Using written music as a guide and memory aid
As explained
above , it is very difficult to learn to read music accurately without the help of an experienced music teacher, but you may not want or need to know how to read music that accurately. If you already know what a piece of music sounds like, you can let that knowledge be your guide as you practice playing the piece yourself. In this case the written music is serving as a guide to help you discover more quickly which notes or chords you are supposed to play and to help you keep track of what to play next, so that you don't have to memorize the entire piece.
Getting help from others
- Taking lessons or a class for a short time can help you get started quickly and may give you a good enough idea of the basics to make further progress on your own.
- You can also benefit from occasional lessons after you get started, particularly if you arrive at the lesson with a list of specific questions and ready to play some pieces that illustrate the problem you are having.
- If you are in an ensemble with music-readers, or you have friends who can read music, they may not mind answering the occasional, specific question.
Helping yourself
- Instrumentalists will want to concentrate first on learning how to play each written pitch on the instrument (for example, knowing where a written "middle C" is, on a piano, guitar, or fiddle). A beginner's book or "teach yourself. . ." book can help you learn this. Let your ear guide you on rhythms. You may be able to begin making sense of rhythms by noticing how the meter of a piece organizes the rhythms into beats and measures (see
Meter for more about this.)
- Vocalists, on the other hand, will find it easier and more useful to start with learning how to read rhythms. Join a choir if at all possible, and start making connections between the written rhythms, the conductor's beat, and the part you are singing. Let your ear guide you on pitches. You may be able to begin making sense of written pitches by noticing how the contour of the written notes follows the contour of the sound (see
Melody for more about this).
- You may be able to use this course
Reading Music as a guide to understanding common notation.
- Work on developing the ability to critique your own performance, especially if you do not take lessons or classes. If you find it difficult to listen objectively while you are playing or singing, record yourself and then listen carefully to the recording. Fix the problems that you know how to fix. Get help from others when you hear problems that you do not know how to fix.
- Understand that you may develop some quirks in your playing and music-reading, and that such quirks are more acceptable in some music genres than others. A self-taught blues guitarist who develops unusual techniques and plays mostly by ear fits well within the tradition; a self-taught concert pianist would not be as easily accepted.
Other types of music notation
Common notation is not the only method of writing music down. Most other notations do not include as much information as common notation, and are not as useful as a "common written language" for musicians, but some people find them easier to learn, easier to use, and perfectly adequate for their needs. Widely-used alternative notations include:
