it until you have a firm grasp of the basics. As the old Chinese proverb goes a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.
So let’s get to the basics!
Learning how to read music is very similar to learning to read and write there are some basic rules that you need to follow that everyone does. Straying from this basic foundation can lead to problems later on. Music is not formatted the same as writing, where this is on a single line musical notes are displayed over five lines and contain a treble clef.
There are various clef types with the two most common being the bass clef and the treble clef. One way of remembering these is that the treble clef is the right hand on a piano and the bass clef is the left hand. I realise that you may not be playing the piano but this is the easiest way to explain it. There are other types of clef and you should not let this worry you too much at this stage as you can play excellent sounding music with just the notes that are on these two types of clef.
The way to read notes is dependent on their position on the five lines or between them. The following are read from the bottom to the top
Treble clef: E, G, B, D, F. There are a number of ways to remember them one such way is “Every Good Boy Does Fine”!
Notes that are between the lines are F, A, C, E it’s pretty obvious how to remember those!
Bass clef: notes on the lines are G, B, D, F, A. and those between the lines are A, C, E, G!
Using phrases to remember these notes does help in remembering them but it will be easier if you come up with something yourself. Understanding these two basic clefs and where the notes are positioned will give you a good grounding to play an instrument in fact if you can read music well and remember the notes then it will be much easier to learn new instruments over time.
That is just the basic information as the topic of reading music is a huge subject and with anything like that it gets easier and easier the more you practice. The top performers have spent years mastering the art of reading music as much time as they have spent learning to play their respective instruments and is not something that you can expect to learn overnight
It all comes down to how far you want to take it and what your goals are for learning, these will provide the motivation for you to learn. At least now you have started on your journey enjoy it after all it is meant to be fun.
Article by Robert Deans of M-Audio Direct. Why not have a look at Roberts’s latest article How to Use a MIDI Device
