How to Read Music Easily in 30 Days

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How To To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell

.*+/'0123'* Music Easily in Let me begin by saying thank you for purchasing my book How to Read Music 30 Days. This book has been a long journey for me, culminating at the end of my

Doctoral of Musical Arts degree studies. As a professor and music instructor I have helped hundreds of students during my career and hope to teach teac h many more. As a general practice I like to get to know my students. Since we aren’t meeting face to face, feel free to say hello to me via my Facebook or or Twitter pages pages for the One Minute Music Lesson or directly on my website http://www.OneMinuteMusicLesson.com http://www.OneMinuteMusicLesson.com..

Since we do not know each other yet, allow me to introduce myself, and tell you a little bit about why I wrote this this book.

My name is Leon Harrell and I am a composer, pianist and music educator. I have played piano since I was a small child and began composing as a teenager. I have taught music theory courses as well as aural skills classes in several colleges and have been involved in music making for over 25 years. To learn more about my professional background, see my personal website at http://www.LeonHarrell.com http://www.LeonHarrell.com..

When I began teaching music theory and piano lessons it dawned on me how poorly some students understand understand music and how it really works from the the inside out. Many could play their instrument but they they blindly blindly stumble stumbled d through learning new pieces and had trouble with counting even simple rhythms when faced with musical excerpts that were not in the most basic of meters.

I decided that I would tackle this problem by creating my website the One Minute Music Lesson as a method of teaching the basic elements of music in small understandable bites so that my students could grasp the concepts at their own pace and refer to them as often as necessary until they fully mastered the material.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell

In this book it is my goal to teach you how to read musical notation from the very beginning. I will take a slightly unconventional approach because it is my philosophy that every music student should fully understand the g uiding principles of musical notation, not just the easiest and most essential concepts.

As a teacher my aim is to make sure that every student that enters my class leaves with a full understanding of the course material, and I will not be satisfied until any student who wants to learn this material does so.

With that said, I invite you to contact me personally if at an y point you have a question about this book or are confused about something. I am always looking to improve my teaching materials and will continue to update this book with new editions in the future.

I have tried my best to make this book fool proof, but if you get stumped along the way feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will try to answer your question as fast as possible. Also I may answer your question in the next One Minute Music Lesson episode.

Again, I thank you for purchasing this book and look forward to seeing and hearing about your musical progress. Good luck as you embark on your journey to learning to read music with ease in the next 30 days.

Wishing you the best in your musical development,

Leon Harrell

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5'6 +' 7,% +89, :''; In this 30-day course I will explain every concept of how to read music, one concept at a time, as necessary to read the musical examples ex amples in each chapter. This method of learning to read music eliminates many of the frustrations of the traditional rhythm teach ing methods.

For the sake of understanding, concepts are broken down to the basic elements to teach you music theory concepts simultaneously as you are learning to read musical notation. This will give you a firm foundation for understanding und erstanding the larger, more important structure of the music you are reading.

As you read this book I encourage you to have a pencil handy to complete any small assignments and exercises as well as a set of three highlighters, preferably in red, blue and green, however any three distinct colors will work.

Also, this book is designed to be read one chapter per day. However, you may need more than one day to master any given concept. It may only take a day to grasp most of the ideas, but some topics such as chords and advanced rhythm will take longer to become second nature to you. This is common in almost all music students; so do not feel the need to rush through the book if you are not comfortable with the pace of one chapter per day.

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M"A > ? @8A+8B In today’s lesson we will learn about …

• • •

Rhythm: An Introduction Counting: Quarter Notes & Rests Counting: Writing Writing in the Counting on the Score

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There are two main components to any piece of music. One is the rhythm; the timing of the sounds and the patterns those sounds sound s make in time. The other is the pitch; how high or low the sounds are in the music.

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We will begin learning to read music by starting with just the rhythm. The first rhythmic value we will learn is the quarter note .

The quarter note equals 1 beat. When we count quarter notes each quarter note gets 1 beat.

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How To To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Take a look at the rhythm from the beginning of the song Twinkle, twinkle little star .

Also in music there are times when we need silence, or a space of time between the sounds. This silence is called a rest. There are many kinds of rests but the first we will discuss is the quarter rest . Just like the quarter note the quarter q uarter rest gets 1 beat of time.

In the first example from Twinkle, twinkle little star , the musical phrase ended with a quarter rest.

Let’s look at the remaining phrases, or groupings of music, of the rhythm from Twinkle on the next page.

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In this musical score, or sheet music, you will see all the counting of each individual note and rest written below the notes and the counting of the rhythmic beats in the measures above the music.

When we count music we normally count along with the meter, or the time signature, instead of each note and rest individually.

In the Twinkle example the time signature is 2/4. That means that in each measure, the amount of space between each barline is equal to 2 beats.

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Now that you have seen Twinkle, twinkle little star’s rhythm. Take a look at the following exercise.

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Look at this example and write in the individual counts of the quarter notes and rests below each note. Notice that the counting for the meter is already written in for you. Clap the example as you count the beats of the meter out loud. Remember quarter notes and quarter rests get one beat each.

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Here are a few things you can do to further practice the skills from Day 1

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Write out a series of quarter notes and rests to create new rhythms and clap them. Try to find more songs that only use quarter notes. Hint: Think of children’s songs, folk songs or traditional religious music. Generate your own practice material with a tool called PracticeSightReading.com from this post on my blog.

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M"A D ? =9+28 "*0 +8% >T$9*% I+"U In today’s lesson we will learn about …

• • •

Pitch: An Introduction The 1-Line Staff Pitch Reading

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The second most essential element of music is pitch. Music is comprised of many individual sounds, many of which contain pitch. Pitch is the frequency of the air vibrations in the sounds that form musical tones. If a sound has a regular repeating vibration it has a frequency, or a certain speed that the sound waves vibrate the air molecules.

In notation, or the written language of music, we show frequency with notes plac es on a staff.

There are over 20,000 individual frequencies we can hear, so in music we have a very simplified system of showing each approximate frequency with a pitch letter name.

Every frequency can be approximately shown with one of seven letters of the alphabet, from A to G.

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The 7 letters represent all the possible notes on the staff and musical instruments. Since we can play more than 7 pitches there is a method of using these 7 letters by using

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell locations on a staff to label every pitch. Since these letters are used over and over, up and down the staff, it helps to think of them in a circular or recurring pattern.

Beginning with the letter A, as the pitch rises, or the frequency goes higher, the letters move forward through the alphabet and cycle back to A after the letter G.

So a scale of notes moving up would ascend the lines and spaces of the staff and cycle forward through the 7 letters. Lines and spaces are a method of showing the notes so you are not confused of the exact location. A note as always located on a line or in a space.

Here are the notes of the treble and bass clefs at a glance:

When the notes come back down the staff the movement of the letters is the exac t opposite. The letters cycle through backwards from G to A, and repeat the cycle beginning on G.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Learning the notes of both the treble and bass can be easy, if you learn them in stages. To do this I will use the next few chapters to slowly teach you to recognize the location of each line by sight, instead of attempting to memorize all 18 line and space locations at once.

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To begin you on the journey of memorizing and internalizing the notes of the staff we will begin with only a 1-line staff that presents only one note instead of the traditional 5line staff.

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Since this is not a traditional five line staff and we are beginning with only 1 note, we can define it anyway we want to. I will place a treble clef on the 1-line staff and that will make the line equal the pitch G.

The treble clef is also called the G clef. This is because it crosses the G line at 4 points, thus making it point to the location of the G line.

The Treble Clef resting on the G line

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Now let’s change to the bass clef. We will place a bass clef on the 1-line staff and that will make the line equal to the pitch F. For the bass clef, its pointer locates the F line, therefore it is also known as the F clef.

The F clef also has two little dots that sit on either side of the F line.

The Bass Clef resting on the F line

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Let’s take a look at a simple rhythm with quarter notes and eight notes on the 1-line treble and bass clef staves (“Staves” is the plural form of the word “staff”).

The first example is on the treble clef, so it will be the pitch G for all the notes. In the last lesson we learned quarter notes equal 1 beat, here we will also see eighth notes, they only get half of a beat, so we count them depending on there location in the measure by saying the beat number or the word “and” if they are in the middle of a beat.

