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BASICS: HOW TO BECOME A MUSIC READER_________________________“But I can’t read music!” The cry choir directors and church musicians hear from their volunteers all too frequently these days. More accurate would be if they said this, “I can’t sight sing a piece of music at the drop of a hat.” That is what most people actually mean when they say that they cannot read music. The skill of being able to sight sing or sight read a piece of music at the drop of a hat is actually at the advanced end of music reading skills and is certainly not necessary for participation in a church choir or instrumental group.Music reading has a spectrum lying between, “OK there are little blobs on the page that move up and down on a musical staff and I can tell when they are moving up and when they are moving down” and “sure, I can sight read that sucker first time.” Most volunteer church musicians lie somewhere on the first half of that spectrum and do quite well thank you.Here’s a little know fact. There exist more letters in the English alphabet than essential symbols in learning to read music. I can and have successfully led many second and third grade students toward successfully reading music at a competent enough level to fully participate in their church choir and with a little effort, you also can attain this at most any age in life beyond 1st grade. Let’s begin with the most basic concept and then you can watch some of the videos below to successfully fill in the rest. First, the music page is simple a collection of artistic symbols created to indicate pitch (up or down), rhythm (the length those pitches are to be held), and volume (how loud or soft the pitches are to be sung or played). There are generally two musical staffs on a page of music (remember….the upper one for high notes and the lower one for low notes: treble and bass clefs respectively).These two musical staffs have their notes placed on essentially an X and a Y axis. Meaning, the Y (vertical axis) indicates pitch (up or down/ high or low) and the X (horizontal axis) is used to indicate rhythm or speed moving forward to the right. Within these two realms, there are 8 note names (A through G), 5 note values (sounds), 5 rest values (silences), 6 volume values (dynamics), and a repeat sign that you will need to know to navigate a piece of printed music. That’s 25 essential symbols to learning to understand musical notation. Like I said, fewer symbols than the notes of the alphabet. The YouTube video links below will take you further on this journey…so get started so you will never again have to say to anyone, “I can’t read music!”Mark WilliamsChrist Church Anglican (Savannah)How To Read Notes (Beginner Piano Lesson) - YouTubeUnderstanding Rhythm (Beginner Piano Theory) - YouTubeBasic Time Signatures (Piano Theory) - YouTubeHow to Read Sheet Music in One Easy Lesson - YouTube ................
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