Contents
Music Reading Fundamentals
How to Read the Pitches of Notes
How to Read the Rhythm of Notes
An Example of Standard Notation
How to Read the Notes of the Grand Staff
How to Read Notes and Rests in Music
How to Read Repeat Signs in Written Music
How to Read Key Signatures
How to Read Time Signatures
How to Read and Interpret Tempos in Music
Dynamics and Articulation in Written Music
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- Recognize notes, rests, and accidentals, and read them on the musical staff
- Understand and apply key signatures and time signatures
- Interpret tempos, dynamics, and articulation marks
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Music Reading Fundamentals
Standard notation is the system used to read and write music. Just as words and letters enable writers to put thoughts on paper, standard notation lets composers transcribe music from sound to the printed page. Musicians trained to read standard notation can interpret and perform any piece of written music as the composer intended it to be played.
Why Learn to Read Music?
It isn’t essential to learn how to read music in order to play most instruments—for instance, you can learn a few chords on the guitar and then play countless familiar songs that contain only those few chords. However, the ability to read music is essential if you’d like to:
- Play music that you don’t already know: Reading standard notation allows you to play any piece of music correctly, even if you’ve never heard it before.
- Play with other musicians who read music: Though you can play guitar in a rock band without ever reading music, most jazz and classical ensembles play music by reading standard notation.
The Origins of Standard Notation
Scholars believe that Egyptians used a form of musical notation as early as 300 B.C., but the inventor of what is now considered the standard musical staff was Guido d’Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from 995–1050 A.D. The present conventions of musical notation have been widely used since around 1600.
The Basics of the Musical Staff
All of the words and symbols used to notate music are written on, above, or below the staff. The basic musical staff contains five horizontal lines numbered first through fifth, starting from the bottom. In its most basic form, the staff looks like this:
Notes
Standard notation uses symbols composed of lines and circles to represent the pitch (highness or lowness) and rhythm (duration) of every sound played in a piece of music. These symbols, called notes, can be placed on the lines or spaces of the staff and are read from left to right. Notes that fall outside the lines and spaces of the staff can be written either:
- In the space just above the fifth line of the staff and just below the first line, or
- With ledger lines, which create additional lines and spaces above and below the staff
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