Eighth note with an unbeamed flag and an eighth rest

Clap and count the example below slowly to be able to count and perform the rhythm accurately.

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The second example is on the F clef and incorporates eighth rests as well. An eighth rest is a silence that last for only half of a beat. It is counted the same way as an eighth note, with the word “and”. !"#$%&' )*&+,'-. ?C'$1- G&## <'-E 7@ <'-E;

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•

•

•

Write out a series of quarter notes and pairs of eighth notes and rests to create new rhythms and clap them. Look through simple sheet music you may already have and try counting the rhythms that contain only quarter and eighth notes and rests. Try some simple beginner level sheet music from SheetMusicPlus or http://www. 8notes.com.

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M"A 4 ? !8% DTV9*% I+"U In today’s lesson we will learn about …

• • • •

The 2-line Staff Sharps Accidentals Beams and Beaming Eighth Notes

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Now that we have practiced the 1-line staff let’s take a look at the 2-line staff. Now that we have 2 lines we also have a space between the two lines.

The 2-line Treble Staff

On the treble staff the G line will still go through the origin point and the line below will be E. The space between E and G will be F.

Take a look at the example below and speak the letter names in rhythm. The beginning pitches have been marked for you. You may want to write in the counting above the music to help with performing the rhythm correctly.

On the bass clef we will explore the 2-line staff with the F line going through the origin point for the bass. This will make the line below F the D line. The space between the two lines will be the pitch E.

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The 2-line Bass Staff

Again take a look at the example below and speak the letter names in rhythm for the bass clef. The music looks similar to the example above but the notes will be in different locations because the clef defines the location of the pitches on a staff.

Now let’s look at the eight notes in these examples more closely. Most of the time composers will show eighth notes that are in pa irs grouped together within a beat by using beams to connect them, instead of just flags. Here is the same example without beams in the bass 2-line staff. In general it is easier to read music when the notes smaller than a quarter note are beamed into groups. But there are exceptions that we will encounter throughout the book to this practice.

The previous example with flags on eighth notes instead of beams

Now, let’s add in a new symbol, the sharp. The sharp means that the note on the staff will now be modified to be a half step higher than its normal position. A half step is the smallest possible distance between two notes in traditional music. The half step on a piano is the distance between two keys that are side by side when you compare the tops of the keys (the end nearest to the body of the piano). On a guitar a half step is the distance between each fret on the fret board.

In the example below there are sharps in front of the F's. This will change the sound of the song. Without the sharps the song would be different, and you may not recognize it.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Write in your rhythm counting above and note names below before you play the example. Also, to let you know this example is written using only the concepts we have learned so far. This music may look different if written in a standard notation.

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M"A H ? !8% 4TV9*% I+"U In today’s lesson we will learn about …

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The 3-line Staff Half Notes and Half rests

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Let’s add a new line above the treble 2-line staff. This line will be the B line. That make s the space between the G and the B line A. This is because as we learned in Day 1 that when you loop around the pitch circle you return to A after the pitch letter G.

Let’s also add a new rhythm, the half note. The half note is twice as long as a quarter note. It equals two beats. It also has a counterpart rest that is also two beats.

Half note and half rest

In the example below clap the rhythm first for the notes, then come back and say the letter names in rhythm, then try to play it on your instrument. Take care to notice that the F and G notes have sharps, making them F and G sharp.

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On the bass clef staff let’s add a new line above the F line. This is the A line. The space between F and A will be G.

Here is the same melody in treble transposed to a different musical key in the bass clef. In music, the idea of transposition takes a melody and moves it up or down by a constant number of half steps in each note. Here we have a melody that is two half steps lower than the previous example all the way throughout the new example.

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•

Write out a series of half, quarter and eighth notes and rests to create new rhythms and clap them. Look through simple sheet music you may already have and try counting the rhythms that contain only half, quarter and eighth notes and rests. Try some simple beginner level sheet music from SheetMusicPlus or http://www. 8notes.com.

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M"A < ? !8% HTV9*% I+"U In today’s lesson we will learn about …

• • •

Flats Whole notes and rests The 4-line staff

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The next rhythm we will learn is the whole note. It gets four beats. It is twice as long as a half note, and four times as long as a quarter note.

The whole note and whole rest

Caution! A whole rest looks like a half rest upside down. To remember which one is

which, think of then as a hat. The half note hat weighs two beats, and the whole note weighs 4 beats, so since it is heavier is hangs upside down below the line.

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Also like the notes and rests, sharps have a counter part. It is called the flat. The flat symbol means that the note’s pitch should be lowered a half step.

In the example below look at the 3-line treble staff with a few B flats added. There are also a few C notes above the top line. Count and play the example. What song is it?

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell !8% HT$9*% I+"U

Let’s go ahead and add the fourth line to the treble and bass staves.

The fourth line on the treble will be the D line. And that gives us a new space b etween B and D, which is C.

And let’s add the fourth line in the bass clef. The fourth line we will add is B, giving us a C between B and D.

Here is an example that includes whole notes in bass and treble. The treble example is in the key of E major and the bass example is in B flat major, but they are the same melody.

Play each staff separately. When playing music written with more than one staff, follow your line all the way through. For example when you play the treble clef staff, only play the music on that staff. When you go back and play the bass clef staff only play the music written on the bass clef.

Also write in the counting above the staves for the rhythm and the note names below each note as necessary.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell @"64A-6 B6&%9%-

Here is something you can do to further practice the skills from Day 5

1. Read through some simple piano sheet music. It will almost always have a treble and bass clef staff.

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M"A C ? !8%
• • •

The 5-line staff Naturals Sixteenth notes and rests

Thus far we have learned the 4 basic rhythmic values that can be used to play many easy songs. They are in order from longest to shortest:

• • • •

Whole note, which gets 4 beats Half note, which gets 2 beats Quarter note, which gets 1 beat And the Eighth note, which gets 1/2 of a beat.

Each note is exactly half the value of the preceding note. Also each of these notes has an equivalent rest that has the same relationship of being half of the length of the previous rest value.

Now lets go down one more level to the note that is half the value of an eighth, a sixteenth note.

Sixteenth Note and Rest

The sixteenth note is half the value of an eighth and 1/4 the value of the quarter note. We count it by dividing the quarter note’s beat into four smaller parts, "1", "e,", "and", "a".

Here is an example with the counting written in that includes groups of four sixteenth notes. In this example both melodies in both clefs are in E minor. You should read the

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell same pitches in both clefs because this melody is written in unison, meaning both voices are the same melody.

For now we will not look any closer at sixteenth note rhythms, but we will discuss them through out Days 12-18 of this book.

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Now you are ready for the big time. We will introduce the fifth and final line of each staff.

The treble’s fifth line is F. This will add the space E, between the D and F lines.

Play through this example in treble. Write in all the note names below e ach note.

The fifth line of the bass is the G line. The space between G and B will be the pitch A.

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Play through this example in bass. It is the same melody but written in bass clef in a different musical key. Write in all the note names below each note.

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When using sharps and flats in music, we will sometimes need to go back to using the natural position of the note, the pitch letter without a sharp or flat. When we need this to happen in the music there will be a natural symbol to cancel out any sharps or flats on a pitch.

Here is an example in the key of C minor with 3 flats in its key signature, which we will fully investigate on Day 21. You will notice that we have a natural symbol on some notes. This natural tells us that the notes, which were previously flatted in the key signature, are now naturals.

Play through this example after you have written in the counting above the staff and the note names below the staff.

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Here is something you can do to further practice the skills from Day 6.

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Visit http://www.BlankSheetMusic.net and print out some blank manuscript paper, also known as staff paper. Rewrite this chapter’s melody in the treble clef by using the same pitches, which will be on different lines and spaces. You may need to use ledgers lines above the treble staff, which we will learn a bout on Day 7.

