How do I learn to read music?

I thought perhaps I could learn to read music by learning to play an instrument.   Makes sense, right?  Well, it turns out, it's extremely easy to learn ukulele without reading music.  Many books from the library discouraged it, in favour of ukulele short hand.

Without investing in a new instrument, is there some way for my dyslexic brain (that is resistant to all languages)  to learn to read music?

My theory is, if I can find out the normal way to learn to read music, I might be able to adjust it to work around the defects in my brain.

r ransom wrote:I thought perhaps I could learn to read music by learning to play an instrument.   Makes sense, right?  Well, it turns out, it's extremely easy to learn ukulele without reading music.  Many books from the library discouraged it, in favour of ukulele short hand.

Without investing in a new instrument, is there some way for my dyslexic brain (that is resistant to all languages)  to learn to read music?

My theory is, if I can find out the normal way to learn to read music, I might be able to adjust it to work around the defects in my brain.

Yep, I taught myself as I had basically no music education in school.  I had been playing guitar and mandolin for 20 years by ear and using tablature, but I wanted to learn the way they played it in the 1920s-30s, and that meant old books and having to read music.  It isn't hard - just takes practice.  Music is a 7  letter alphabet.  Get some staff paper and letter all the lines and spaces.  Each day, put a few dots on a blank staff and write the notes under each one.  Do this at random - no tune in mind.  Also write random letters like C, E, B, etc, and then put the dots on the staff accordingly.  Then, get some very simple music, maybe familiar folk tunes, written in standard notation, and write the letters of each note below the scale.  Then, play the tune and be sure to hum each note to train your ear.  Stay in the key of C for a while since it has no sharp or flat notes.  If you spend 5 min a day practicing reading music, it will be just as natural as reading this sentence by the end of the year.

One small tip is to write the note names underneath the notes to help bridge the two languages.

When I learnt to play piano as a child I had a simple tune book that started off with the different notes in different colours. Gradually as you went through the book they turned black and (hey presto) I was reading music. I don't know whether colours might help with the dyslexia. If so you could probably get music already coloured in....
Ah ha! I wasn't alone thinking this and apparently it can help:

this instructables suggests chosing the colours that work for you and just colouring the notes - all the As one colour, Bs another colour etc. Apparently making a copy of music for dyslexic individuals is fine in the UK. There is more advice on the British Dyslexia Association page on music. Not one approach suits all.

I suspect that there are probably on line sites to help read music, although other instruments might be more tricky to visualise than keyboards.

Oh yeah, I'm dyslexic too, BTW. If I had to bet I figure a lot of us on here are.

Ooh, the notes with colors are fascinating! And really distracting for me.

Duolingo has a “Music” lesson plan that is kind of fun and interactive.  If you’re paying for DL anyway it might be helpful.

First lesson in school was with a recorder - drove my folks nuts, as I paired it with a tea cosy and pretended it was bagpipes... punching well above my weight 🤣
We learned that the spaces were the notes F A C E going from bottom to top and the lines were E G B D F bottom to top again.  Below the line E was D and an imaginary line below that was "Middle" C, the starting point for the key of C.   So we have "Face"  and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour  (love a good mnemonic)    Good Luck.

For us it was Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge!

Mmmmmm, fudge.

I am a bit nervous to admit, but I don't know enough yet to understand many of the words and phrases used here.  I feel this is an area I definitely need to work on.

Why do some notes not have sharps or flats?  Is this only European music tradition?  And how do we know which?  Is it always the same ltters or is there a logic?

r ransom wrote:Mmmmmm, fudge.

I am a bit nervous to admit, but I don't know enough yet to understand many of the words and phrases used here.  I feel this is an area I definitely need to work on.

Why do some notes not have sharps or flats?  Is this only European music tradition?  And how do we know which?  Is it always the same ltters or is there a logic?

In regard to a musical staff, it is just lines and spaces... 5 lines and 4 spaces, if memory serves, stacked.  The first line is E, the next is G and the space between is F......
                              G
                            F
                         E
                      D
                   C
                B
            A
        G
     F
  E
D

Some notes fall on lines, some in spaces.  If you see a sharp, like D#, play the D up one fret.  If you see a flat, like Eb, play the E back one fret.  The Chromatic scale is  (in the key of C) C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B,   The natural scale is C, D, E, F, G, A B.  Sharps are those in between notes that you don't play n the major scale. Flats are the very same notes if you play down the scale instead of up.  So, Bb is A#..... it is harder to explain than to play - the same note has two names, depending on its relationship to the next note.  That is the case with most every musical concept... it is easy to play and hard to explain.  But, if you think of a measuring cup, 3/4 cup of water could be either a bit more than a half or a bit less than a whole cup, depending on how you look at it.  So, a sharp note could be a bit above the natural note, or a bit below the next note.

                                                                         E
                                                     ___D____
                                                C
                                __B____
                             A
              ___G___
          F
__E___
D

Why is there no E-sharp?
Was he a bad little letter and didn't eat all his vegetables?

Why are there so many sounds missing kn European music?

r ransom wrote:Why is there no E-sharp?
Was he a bad little letter and didn't eat all his vegetables?

Why are there so many sounds missing kn European music?

Play it on your uke.  The next fret from E is F.  That is just how music works.  There is no E# or B#.  Of course, you could call C B# or B Cb..... George Van Eps said there was a lot to be learned in thinking about scales that way. But, 9.99% of musicians don't.  F and C are very prominent tones and it is better to hear other notes in relation to them.

r ransom wrote:Why is there no E-sharp?
Was he a bad little letter and didn't eat all his vegetables?

