READING RHYTHM

Lesson 1: READING (AND PLAYING) RHYTHMS

INTRODUCTION

Being able to accurately read and play rhythms from musical notation is a challenging yet very rewarding skill. One of the things I like about written notation, is that for a written 'language' it's incredibly simple - with only a handful of symbols we can write unbelievably complex things, that can be played on virtually any instrument. The 'rules' of reading music notation are easy to learn, but take a long time to master. If you practice a little bit of reading everyday, you'll find yourself reading most music pretty fluently, however it takes most people years of concentrated study to read at a professional level.