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M"A R ? > V%0G%/ V9*% E#'F% In today’s lesson we will learn about …

• • • • •

Ledger Lines Extreme Pitch Registers 1 Ledger Line Above The Dot Rhythms With Dots In Simple Meter

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The highness or lowness of sound is called pitch, as we learned about earlier on Day 2. Most of the time the pitch of an instrument remains notated within the five line staff. But on occasion you will need to read and play notes that are higher or lower than the staff. Today we will focus on the first ledger line above the staff of the treble and ba ss clef.

The first ledger line, the small line outside the normal 5-line staff, above the treble clef staff extends the range of the treble up to the pitch A. This makes the space between the top line F and the first ledger line A, the pitch G. This new ledger line is not needed for showing the space G above the treble. We only use ledger lines for showing the next pitch up that rests on the ledger line.

The Pitch A on the first ledger line above the Treble

Below are some examples of more ledger lines up to four lines. If for any reason printed music needs more than four additional ledger lines it is usually best to notate the music with an 8va line above, meaning to read the music up an octave, to avoid excess ledger lines. We will learn more about the 8va line on Day 28.

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Notes with ledger lines versus using the 8va notation

Here is an example to practice with one ledger line above. Notice the G’s at the top of the staff do not require a ledger line.

The first ledger line of the bass is the pitch C, middle C to be exact. This C is the mid point between the treble and bass staves. We will explore this more on Day 8 when we discuss the Grand Staff.

Middle C on the first ledger line of the bass clef

Below is an example of the first ledger line in the bass clef. This example will use rhythms with dotted note values. The dot is a useful notational symbol for modifying rhythmic values.

The dot means to take the note value it is attached to, and add half of its value to the note.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell For example if the value is a quarter note, or one beat, then a dotted quarter note will receive one and a half beats. The dot can be used on any note value. The dot always means to take the original note value and add half of its own value to the note. Here is a chart to show you the dotted values of the notes and rests we have learned so far.

• • • •

The Dotted Whole note equals 6 beats (4 plus 2) The Dotted Half note equals 3 beats (2 plus 1) The Dotted Quarter note equals 1 ! beats (1 plus !) The Dotted Eighth note equals " of a beat (! plus #)

There is more to know about dots when counting music, but we will save further explanation for Day 13, when we learn about compound meters.

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View a video explanation of the dot on One Minute Music Lesson - Lesson #11.

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1 Ledger Line Below Ties

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Now lets look at the ledger lines as they extend below the treble and bass staves.

Here are the notes of the first four lower ledger lines in the treble. Anything beyond 3 ledger lines is fairly rare because we tend to use the bass clef if pitches get lower than F on the third line below the treble.

Ledger lines below treble

And here are the notes of the first four lines below the bass. This area is seldom used as well because we often use An 8vb line to show the pitches an octave lower than the bass staff range. The 8vb line will be discussed on Day 28.

Ledger lines below bass

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Here is an example for you to sight read that uses low bass notes leaping around. Look across the whole example and see if you notice any pattern in the bass line? Reading horizontally across the page at a glance is a good way to take in any patterns that may be emerging as you scan over your music before you play anything.

This example is in the key of E-flat major. Label only the E flat notes before you play this example. Notice that there are E flats in two locations on the staff with the addition of the first lower ledger line.

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Tied rhythms, are notes that have been added together by the use of a tie. Atie is a curved line that connects two notes of the exact same pitch that adds the time value of the two notes together. So for example a quarter note tied to an eighth note will equal one and a half beats, just like a dotted quarter that is one and a half beats.

Play through this example with the tied note values. Write in the counting like measures 1 and 2 throughout the example before you play it.

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•

•

Go back through some of the example you have learned so far and add ties between repeating pitches to hear how that changes the music. Create your own rhythmic patterns with ties and try to clap them or create melodies with them.

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• • •

Meter Simple meter Practicing 2 ledger lines

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Let's take a closer look at a rhythmic idea called meter. Meter is a recurring pattern of pulses or underlying structure for rhythmic accents. Meters are defined by time signatures . There are many kinds of meters and an unlimited number of ways of using

them with different rhythms. This is the reason it may seem so confusing to count musical rhythms to a beginner. But with a little practice you can und erstand any rhythm if you have a good method of counting and an understanding of meter.

Like many elements of music, meter and rhythm can be learned in a number of ways that are all "right" but in my experience as a teacher, one of the most efficient ways of teaching and learning rhythm is the Eastman Counting System .

The example below has a time signature of 2/4. This is an example of simple meter. A simple meter is any meter, or regular grouping of notes that ha s a beat that divides into

two equal parts.

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In this case the beat as defined by the time signature is a quarter note, which is divided equally into two eighth notes. In this example I have shown the beat of the meter in the first staff of the score. It shows the two quarter notes in each measure and how they line up with the music in the third staff. The second level, or the second staff, shows how that quarter note beat divides into two equal pieces, two eighth notes per beat, for a total of four eighth notes in each measure. Again these beat divisions line up with the music in the third staff. Finally look at the sixteenth notes in the third staff. They are sub-divisions of the beat. They also get labeled a certain way in the Eastman Counting System.

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How did we know what the beat, or beat unit, was and how it was divided?

The answer is found in the top number of the time signature. All simple meters have the numbers 2, 3 or 4 as the top number of the time signature. This is something you should memorize. We will learn about other types of meter in the coming chapters, but for now let’s focus on simple meters.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell To find out what note gets the beat, or is the beat unit, we look at the bottom number of the time signature. The bottom number is 4, this means the beat is equal to a quarter note.

Take a look at the chart below to see how the various possible bottom numbers relate to the possible beat unit choices.

If the Bottom number is:

Then the beat unit is a:

1

Whole Note

2

Half Note

4

Quarter Note

8

Eighth Note

16

Sixteenth Note Meter Beat Unit Chart

When counting a simple meter we want to count the beat unit, its beat divisions and its sub-divisions just as we have already learned in previous chapters.

Through out this book I will consistently label rhythms using the Eastman Counting System method which consists of three basic rules.

1. For simple meters in the Eastman system we count the number of the beat on the beat unit. The beat unit, is the large pulse that the time signature defines. Often people will just call this the beat, but for clarity I will refer to this as the beat unit, or the rhythmic value that equals one beat. As we will learn throughout this book the quarter note is not always the beat unit as defined by the meter, so a quarter note is not always eq ual to one beat. It all depends on what type of meter your music is notated in.

2. On the beat division, the next rhythmic level down, we will count the word "and" between the beat units. This will fall on its equal division of the beat, which is in two parts in all simple meters.

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3. If the sub-divisions of the beat unit are present, we will count the word "e" (pronounced as ee) on the second subdivision and the word “a” (pronounced as ah) on the fourth.

We will practice more as we go along in the remainder of this book. But for now look at how the counting is marked in the following examples. Notice the counting relates to the beat unit as defined by the time signature, not just the length of notes based on the commonly misunderstood quarter note equals one beat counting method.

Example 1 – Simple Meter counting in 3/16

In this example the meter is 3/16. This means the meter is a simple meter because the top number of the meter is a 3. We have already learned that a meter with a 2, 3 or 4 as the top number will be a simple meter.

The bottom number of the time signature is 16, so the beat unit is a sixteenth note, as defined in the Meter Beat Unit chart previously.

In this example below, compare how the beat unit aligns in eac h level of this score. The top line, staff 1, is the beat unit notated out into its three sixteenth notes per measure. The next level is the beat division level, showing the beat unit number and its division on the “and”. Finally the music itself is in the third level, showing the counting as it lines up with each note and any unseen beat units (the numbers in parenthesis).

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When reading ledger lines it may be a good idea to label them in your score before you read and play through the music. Unless you practice playing music on ledger lines often it is easy to forget which notes belong to e ach line and space outside the staff.

Here is an example to read that uses ledger lines above the treble and then switching to the bass within the same staff. Try reading the pitch names out loud by saying or singing the letter names and then play it on your instrument. Additionally write in the counting for the music above the notes. This music is in 2/8. The beat unit is an eighth note, so an eighth note equals one beat, and the beat division is a sixteenth, so the sixteenth notes fall on the beat or the “and” between the beat.

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•

Rewrite some bass clef music in the treble clef using ledger lines. This may be a tedious exercise but will teach you the concepts of many ledger lines quickly. Rewrite a short melody up or down an octave from the original on the same clef. This will force the notes out of the range of the staff and cause you to need ledger lines. Then try playing the new melody.

