Do you remember learning to read music?
I don’t know why I was thinking about this as I was driving home today, but I was. I can’t really remember learning to read music. I vaguely remember learning about whole notes, half notes, quarters, and eighths from Mrs. Kimble in elementary school music class (before I started on viola). But I don’t really remember learning the notes, or whether it was hard or not. Do you remember the actual process of learning to read music?
March 19th, 2005 at 10:17 am
I am learning the keyboard now.. I already know the guitar pretty well.
It is hard to learn “real” music notation, like you are mentioning.
I still have to use “tricks,” such as Every Good Boy Does Fine, and All Cows Eat Grass.
I have a question…
When I learn where the notes are on the keyboard, I end up playing songs by memorization, rather than just reading the note, and playing it right away.
Does this make sense?
In other words, I have to practice a stanza many many times before I find out where all the notes are. THEN, I end up remembering where everything is, and playing the song by memory.
Is this normal?
March 19th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Hi Matthom, yeah I think that’s pretty normal, especially for piano where you have to play all those notes at one time. It’s really hard to sight-read on piano, from what I hear.
Don’t worry, it’ll get easier the more you practice, and you won’t have to use those tricks anymore. It’ll become second nature. Actually, I think what happened with me when I was first learning is that I associated the notes on the staff with the places I had to put my fingers on the string of my viola, and not the note names themselves. So if you asked me to play a note, I’d have no problem, but if you asked me what the name of the note was, I’d have to think about it first.