HOW TO AVOID CRIPPLING MISTAKES WHEN LEARNING HOW TO READ MUSIC

Learning how to read music is one of the first and most important steps in playing any musical instrument. Music is similar to learning a different language; you become most fluent by a combination of learning by ear AND by learning to read. Some pop artists do not read musical notes; however, overall, 99% of musicians do – so should you!

SHOULD I LEARN SOLFEGE OR THE LETTER SYSTEM WHEN LEARNING TO READ MUSIC?

Back even as far as Ancient Greece, complex musical systems were already developing – scales and pitches (notes) were being given names. Many of these systems have been unfortunately lost to history; however, a system that is used across the world in many countries still exists today: “solfege.”

Solfege had its beginnings in the early 11th century, when Guido d’Arezzo took a religious poem and named the notes of a scale by the first syllables of each line: ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la. The notes names eventually evolved into the system we use today: “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la.”

Beginners still learn how to read music by this method in many countries; however, there are many different types of solfege: for example – fixed do or movable do. Sometimes this can lead to confusion when everyone is not using the same system.

In the United States and many other English speaking countries, it’s useful to have an understanding of solfege; however, the majority of musicians use a letter system: C-D-E-F-G-A-B.

We believe that the letter system is more efficient for beginners learning how to read music. If you label the lines or spaces of the treble or bass clef with solfege, then these will be just random notes with no immediate logical connection to one another. The letter naming convention is easy because everyone here knows the English alphabet. The lines and spaces on the staff go in order of the alphabet, whether you are on the bass staff or on the treble staff!

AVOID USING MNEMONIC DEVICES TO READ MUSIC

There’s a happy coincidence when using the letter system to read music on the treble staff – the spaces from bottom to top spell out the word “F-A-C-E”. This is very easy to remember; if you just started learning the notes and haven’t memorized them yet and you know this trick, it is easy to mumble F-A-C-E while counting the spaces on the treble staff.

There are no lucky coincidences to form other perfect words for the lines of the treble clef and neither spaces nor lines in the bass clef. It didn’t stop people from trying to invent something memorable for them too. Hence the “Every-Good-Boy-Does-Fine”, “Good-Boys-Deserve-Fudge-Always”, and other early nonsensical variations.

So what is bad about these mnemonics you might ask? The answer is that, paradoxically, the best feature of these rhymes, which is how quickly we can remember them, is also its’ worst feature. Once children or adults learn about the “FACE” and start using it to identify the notes, they tend to continue to do it for their whole life. You can ask someone playing the piano for 10 years to identify a note and hear them still whispering “good-boys…”.

This would be the equivalent of reading a book and having to perform a separate operation to identify each letter of each word by referring to some pattern. How fast would you read your books then? “War of the Worlds” in maybe 10 years?

THE BEST METHODS TO BEGIN LEARNING TO READ MUSIC

The best (and the right) way to learn to read music is to stay away from mnemonics and memorize the notes by using flash cards and/ord reading by landmarks.

FLASH CARDS/NOTE SPELLING APPS

Using flashcards to learn to read notes on the staff is is generally more suitable for children and is teaching notes by direct association. You see the note and you simply memorize what it is. This is how it was done for centuries – everyone eventually just knew their notes just the same way you know your alphabet.

READING MUSIC BY LANDMARK NOTES

Another great way of learning how to read music is to start start by memorizing just a couple of “landmark” notes in each clef. This method begins with just a few notes at a time: usually it’s middle C and G in treble and middle C and F in bass. That’s just 4 notes to remember – everyone can do it! Then you count your other notes up and down from the landmarks (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C).

As you become more confident in reading music, you can then memorize other landmarks, for example higher C’s and G’s in treble and lower C’s and F’s in bass. Eventually you will memorize all the notes on the staff.

AVOID DELAYS & MISTAKES BY TAKING MUSIC LESSONS

Learning to read music takes hard work and dedication, but if you combine the methods above freely for yourself or your child and you will solve the note reading challenge once and forever.

There is no cheat sheet or quick way to learn how to read music – the best way to avoid mistakes is to have a competent instructor guide and encourage you along the way. If you want your child to become better at reading music contact Riverside Music Studios. We provide music lessons in Plano on a variety of instruments – and we teach all of our students how to read music!