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The Grand Staff Common Time Versus Cut Time

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Now that we have learned the treble and bass clefs, let’s let’s look at how they work together to form the grand staff. The grand staff is is used for piano music and instruments that have a wide range of pitch such as the marimba, harp and in orchestral reduction scores.

The grand staff is made of a treble staff on top and bass staff on the bottom with a brace that connects the two. The staves of the grand staff are usually spaced apart so that you can squeeze in a few ledger lines between the staff when necessary.

When starting to read the grand staff it can feel overwhelming, but hopefully our slow build up to the staff has given you some insight as to how it functions. However there is one key common link that bridges the two staves together that makes it easier to read when you understand the link.

The pitch middle C is the connector between these staves. Look at the example below to see how the first ledger line below the treble is the same as the first ledger line above the bass clef. This is middle C, which is always on a ledger line in treble or bass clef staff.

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Most teachers of music will teach students to count music using only quarter note equals one beat counting techniques. This method of counting will work most of the time, but you will have trouble when you encounter cut time meter, a meter that is meant to be played in a quick tempo requiring you to read through the music quickly.

Let’s Let’s compare common time, or music written in 4/4, to the same music written in cut time, 2/2. Music in these meters will look exactly the same. However you will want to read them differently. differently.

In the Eastman Counting System we must first establish what note value is the pulse of the music, or the beat unit. In 4/4 the quarter note is the beat b eat unit because the bottom number of the time signature is 4 which means the beat unit is equal to 1, so a quarter note equals one beat. But Bu t in the meter of 2/2, a commonly used meter for faster tempo songs called cut time, the beat unit is not the quarter note, even though it may look like it at a quick glance.

In 2/2 or cut time the beat bea t unit is a half note because becau se the bottom number of the time signature is 2. So in this meter we have h ave 2 beats of two half ha lf notes.

2/2 and 4/4 look identical, except they are felt and thought of differently. You can count cou nt them the same but this will make your counting harder in 2/2 than it needs to be. If you count them with the Eastman Counting System you will be able to read the rhythms more easily and thus more accurately.

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How To To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Here is an example of a melody in 2/2. Try counting it with the Eastman counts above . You will most likely be inclined to read it faster because cut time meters are used for faster music.

Compare the same music below it written in 4/4. The 2/2 example is easier to read at the proper tempo, which is a fast march.

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Find some scores of John Philip Sousa on Sousa on the International Music Library Score Project to Project to see many examples of cut time.

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Counting Compound Meters in the Eastman Counting

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The Eastman Counting System is great when it comes time for you to begin to read compound meter, but there are a few more rules to learn.

First, a compound meter is any meter that the beat unit divides into three equal parts. Compound meters will have the numbers 6, 9, or 12 as the top number in the time signature.

When we count in compound meter we must first establish what the beat unit is. To find this we divide the top number of the time signature by three .

So in a meter of 6/8 there are two beat units in the measure, because six divided by three is two. Those two beats will be dotted note values because all compound meters have dotted values for the beat unit .

To find the beat unit you must figure out the division of the beat unit. Remember a compound meter must divide into three equal parts. In this case, the beat unit is going to be a dotted quarter note; because three eighth notes add up to a dotted quarter and two dotted quarters add up to the length of the measure in 6/8.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Next we will count this music using the syllables “la” and “li” on the second and third divisions of the beat.

For example, a full measure of dotted quarter notes will be counted as “1, 2” and a full measure of eighth notes will be counted as “1 la li, 2 la li”.

This method is great because it makes you count the number of the beat on the beat unit. Take a look at this example and count out loud the rhythms that are written in above the music.

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Go through some music in 6/8 and mark in the counting using the Eastman Counting System. Try playing the music with counting written in and notice ho w the beat numbers 1 and 2 line up with the pulse that you feel when you hear the music.

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Proportion Related Music Reading Problems

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Music is written in a notation system that is not always spaced proportionally. This is a confusing concept to the beginning music student because it is not directly logical. The reason music is not written proportionally is because it will waste space on the page if every note value takes up the space equal to its time value.

Look at the musical example below using standard spacing of notes and the same music in proportional notation. The proportional version takes up a lot more space, and is therefore less efficient in its visual presentation.

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So when you are counting it is imperative that you understand the meter you are working in so you will know where the beat units fall in relationship to the music. If you rely on the notes being spaced proportionally you will ultimately be just guessing at the rhythm and will not be accurate in your counting.

Try this example below to test your note reading ability. It intentionally has unusual spacing to test your accuracy of counting. Before playing it write in the counting above the notes.

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•

•

Music with unusual proportions is common among beginning young composers, due to their lack of knowledge of proper musical notation. You may be able to test your skills by finding pieces from young composers forums to look for examples of this type of issue. On the other hand, it is shocking how often a publisher will release music with such notational issues. You will probably run in to this in cheaply produced sheet music, especially in fake books and pop song arrangements. If you find these notational issues label your counting to aid in deciphering the proper rhythms.

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Common Misconceptions of 6/8

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When learning to read music it is very common that teachers will teach you how to count rhythm based on simple meter counting only. This approach will never get you to fully understand how to properly count complicated compound meters.

The basic method music teachers usually teach goes like this:

Quarter notes equal one beat, half notes equal two, wholes equal four, etc...

But this is not how music written in compound meters really works, and thus causes frustration and unnecessary complication in these meters when students ultimately run into problems down the road with more difficult music.

Let’s begin with the fundamental difference between a compound and simple meter. Simple meters divide the pulse of the music, the beat unit, into two equal parts. Compound meters divide the beat unit into three equal parts. Thus, you will count the values of the notes differently in compound meters.

For now, I will simply teach you how to count a co mpound meter properly, but on Day 16 we will dive deep into the subtleties of compound versus simple meter.

In a compound meter all the beat units will be dotted value notes. This is because a dotted value note will equally divide into three equal parts without the need of a triplet or fractional note value.

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Also, as we have already learned, compound meters will have the numbers of 6, 9, or 12 in the top number of the time signature.

Let’s take a look at the most common compound meter time signature 6/8.

First we will dispel the myth of counting in 6/8 that is so common, even among educated musicians.

6/8 does not have 6 beats to the measure!!!!!

Most musicians will count each eighth note as a beat in this meter, which will work to an extent, but will not produce the correct fluency of music reading until many years down the road. Also this error will never explain how the feel of the pulse, the beat unit, lines up with the notation of the music and the proper beaming of notes.

6/8 has only 2 beats per measure. Why? How? I don't understand?!?

It's because 6/8 is a compound meter. We know this because the top number is 6. This is the indicator that the meter is a compound meter.

Next we know that compound meters divide the beat evenly into three parts.

To do this we must take the six eighth notes present in the measure and group them correctly by dividing the top number of the compound meter's time signature by the number three to find the number of pulses, or beat units in the meter.

6 divided by 3 is 2. 6/8 has two pulses per measure, or two beats.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell To find the value of the beat unit in this meter we add the three equal beat unit divisions together. Three eighth notes add together to form a dotted quarter note.

Now that we have walked through the how and why of the compound meter in 6/8 let’s reiterate how to count it in the Eastman Counting System.

There are three simple rules to counting a compound meter.

1. Say the number of the beat on the beat unit. 2. Say “La” and “Li” on parts two and three of the beat, the beat division. 3. Say “ta” on any sub-divisions of the beat. We will save an example of this for Day 14.

Take a look at this example and write the counting in and count, sing and play along.

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Take a look at some Irish jigs. These pieces are commonly in compound meters. They also tend to be fast. This is what is so great about this counting system. It allows you to read music quickly by just counting the beat unit at faster tempos.

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• •

Sub-Division of the Beat Unit in the Eastman Counting System Counting in the Meters 9/8 and 12/8

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Lets take a closer look now at the sub-division of compound meters.

We learned on Day 13 that compound meters have three basic counting rules:

1. Say the beat number on the beat unit. 2. Say “la” and “li” on the division of the beat. 3. Say “ta” on the subdivision of the beat.

