NOTE NAMES
Lesson 1: READING MUSIC - LEARNING PITCHES
INTRODUCTION
Some musicians have what seems like a magical skill. They can take a written piece of music they’ve never heard before and play it perfectly the first time. They’ve mastered the art of reading music. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and effort to master the ability to sight read music, however the basics are fairly easy to grasp if you approach it the right way. Even if you’re a beginning musician, or don't play a tonal instrument, start reading now so you’ll be able to enjoy the awesome benefits that sight reading will bring.
Sight reading can seem daunting at first, because it relies on the development of several different skills. In this course we will focus on each of these skills one at a time, to achieve mastery of each aspect before we bring them together. Firstly, we will focus on reading PITCHES, before moving on to rhythmic reading and other skills.
THE MUSICAL ALPHABET
In most of the music we listen to, there are only 12 notes! These notes repeat themselves in a pattern as we go up or down in pitch. This pattern is most obvious on a piano keyboard, where we can see a repeating sequence of 7 white notes and 5 black notes, laid out like this:
There are a couple of important things to note from the above diagram:
We use the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G to identify the WHITE NOTES on the piano.
The notes are arranged in alphabetical order, but once we reach G, we go back to A and again.
The black notes of the piano are laid out in a alternating pattern of 2 and 3 note groupings.
C, D and E always surround the group of two black notes and
F, G, A, and B surround the group of three black notes.
EXERCISE ONE: Memorising the musical alphabet.
You can probably recite the alphabet pretty quickly already, and can effortlessly say "A,B,C,D,E,F,G" at speed without really thinking about it.
It takes a little more practice to start on different notes and remember to jump back to A after G every time. See How quickly you can memorise these patterns:
1) B,C,D,E,F,G, A, B
2) C,D,E,F,G, A, B, C
3) D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D. etc.
How quickly can you say it backwards? (G,F, E, D, C, B, A), or 'skipping' a note? (A, C, E, G, B, D, F, A)
EXERCISE TWO: LEARN THE KEYBOARD!
Memorise the names of the white keys on the keyboard. One of the most effective ways to do this is to memorise particular 'landmarks' on the keyboard.
Start by locating the notes 'C' and 'F'. These are the notes immediately to the left of the groups of black notes.
TASK ONE: Sit at a piano or keyboard (or just open a keyboard app. on your device). Play every 'C', and say the note name as you play it. Then play every 'F', repeating this process. Once you're feeling really comfortable, set a metronome to 60bpm and try to 'sightread' these patterns, playing one note per beat:
C C C F F C C F C F C F F F C
C F C F C C C F C F C F C
F F F C C F C C C C F C F C
TASK TWO: REPEAT THE ABOVE PROCESS WITH THE NOTES 'B' and 'E'. These notes are on the right-hand side of the groups of black notes, and immediately to the left of the notes F and C (see diagram below). There is no black note between E and F or B and C. This interval is called a 'semitone'.
To help create a neural map, play each 'B' on your keyboard, saying the note name as you play. Repeat with the note 'E'.
Next, set a metronome to 60bpm, and play these exercises:
E E E B B E E B E B E B E
B E E B E E B B B E E
B C B C B B C C E F E F E F E
B E F C B E F C F C E B B C B
Now that you've got these notes down, and can find them easily on the keyboard, it's fairly easy to 'fill in the blanks' to identify all the white notes on the keyboard.
'D' sits in the middle of the group of two black notes, in between C and E
The notes 'A' and 'G' sit in the middle of the group of three black notes.
Try playing these patterns:
C E F D E D F C
F E A B G F G A
C D C E C F C G D E D F D G E C
E A F G E A F G B A G F E D C
B A B A G A G F E F E F D E D C
F F G G A A B B E E F F E D C
F A F A D E C A B B A G E
We can also use the same patterns on the 'C' string of a ukulele...
