How To Read Sheet Music

By Ellen Golledge Email Me Anytime 

 
“Teach me how to read sheet music, Mom” was Simon’s first demand of this day. That would be the first of many which regularly occurred on any one day.

How to read sheet music, I might add was to be done – and a new expert born – in about two hours which was all the time I knew he would give it. Patience?...you say? Oh, those were people who came into my country practice, certainly nothing Simon had to trouble his young self about.

Simon was just four years old at this time. He could read fluently by three..used to freak waitresses out. I digress..but.. He’d politely ask for his own menu when we went out for dinner, and they’d of course comply, smiling knowingly that here was another ‘little guy’ trying to act like Mom and Dad. They’d smile, that is until they came back to get the order.

“Well, what can I get you” was the inevitable question aimed at Simon, smirking as they spoke to him. He’d point to his chosen item on the menu and explain..

“I’d like the turkey club sandwich” he’d respond, dragging his little finger along the exact text. “But I see I can have fries or salad. I prefer the salad, but hold the onions and a vinaigrette dressing if you have it, thank you.” ..and he’d hand back the menu, not understanding their speechless, open-mouthed stare. The server would then take his Dad’s and my orders in sort of a stunned, robotic way and dash off to the kitchen shouting something to the effect of ..”Hey, Marge...ya gotta come and see this kid!!!”

Its amazing, when I think back that we, his parents every got to eat as we were always sure the server hadn’t heard us at all.

On to ‘how to read sheet music’. As it happens I did play piano as a kid, went up to about Grade 7 conservatory until life proved to me that playing with boys was much more fun than playing the ol’ ivories in our basement. Simon’s Dad and I had chosen to home-school, so this request was landed firmly in my lap.

I dragged out some of my beginning books which by some stroke of luck were still with me some twenty-five years later and started to show Simon exactly how to read sheet music.

“The first thing you have to know about is the staff” I began.

“What?” he exclaimed with raised eyebrows and more than a little twinkle in his big brown eyes. “I’m going to have people working for me to do this?” Hm, he’d obviously gleaned more than I realized about my office’s administration. Surprise, surprise....<sigh>

“No, goofy...the staff in music is the basic structure that notes are placed on so the music can be read by anyone knowing how to read sheet music. Writing music in this way enables all to know what notes, key, timing, tempo, emphasis the composer used when they made his or her music. It looks like this:

"It's just lines and spaces" said Simon...where's the notes?"

I grinned..so typical "They're coming, just hang on a minute."

I went on to explain that there are two staffs, one for the notes (to use the piano as an example) from middle C or the center note of the instrument, on upward and one for the lower or more bass notes of the instrument. Each is called a clef- treble clef for the higher pitched notes and bass clef for the lower. Here's what they look like:

Treble Clef

Bass Clef

"Humprf..still no notes" Simon complained.

"Chill, here they come you impatient little toad" I kidded.

"Yeah, but I'm cute, Mom..you said so" he giggled and poked me in the ribs with his little bony elbow.

"Well, that's a trick of God's..making you so cute that we keep you munchkins" I explained with an amazingly straight face.

"Sure, Mom...just show me the notes" he muttered. Maybe he'd heard that story a few times too many...ya think?

Back to business at hand. I told him that every space and line of both clefs had one specific note it represented and one alone. Drum roll.......here's both clefs WITH the notes on them. Ta-Da!

The notes are named for letters of the alphabet from A to G and then it repeats over and over..so A, B, C, D, E, F G repeated up and down the instrument. In our case on the piano, these are the white notes.

Treble Clef with Notes

Bass Clef with Notes

Ok...here are the basic clefs..both of them...and sometimes you'll see lines above and below those in this picture to delineate higher or lower notes, but this is where we start. See how there are specific notes for each line and space? Well, there are special little diddies to remember what these are.

For example....in the treble clef the lines say "Every Good Boy Deserves Fun" so the notes E, G, D, F above middle C. And the spaces are F A C E spelling Face.

In the bass clef its -lines "Good Babies Do Fine Always"

Spaces "All Crows Eat Garbage"

"Ok, Mom...show me on the piano..." which I did. And of course...in about twenty minutes he could relate each note on the clefs to notes on my totally ancient keyboard...me showing him the notes to play on the right and left hands.

"So, Mom...what does 'key' mean?" Simon asked.

"Music is written in certain "keys" or scales. See on the piano, the black keys between the white? Well if you go to a white note then move up to the closest black one that's a 'sharp' or a semi-tone higher than the white you were on. If you move backwards to the closest black key its a 'flat' or a semi-tone lower." I explained showing him the picture of the keyboard with its white or 'natural' notes labelled.

 "Do you remember the song 'Doe a deer' we used to sing.?" I asked.

"Yeah, but how come they don't have any bucks in that song? Doesn't she need a boyfriend?" he giggled.

"Simon, focus..." I grinned and continued. "Well that song goes up the 'C' scale and the eight notes it sings about is called an octave. But you can start a scale or octave on any note. The thing you have to do is use the flats or sharps to make it sound right..you know give each note a full 'tone' from the one beside it. That's the 'key' or the 'rules' you have to follow when starting on a note other than middle C. Look here, if you write a song in the key of B flat major for example...you have to use the B flat and the E flat and you put those on the staff right at the beginning, beside the treble clef or the bass clef. Like this:

 "Here you can see the trebel clef, the two flats B and E and the timing (which we'll get to) and also it shows what a sharp, natural note and flat sign looks like. So in this song we would play all B's and E's as flats, unless otherwise told to, but the composer using a natural or sharp sign in front of one of the B's or E's somewhere in the song, to tell us that "for this one time change the note from flat to natural or sharp". These symbols direct us how to exactly play the song as they created it. Very cool"

I glanced down at Simon and saw that very familiar glaze come over his eyes. I was losing contact.

"You know there are some great pages written by Catherine Schmidt-Jones on Key signatures, I suggest we check them out another day How To Read Sheet Music-Key Signatures

"I think what we need to do is to find either a teacher or a programme on the internet to take this further.  What do you think?" I asked Simon.

"Let's find an internet programme!! That would be so cool to learn from home"  And so we did.

We chose How to Read Sheet Music at MusicUniversity.com  At this site you can choose from a whole host of courses, for various instruments and no end of musical styles.

We used this course learning how to Read Piano Keyboard Sheet Music which we found incredibly well organized and easy to follow. As you will see on the site we worked with, there are a large number of instruments and courses to choose from, all have great feedback from students.