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Here is an example of a melody with sub-divisions, rhythms that are half as small as the division of the beat in 9/8.

As we have already learned, a meter with 9 as the top number of the time signature is a compound meter. 9 divided by 3 equals three pu lses or beat units per measure. The beat unit value of 9/8 is a dotted quarter note, and this beat unit divides into three equal eight notes.

The counts are written in the first half of the melody with the beats, beat divisions and sub-divisions. Fill in the second half of the melody with the proper counting and then count, sing and play the melody.

Now try an example in 12/8. 12/8 is a common meter used in blues and ballad songs.

Here is the break down of the counting:

12/8 has four beats per measure of a dotted quarter note as the beat unit which divides into three equal eighth note parts.

The beginning of the music has the counting started for you. Continue writing in the counting and then count, sing and play the melody.


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Find some sheet music for blues songs in 12/8 or songs in 9/8. Write in the counts and play through them only playing the notes on the beat, leaving out the beat divisions. Then go back and play the full song with all the notes. Can you hear the beat as you play the song now?

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Patterns of Sub-Division Level Rhythms

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At first sub-dividing rhythms is not very easy in simple or compound rhythms because students generally tend to constantly count in stead eighth or quarter notes, rather than actually counting the proper rhythms as defined by the Eastman Counting System.

Below is a list of the common patterns you will encounter in pieces of music. This list is not comprehensive of all possible rhythms because there are literally thousands of combinations, but these few popup over and over and it is in your best interest to learn to recognize them by sight. By learning these patterns most of your rhythmic counting issues will be tackled before you ever see the sheet music for a piece.



•

Look for these patterns in sheet music you have. You will find them everywhere. Remember these patterns are of the sub-division level of rhythm, so rhythms smaller than the division of the beat unit.

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Beats Versus Units Simple Versus Compound 3/4 Versus 6/8 Groove Versus Feel

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Now that we have learned about simple and compound meters let’s take a minute to examine and explain further the concepts of the word “beat” and its multiple uses.

The word “beat” is often used to indicate several ideas in music. This is the reason so many people have difficulty understanding how to properly count rhythms and read them with ease. The word beat can mean several different things.

The most basic definition and concept of the beat is the pulse of music. When you hear a song you generally will tap your foot or clap you hands to the “beat” of the song. This beat, a regular pulse in time, may or may not be the same as the unit of time that we call the beat unit in the meter.

The second definition of the word “beat” is a unit of specific time. Quarter notes equal one beat, or one unit of time labeled as a beat. This numeric value of 1 beat is different from the idea of the “beat unit” that is used in the Eastman Counting System and is the more universal definition of the word beat.

The “beat” of a meter as defined by the time signature is the beat unit. To find the beat unit value of any meter you must follow these three steps:

How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Step 1. Determine if the meter is a simple or compound meter.

If the top number of the time signature is a 2, 3, or 4 then the meter is a simple time signature.

If the top number is 6, 9 or 12 then it is a compound meter.

If the number is not any of these choices then you have an asymmetric meter, which we will not discuss in detail in this book. However in general asymmetrical meters are considered simple meters if the beat divides into two eq ual parts and compound if it divides into three equal parts. 5/4 is the most common example of an asymmetrical meter that is a simple meter.

Step 2. Find the meter’s beat unit if it is a simple meter.

If you have a simple meter, then the bottom numbe r of the time signature will tell us which rhythmic value equals one beat, or the beat unit. Here is a list of the most common values. Notice that if you imagine the bottom number as though it were a fraction under the number one, then you can read the rhythmic value of the beat.

For example in 4/4 the bottom number is 4. If you imagine that as the number four under the number one (1/4) you can see that the beat value is a fourth, or one quarter, thus the beat is a quarter note in 4/4.



1

Whole Note

2

Half Note

4

Quarter Note

8

Eighth Note

16

Sixteenth Note

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Simple Meter - Beat Unit Chart

Step 3. Find the meter’s beat unit if it is a compound meter.

If the time signature is a compound meter then you will need to divide the top number by three to find the number of beats in the measure. Then you will need to multiply the bottom number as, a fraction under the number one, by the number of beats to find the beat unit value.

For example in 6/8, 6 divided by 3 is 2. So in 6/8 there are two beats in the measure and the beat value is an eighth note multiplied by three, which is 1 and a 1/2 beats, which is equal to a dotted quarter note.

In compound meters the beat unit will always be a dotted value.

Here is quick chart to show you the beat values in compound meters



1

Dotted Double Whole Note (a Breve)

2

Dotted Whole Note

4

Dotted Half Note

8

Dotted Quarter Note

16

Dotted Eighth Note Compound Meter - Beat Unit Chart

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When reading music it is imperative that you understand the difference between simple and compound meters.

How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Below is an example of the same music written as 3/4 and 6/8. Both will sound the same, but one is written in simple meter and the other is compound. Composers choose the type of meter based on the sub-division of the beat. So if a piece such as the one below does not really have sub-divisions present then the piece may be notated in either type of meter. But as a general principle, songs will have sub-divisions somewhere in them or the accompaniment in the background will contain the sub-divisions, which will necessitate the proper choice of meter to avoid needing duplet or triplet rhythms.

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To wrap things up, here is just a final word about meter. Simple meter and compound meters have very different feels or grooves to them. Simple meters tend to be straight in feel and are used in marches and driving rhythms. Compound meters are used in music with a bit of a lilt to it, or a skipping type rhythm. These are not rules set in stone about rhythm, just general observations. Remember there is always an exception to the rule in music, that’s what keeps it interesting. If no music eve r broke any music theory rules or standard practices there would never be an unexpected moments in the music.

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Try re-notating a piece from 6/8 into ", or vice versa. You will see why the composer chose the original meter instantly.


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Articulations Accents, Staccato and Legato Slurs, Phrasing and Flow Feel, Groove

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Speaking of rhythmic feel and groove, in this chapter we will learn about articulations and phrase markings, which aid in establishing musical flow and rhythmic feeling. These markings, combined with dynamics, give life to the music. They tell the player how to interpret or shape the sound of the music.

Articulations are small markings that tell you what style to play a note. The most common articulations are staccato, tenuto, and accent marks. Often the musical score will say to play the music staccato, meaning detached, or legato, meaning smoothly.

A quarter note with a staccato mark

Staccato marks mean to play notes shorter than there values. These notes are clipped off when played. They sound short and broken up.

A quarter note with a tenuto mark

How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Tenuto marks are the opposite. They mean to play the note for its full value and to connect it to the next note smoothly, but without altering the rhythmic length.

A quarter note with an accent mark

Accent marks tell us to play the note a little louder, thus accentuating the note.

Also we will see markings called slurs that look very similar to the ties we learned about on Day 8. These long lines over a passage of music tell us to play these notes smoothly and connected, like a singer with a beautiful voice.

A passage with slurred notes

Often slurs are used to indicate phrasing. This just means that the slur is showing us how the notes are grouped together in the melody. Also slurs may be used in wind instruments, such as the flute, to indicate to play all the slurred notes with one breathe. In stringed instruments the slur means to play with a single bow in one direction to make the smoothest possible sound.

All these markings contribute to the feel, or groove of the music. If you play the same music with different markings it can sound very different. Here is an example with different phrasing and articulations to give you an idea of how these markings make an impact on your playing.


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Look for articulations in music you have and try to perform the articulations after you have perfected the rhythms and pitches in the music. After playing what’s written in the music, try changing the articulations to get a different feel or style.

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Syncopation

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One of the most commonly misplayed rhythmic patterns are syncopation rhythms. This is because it requires you to really understand how music notation works to be able read them accurately.

Syncopated rhythms emphasize rhythmic accents that happen off the beat, or between the basic steady pulse. When playing these rhythms do not guess at them or you will play them incorrectly. Just as we have learned already write in the counting to get the syncopations correct.

Syncopations can sometimes be tricky because they look a little odd in notation at times. Here is a common syncopation pattern shown in different ways.

I recommend you break syncopation rhythms into the tied values, as seen in the second notational style above, until you understand them very well. By breaking the syncopated rhythms with ties you are able to see the placement of each beat unit clearly.

