Reading Piano Music is Easy to Learn

While there are many musicians that never learned how to read music, there’s no reason why you can’t tackle the job and learn to read music.  Musicians that are unable to read music are able to play by ear after they hear a song. These musicians are able to make improvisations on simple themes and turn them into elaborate renditions of popular songs.  These musicians know their instruments as well as singers know their voices.

You might be the type of person that can do that.  You will learn more a little later about chords and improvisation.  However, if you are just learning about the piano, it’s very likely that you will get more help from written music.  Further, when you learn how to read music you will open a new world for yourself.  You will be able to play piano songs that you have never heard before.  Not only will you be able to play this music, but you can repeat your performance anytime you want to because the sheet music guides you note for note.

There is a lot to learn since you have to understand how the notes are depicted.  You have to understand how the staffs they are written on look like.  You will begin to understand how flats and sharps are represented and how the music’s rhythm is shown.  Once you learn these basics, you will be able to build on the knowledge.

You can learn quite a lot just by looking at one piece of music. If you have some sheet music, a hymnal, or a songbook, take it out and look at the music. If you do not already have some written music, buy some or borrow a songbook from the library.

While looking at the music you will notice groups of five horizontal lines.  If the music is written for both hands, two of the groups of lines will be connected by a longer line along the side.  The horizontal lines are known as the staff.  You can buy staff paper that is pre-marked with these lines.

When you look to the left side of the staffs you will notice the clef marking.  On the upper staff you will see the treble clef marking.  The treble clef looks like a fancy S that’s backwards with a single line running through the middle of it and curling underneath.  When you first start learning how to play the piano, you will be playing the notes on the treble clef with your right hand.

On the lower staff of the two is the bass clef sign. It is something like a backwards C with two dots on the right side of it. This staff shows the lower notes, and you will begin by playing the notes shown on this staff with your left hand. The upper and lower staffs will repeat several times down the page. Look at your sheet music and identify the staffs. Now you are ready to learn the notes.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under General Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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