Here is an example with the counting written in with the syncopation shown a s normally notated and with the syncopated rhythms altered to be shown using ties, so you can see each beat unit clearly.

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In this example the meter is 4/4. Typically in 4/4 the strong beats are beats 1 a nd 3. If a rhythm accentuates beats 2 or 4 then it is said to be syncopated, or emphasizing the off beat.

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When you encounter a rhythm that is syncopated, obscuring where each beat unit in the measure is, break it into the rhythmic values that will allow you to show each beat unit clearly.

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• •

Reading Music in Chunks Reading Lines by Interval

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When reading music you will have to begin by reading each note one at time. But as you progress in your ability, your note reading reflex will improve. You will automatically begin to chunk, or group the incoming information to your eyes. To facilitate this, you should begin to look at your music in chucks, or larger bits of information.

This allows you to read the music easier. But be aware this will take time to master. When you are first beginning to read music focus on rhythmic and pitch reading accuracy, before moving on to attempting to read rhythms and pitches faster.

To read music in chucks start by looking at all the notes in one beat of music. In the example below, try to read the three notes of the beat d ivision all at a glance, rather than one at a time.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell After reading at the beat unit level, try reading the complete measure all at once. This is not easy, so be patient with yourself as you acquire this skill. It may take quite a while before you will be able to do this, but this is one of the keys to ready music fluently.

Finally, if you can read two measures ahead you will be able to play most anything with ease. To practice this skill try having a friend cover the measure you are playing with an index card as you read ahead in the measure. This will get you to focus on what is coming up next instead of what you are playing in real-time.

I want to emphasize that this skill will take time to acquire, and to not be discouraged as you work your way up to this. If you focus on playing rhythms and pitches accurately at slower speeds you will get there with practice an d patience.

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The next concept of reading in chucks is to read by interval rather than by pitch. Think about reading from note to note, by the distance that the notes are moving. Look at the example below and try to read up and down by the intervals written in, to see if you can read them a bit easier than by thinking about each note individually.

The numbers between each note are the distances in lines and spaces. These are generic intervals. You can learn more about them with this video from my website. Generic intervals are counted by beginning with the number 1 on the note you are measuring and count up with each line and space to the next note.

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Let’s take a moment to explain intervals in more depth. An interval is a distance, either vertically or horizontally from one note to another. Intervals are measured in two different ways. Each interval is measured either as a general interval, the number of lines and spaces on the staff, or as a specific interval, the number of half steps between e ach note on the piano keyboard. The following chart of the most frequently used generic intervals and there measurements in lines and spaces. Remember to begin counting on the original note with the number 1, so two notes on the same line or space will be an interval of 1, a unison.

Generic Interval Name

Distance in Lines and Spaces

Unison

1

Second

2

Third

3

Fourth

4

Fifth

5

Sixth

6

Seventh

7

Octave

8

Ninth

9

Tenth

10 Chart of Generic Interval Names

When learning to read music intervalically you may start with reading only the generic intervals. As you learn to build chords and other more detailed musical elements yo u will want to learn and understand how to measure specific intervals in half steps.

A word of caution about this method: You must be aware of the scales and key

signatures for this method to work well. On day 21 we will explore scales and key signatures in greater detail. For now just be aware of the notes that have been altered by the key signature when reading by intervals.

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For instruments like guitar and piano that can play multiple notes at a time you may want to try to read notes vertically by capturing the intervals between the note from the bottom to the top. Scan the notes by looking at the bottom note and quickly reading the intervals upward and then play the chords.

Combining all these techniques together will make y ou a much better sight-reader. But don't let this be your sole purpose. Music is about playing, not sight reading sheet music. As your sight-reading abilities grow, the more music you can learn quickly. But don’t neglect the necessity to play music sensitivity with all the articulations and dynamic markings as well as phrasing. This skill comes with practice and rarely happens during sight-reading, in the early developmental stages of musicians.

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• • •

Try the chunking techniques discussed in this chapter on previous examples. Try writing in the intervals of a new melody before yo u read it. Practice with a friend holding an index card as you read ahead in your music.

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•

The Various Types of Common Chords in Music

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The governing principles of music, known as music theory, are guidelines that composers use to create songs. These rules and procedu res give many types of music their form and structure and the underlying mathematical relationships that create convincing musical moods and styles.

In your quest to read music easily it is invaluable to learn how to read and recognize chords by the notes on the page. By doing so you will be able to read music in chunks and allow your brain to process the information on the page faster and with fewer mistakes.

Although this book is not a dedicated music theory course I strongly urge you to spend time learning the rules of music theory. This will save you years of trial and error in your music reading endeavors.

To begin with I recommend you learn the four basic types of triad chords, c hords with three notes, in the following order:

• • • •

Major chords Minor chords Diminished chords Augmented chords

The next group to learn would be the seventh chords, the chords with four notes in them.

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• • • • •

Dominant seventh chords Major seventh chords Minor seventh chords Diminished seventh chords Half diminished seventh chords

When learning and memorizing your chords, concentrated on spelling them from the bottom note, the root, upward by thirds. Most chords are built from a stack of thirds. This is why standard tonal harmony is called tertiary harmony .

Let’s begin with examining how to build a major chord. Start with a root or bottom note. This will be the letter name of the chord. Next let’s choose the type or quality of the chord. In this case we will build a C major chord. The root is C and the type or quality of the chord is major. The formula for all major chords is root, up a major 3rd, and then up a minor 3rd. Here is the chord on the staff with the intervals, the distances between each note shown.

You can learn chords in a multitude of ways and every different way has its pros and cons. But this method is very simple for a beginner and is an easy method for memorizing all the possible chords. I call this method the master pattern method . You learn the master pattern for the intervals and then you can build that pattern on any note to create the type of chord you want.

Here is a chart containing all the pitches in all the major chords with its formula. Following that are the minor chords, diminished and augmented chords.

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The set of chords after that are the seventh chords, chords that contain four notes.

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Now back to why this information is useful to you as a music reader. Music is generally constructed from chords. The notes of chords can be broken up and played in all kinds of different orders but they still can be thought of as a chord.

Look at the following example and compare the notes in the music to the chord symbols above. Most of the notes in the piece are from the chords listed. Learning to recognize chords by looking at the notes will help you to be able to see the larger picture of the music and capture a lot of data at a glance when reading music.

There are many more types of chords and lots of rules as to the how’s and why’s of chord choices and interaction, but for now focus on learning the four basic triad types and five types of seventh chords that are most commonly used in music.

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Visit MusicTheory.net, one of my favorite resources for teaching students chords. Here you can find many tools to help you learn and practice chords.

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• • •

Musical Keys Key Signatures Musical Patterns

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A key in music is a set or group of pitches that are organized in a particular pattern of whole steps and half steps, and sometimes other intervals.

The vast majority of music is in one of two types of musical keys: Major or Minor.

Key signatures are the sharps or flats shown at the beginning of the music that indicate

what key a piece of music is in. Just like chords, there are rules and relationships among key signatures that music theory can teach us a lot about, but for the beginning music reader, your focus needs to be on how to read the key signature and accurately play the notes that it effects.

A key signature shows a group of notes that have be en altered from the natural white notes of a piano. For example here is the key signature of G major.

It contains one sharp on the F line of the treble clef. This means that any note on an F anywhere throughout the staff will be an F sharp instead of an F natural. If the composer needs you to play an F natural they will put a natural sign, like the ones we learned about

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell on Day 6, before any note that needs to be an F natural. That natural will apply until the end of the measure or until a sharp replaces it during the measure.

When learning to read music with key signatures, students often begin playing before they think about what notes are going to be affected. Also it is common as you are going along in your playing to lose focus, and forget which notes are altered by the key signature.

To solve this problem I recommend that you get yourself three different colors of highlighters. I recommend a set of green, blue and red. Use the red for any notes that the key signature indicates that are sharped, or raised by a half step. Go through the music and lightly mark all these notes. If the key signature has flats go through and mark any flats from the key signature with blue. Finally, most songs with key signatures will also have an occasional natural, for these I use green. Just be careful you only mark the notes that the natural sign effects.

Key signatures are used to help you in reading the music with clarity. If we did not use key signatures there would be many more accidentals placed through out a piece of music. Also anytime a piece has notes from the key it is written in, these notes will not need accidentals placed on them because the key signature accounts for this.

Another helpful method of reading music with a key signature is to write out the notes of the scale on an index card to place beside your music. We will learn how to do this on Day 23.

The example below is a piece in A major. Write the notes A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G# out on an index card, and place it to the side of the sheet music as you play through it. This will help you remember which notes are being altered by the key signature as you play.

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Print a copy of the Circle of Fifths from this Wikipedia article, a device used to teach key signatures and their relationships. This will show you all the p ossible key signatures used in music.

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• • •

Accompaniment Figures Reading in Block Chord Style Bach’s Prelude In C From The Well Tempered Clavier Book 1

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As we learned on Day 19, chunking is the key to reading music fluently. Also on Day 20 we learned how chords are used to create musical pieces, by breaking the notes apart and rearranging the order of them.

Today let’s examine more closely this process in the accompaniment of a p iece of music. The accompaniment is the background or less important part of the music that supports the melody. Usually the accompaniment will be a set of chords that are put to a specific rhythmic pattern to fill in the music.

Many pieces are created by using a melody and an accompaniment pattern to form elaborate structures that look difficult at first glance, but are simple once you see the pattern.

Here is an example of a piece that takes this idea to create an entire piece. It is the Prelude in C by Bach from his set of preludes the Well Tempered Clavier. Through out this piece each measure is simply a chord that is arpeggiated, or broken into its individual notes, instead of being playing all at once. I have labeled the first few bars of the chords from this excerpt. Can you go through the rest of the excerpt and label the rest? Refer to the charts from Day 20 for help.

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Let’s look at this example again but this time let’s read each pattern chunk of the accompaniment as one chord, called a block chord, because it condenses the material to one block.

Here is a reduction of the piece into its block chords. To create this reduction all I did was align each note to the rhythmic value that it spans. Try this technique when reading music that looks elaborate. Often it is created from patterns similar to this example.

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Try creating a reduction of a piece. To do this look at the piece an d try to group notes into chords, omitting less important notes with smaller time values and those that are ornamental.

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• •

Master Scale Patterns Accidental Marking

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Scales also form a large portion of musical pieces, which is why music teachers, the world over, have their students practice scales. This is done to familiarize your hands and ears with the notes of each of the scales. But just like chords, scales can be created from master patterns of intervals.

The basic types of scales you will encounter are the major scales and the natural minor scales. There are also variations of the natural minor scales that create the harmonic and melodic minor scales.

Lets begin with the major scales.

Here is its master pattern of intervals shown in half steps: Root, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 2,1

This pattern of half steps will create any major scale. Lets create a C major scale by starting on the root C. Slowly go through and add the notes that fit the pattern from the master pattern.

You should get: C D E F G A B C

Here is a chart containing all the major scales with the pattern shown.

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Here are the minor scales also, beginning with natural minor, then harmonic, and melodic.

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When reading music, most of the time the notes will fall into the scale. If you know and practice your scales you will be able to more easily predict the notes that are in the piece because they generally fall into a scale.

As we discussed on Day 21, remember to mark your score with the three colors of highlighter to make it easier to read the notes that have been altered by key signatures or accidentals. @"64A-6 B6&%9%-


•

• •

Begin practicing scales slowly and saying the name of the note out loud as you play them. Memorize the master patterns for each type of scale Look for more types of scales such as the pentatonic, whole tone and octatonic, and learn their master patterns by figuring out the numbers of half steps between each note.

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Accompaniment Patterns in Polyphonic Style

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Some music has accompaniment that is polyphonic. This means that the accompaniment, or background, is more independent. Polyphonic literally means “more than one voice”. The notes from polyphonic accompaniment may or may not fall into the chord easily.

This type of music is the hardest to read and play fluently because it requires that you read lines of music that move just as two or more independent melodies would move. This is confusing and not easily mastered.

For polyphonic music begin by reading the notes intervallically, as we learned about on day 19.

Also work at a slow enough tempo, or speed, so that you limit the number of mistakes you make when reading the notes the first time. Mistakes that are made over and over are harder to fix.

One trick that helps in reading this type of music is to give yourself an anchor line.

An anchor line is a way of guiding your eye across the page, that relates to the key that the music is in. To create an anchor line, decide which key the piece is in. You can tell this by the key signature, or by looking a which note seems to be the most important.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Usually this will be the first and last note of the melody. This is not a foolproof method of finding the key, but for this process of creating an anchor line it is eno ugh information to get the job done.

Once you establish what your key is use that pitch, on its line or space, to draw a highlighted line across all the staves to show that pitch. Often in music, whether it be polyphonic or not, the root note of the key will come back over and over. This anchor line ultimately will give you a visual guide to follow as you play through the music, keeping you focused on the key of the scale.

Here is a polyphonic variation of Twinkle in E major. Create an anchor line by using a highlighter to highlight the E line on the treble and the E space on the bass. This will create a visual anchor to compare all the notes to as you play the piece.

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•

•

Go through some of the music you own and create anchor lines. Remember the anchor line works best if you highlight the root note of the key your piece is in. If you do not know what key it is in choose the middle line on each staff to give you a guiding anchor line for reading.

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• •

Musical Expression Practice Tempo Versus Playing Tempo

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Musical expression comes from two main elements that are shown in musical notation. One is the tempo and the other is dynamics.

Tempo is the speed of music. Usually a piece of music has a tempo marking at the

beginning of the score and often other places throughout the piece. Tempo markings may be written in different languages but often are in Italian, the traditional language for musical tempos.

Here are the most common tempos in Italian and their translations:

Italian Tempo Word

Translation

Metronome Number

Adagio

Slow

66-76

Andante

Medium

76-108

Allegro

Fast

120-168

Lento

Very Slow

40-60

Grave

Extremely Slow

20-40

Vivace

Lively and Fast

~140

Presto

Very Fast

168-200

Allegretto

Moderately Fast

~130

Andantino

Slightly Faster than Andante ~85

Poco

A little more

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Meno

A little less

-8

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Tempos can also be show as metronome markings. A metronome is a device used for establishing a tempo accurately. A metronome works by choosing the number of beats per minute for the click. The beats per minute may be listed as a metronome marking on your music. The beats per minute or bpm is the number of times the metronome will click in a one minute period. MA*"B92,

Dynamics also greatly affect the expressive quality of music. Dynamics are h ow loud or soft the music is and when the volume changes. Dynamics are marked with two parts. The first is the dynamic marking.

Again it is customary to see this labeled with the Italian words. The Italian word for soft is piano. And the word for loud is forte. The word mezzo, meaning medium, further modifies these two words. The dynamic extremes, extend the words piano and forte. Here is a list to show you the full range of dynamics with their abbreviated symbols.

ppp – Pianississimo (extremely soft) pp – Pianissimo (very soft) p – Piano (soft) mp – Mezzopiano (medium soft) mf – Mezzoforte (medium loud) f – Forte (loud) ff – Foritissimo (very loud) fff – Fortississimo (extremely loud)

Dynamics can be further enhanced with the symbols for a crescendo , to get louder, and a decrescendo , to get softer.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Crescendos and decrescendos are indicated with symbols commonly called hairpins. The volume changes in relationship to how the hairpin opens or closes.

As the hairpin opens, you will crescendo, or get louder. And the opposite happens for the decrescendo, or hairpin that starts opened and slowly closes, signifying to get softer.

Try this short example with dynamics.

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•

•

You can also mark dynamics with highlighters, or circle them so you notice them as you play through your sheet music. Try leaning your body forward as you crescendo and back as you decrescendo. Often physical connection to the music makes it easier to bring out dynamics in performance.

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• • • •

Form and Structure Memorization of Music Building Speed Learning Music Backwards

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As you learn to read music it is important to learn about the form and structure of the pieces you play. There are many types of forms in music such as the sonata form, rondo, binary form, strophic song form and many more. This book is not designed to teach about each type of form. Instead, I want you to focus on marking and dividing your music into its smaller parts and sections to see the form of the whole piece.

Take a look at the score below. This piece is the first movement of Robert Schumann’s piano series Album for the Young, Opus 68. We will use this as an example of how to mark out the form. I have labeled where the parts of the piece start and stop, or divide. These places are called cadences. Cadences, or pauses in music give a good clue about how the different parts of music separate into easier to learn sections.

When you begin a new piece of music, go through and mark the sections of the piece by looking for obvious stopping points. You may mark this with a line dividing the measures or just a number or letter, which ever is more convenient for you.

By marking out the sections of a piece you can break it into smaller parts to practice. This technique allows you to focus on each part individually. Also you can practice each part without playing through the entire piece.

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One technique that works really well for learning new pieces is to go through and mark each section and learn the piece in reverse order. Begin with the last section of the music and play it until you have it worked it up to tempo. Then, move back one section and

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell learn that. Now, add the two sections together. Continue this process until you have worked your way all the way back to the beginning. As you the play the piece it will only get better because you have worked more on the end than the beginning. This technique also will aid you in memorizing the piece.

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Speaking of memorization you should begin to memorize your piece so that you do not need the music at all. This process should be done with simple music so you can gradually learn to memorize more complicated piece s.

Again the marking of the music into sections and practicing the piece in reverse order will help you memorize.

As you work to memorize your piece you will get faster and more fluent at the pieces you are working on, but remember to keep your tempos steady and work to incorporate all the musical elements including dynamics. @"64A-6 B6&%9%-


• •

Go back and mark in the form of examples throughout this book. Try memorizing a few of the shorter examples in the book.

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• • • •

Trills Grace notes Fermatas Barline types

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In many scores there are special symbols that indicate certain musical gestures. These symbols generally indicate a certain type of performance practice, or common way of interpreting the musical symbols.

How to Play Trills

The most common symbol is the trill . A trill symbol indicates to us to play this note and whatever the note above it in the scale is, by quickly alternating between the two notes. Trills can be difficult to play for beginners because they require a certain level of dexterity and control before you can perform them. In general a trill is just in the music for ornamentation and can actually be left out all together and you will still capture most of what the musical passage sounds like.

How to Play Grace Notes

Another other common symbol is the grace note, or small note play before the larger printed notes. Grace notes come in two forms, the appoggiatura and the acciaccatura . The performance of these types of notes varies depending on the musical period the piece

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell is from, but in general they are to be played quickly just before the beat of the note they are attached to. Grace notes always have their stems pointing upward.

The Fermata

Another common symbol is the fermata. A fermata is a little half circle with a dot inside the middle. This symbol indicates to hold out this note for a longer time period than normal, as though the music has suddenly suspended in mid-air. The exact length of a fermata note is up to the discretion of the player or conductor.

The final symbols we will discuss are the different ending barlines. We have already encountered the normal barline between each measure. But sometimes there is a thin double bar between two measures to indicate this this is a new section of music. Also at the end of a piece there is a thicker double bar line, indicating that the piece is over.

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•

Reference this Wikipedia article when you encounter a new musical symbol you do not know.

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• •

Octave Symbols Piano Pedal Symbols

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Often to avoid excess ledger lines composers will use shortcuts to tell use the music should be played an octave higher or lower than written.

The 8va symbol means to play this passage of notes an octave higher than is written in the music.

Likewise the 8vb symbol tells us to play the notes an octave lower than written.

After a passage written under an octave change marking some times a composer will mark the return to the normal octave by putting the Italian word loco, meaning local or as written.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell .09'B"32 IAB#'$,

Each musical instrument usually has a few special symbols used for its idiomatic notation issues. For example violins and other bowed string instruments have symbols for when to play an up-bow or a down-bow. But these symbols don't apply to instruments that do not use bows.

Let’s take a look at few more symbols you may run into for piano notation, since these are the most common type of musical scores that are available.

The markings that tell use when to use the piano pedals are a combination of stars, asterisks, lines and carets.

In more traditional piano notation, the symbol to indicate when to press the sustain pedal is a Ped marking. When the pedal of the piano is pressed the strings inside continue to vibrate and allow the notes to sound together until the pedal is released or until the string stops vibrating naturally which can take up to 20 seconds or so to fully decay.

When a pedaled passage is finished, the score is marked with an asterisk to signify when to release the pedal.

This older style of notation has been updated to address the issue of frequent pedal changes, where the player needs to lift the pedal to stop the harmonies from ringing and quickly re-press the pedal.

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This more modern pedal notation starts with a Ped symbol and continues with a line until a pedal change occurs. The pedal change is marked with a caret, or a little spike in the line to indicate a quick release and re-press of the pedal. Additionally the final asterisks in this style is replaced with a stopping of the line and a quick upturn of the line to visually highlight the end of the pedaled passage.

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•

Try notating some music that is written with 8va and 8vb symbols by using ledger lines instead. You will see quickly why these symbols are used for clarity.

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•

Reading Triplets in Simple Meters

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Now that you have learned to count nearly any rhythm written in simple or compound meter let’s take a look at the use of the mixture of these two types of meter.

When a piece of music is written in simple meter and we have a division of the beat unit into three equal parts we will need to use triplets. Triplets allow us to temporarily use the compound meter divisions in a simple meter.

When counting triplets in simple meter, use the compound counting techn ique of counting 1 la li, 2 la li etc. for the triplets.

Take a look at this example with the counting written in. Notice that the example uses a combination of regular eighth notes and triplet eight notes.

Often when learning to count triplets many students learn the technique of counting the word " tri-pa-let". This method is not recommend because it will not account for smaller divisions of the triplet.

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When you divide triplets into smaller divisions you may use the Rhythm counting technique of saying "ta" between the syllables to represent the subdivisions.

Here is an example of a simple meter piece with triplets that have subdivisions written in. The counting is written for you in the first couple measures. Fill in the rest to practice counting this type of rhythm.

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•

•

Try composing some melodies that incorporate a mixture of triplets and pairs of eighth notes. Alter a musical passage with triplets to contain sub-divisions and label the counting.

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•

Counting Duplets in Compound Time

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Duplets are the opposite of a triplet. A duplet shows a beat unit divided into two equal parts in a compound meter.

Duplets are used more rarely than triplets, but none the less you should know how to accurately count them out when you encounter them.

When a duplet is used in a compound meter you may count them as though they were in a simple meter by counting the beat division as 1 “and” 2 “and”.

Here is the same example from the previous chapter but now it is notated in compound meter with duplets. It should sound exactly the same as the previous chapters example, in fact the counting written above will be the same, with only the notation looking slightly different.

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How To Read Music Easily In 30 Days by Leon Harrell Just like triplets, duplets may have sub-divisions as well. These sub-divisions work just like other simple meter sub-divisions. The words “e” and “a” go between the beat unit and it’s divisions to form “1 e and a” style counting.

Here is an example with duplets that also incorporate subdivision of the beat.

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•

Re-notate an example of music in 4/4 that uses sixteenth notes into a 12/8 meter that uses duplets and there subdivisions.

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M"A 4> ? f'1/ J1,92"$ k'1/*%A Congratulations! You have completed your 30 day journey into reading music easily and fluently. You have begun a path of musical literacy that can sustain you throughout your musical career with just the information you have learned in this book.

I encourage you to continue on your path of growing as a musician. If you haven't already done so, please visit my website OneMinuteMusicLesson.com and browse through my free video lessons to reinforce the concepts in this book and find many other resources to help you gain knowledge about music and music theory.

Additionally, I have a free newsletter that you may subscribe to stay updated on new material added to my site and other developments of the One Minute Music Lesson.

Also, I highly encourage you to email me with any questions you may have after reading through this book. Music is a complicated language that you may need a little help with to master every step. If you found anything confusing in this book let me know and I will try my best to clarify any concepts to get you through the difficult subtleties in learning to read music fluently.

Finally, if you are ready to dive head first into your musical training and want to gain knowledge as fast as possible with a dedica ted and well seasoned teacher, I invite you to try private lessons with me online via Skype video. You may find out more about private lessons at http://oneminutemusiclesson.com/private-lessons/.

KL

How to Read Music Easily in 30 Days

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