Why are there so many sounds missing in European music?

Disclaimer - I'm tone deaf, can't read music, and for the most part can't even listen to it as it overwhelms me and I seem to interpret it differently to most people. But I too have occasionally attempted to understand how it works and how to read it.

This is how I visualise it...

Imagine you are walking along - right, left, right, left, right...

Where each right foot hits there's a note. The sharps and flats are 'extras' where the left foot hits. Except whoever decided how to write the notes down is as bad at math and logic as I am at music, and he wasn't consistent.

In fact, he made the notes go something more like  - right, right, right, left, left, left, left, right

I actually asked my other half for help constructing that. He says it starts at middle C and goes up a whole octave.

So the first right is C, the second is D, the third is E. Then he counts the next note on the step made by the left foot. So there's no E sharp as that step has been declared to be F.

The sounds aren't missing, just mis-named.

And then of course other cultures have different stride lengths so their notes fall in different places. And there are all the other places along the path that don't line up with where the feet landed when the path was first laid out.

Hope that helps!

Also, you guys have no idea how hard that was to write as someone who is not only tone deaf and can't read music, but also can't tell left from right...

r ransom wrote:Why is there no E-sharp?
Was he a bad little letter and didn't eat all his vegetables?

Why are there so many sounds missing kn European music?

Scales (major, minor or any of the other "modes") are a standard sequence of full and half tones. Starting with only C MAJOR will help with orientation, but thinking mathematically, E# is just an F natural. Same with B# = C natural & vice-versa with Fb & Cb. In some complicated pieces, composers may even use double flats and double sharps to keep the key relationships clear??? (Stay in C Major so all natural pitches and just play/SING! (keyboards helpful here for visual relationship too) starting on each of the other pitches without adding sharps/flats will give you all the natural modes including our modern "minor" starting on A natural which used to be called Aeolian mode.) Singing note names, solfege (do re mi...) or scale numbers 1-7 helps cement the learning much faster.

I got credentialed and taught music in California public schools, but no one ever taught me the colored letters for dyslexics when I was at University! What a magical solution for brain diversity!

Other cultures have even fewer tones (5-tone Chinese folk music) or many more with QUARTER TONES in the Arabic/Near Eastern cultures. Earlier European music and a lot of American jazz or other styles of modern composers use the other "modes" that early Euro music used all the time in Gregorian Chants & folk styles that were seldom written down, since trained musicians worked in religion, not peasantry. The modes were established before/during the Ancient Greeks! (Educated classes have always been trained to look down on the masses!)

Music is intensely connected to mathematics through the physics/geometry/proportions heard within any single pitch, even before it is further organized into a structured piece with just one solo or many coordinated voices. The base/fundamental of the pitch is its letter name/frequency & octave, then as you hear that natural pitch, the "color" of the tone is the infinite array of rising overtone "partial" frequencies: fundamental, octave, fifth, octave, third, fifth, *seventh, octave, 2nd, 3rd, *4th, 5th, 6th *7th, 8ve and then half-tones, then even quarter & smaller tones tones far, far above our ability to hear them! (Not remembering perfectly, but the asterisks indicate frequencies far from the "tempered" or equalized scale we use today for fretted ukuleles or keyboards.) You can recognize instruments by the over-emphasis of various partials, so a voice does not sound like a ukulele. Because of this physics, musicians tend to excel in hard maths/sciences.

r ransom wrote:Why is there no E-sharp?
Was he a bad little letter and didn't eat all his vegetables?

Why are there so many sounds missing kn European music?

New here, and I couldn't resist commenting! I've been playing and singing since before I can remember.

If you find a picture of a piano keyboard the reason there are some sharps and flats will make sense.  The sharps and flats are the black keys and they are set in a 2, skip one, 3 pattern from C. [#= sharp and b=flat] So walking up the keyboard it would go C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, then starting over at C. The black keys each have 2 names, because the flat/sharp keys resonate at a frequency halfway between the two white keys to either side of it and can be called either one, usually depending on what key the song is written in.

I think finding a cheap (or free) recorder and a beginner book would be a great place to give you the foundation of what the value of different shape notes, as well as what notes are placed where on the staff. My son is dyslexic and he was able to learn to read music, so it can be done! YouTube is usually a fantastic resource for learning anything!

It helps me to find music I know and sing it while looking at the score.

You asked about the nature of the letter "E"....

Yes...

It IS the most rascally letter....

When it faces the other way   3  it becomes the number three!

If it falls down on its face it is the letter M ....

When lays down for a nap....

It becomes the letter W.....

See that  and look ---   E  3  M  W  

What a bad character!!!

Sometimes, I write music like this—a visual representation of my fingers on the guitar strings. Then, I don't have to remember what to call them. It becomes a muscle memory, instead of a conversion to alphabet exercise.

You can definitely teach yourself to read music if you have some kind of an instrument to play on. (You won’t know the sounds for each note without the instrument).

I taught myself to play guitar when I was 9 years old, with no talent whatsoever,  using a really clear, really simple booklet, published or authored by Mel Bay. Big clear simple prose and notes.
I think there are several in the series. I really only needed book one to learn the notes. Then one can read any piece of guitar music and try and play it.

They have booklets for any stringed guitar-like instrument. But they may have to be bought used on eBay / etc. Not sure if they are still in print.

It was SUPER easy to just learn a note, and what it looks like on the page vs what it looks like on the instrument. Then just take it from there, note by note, eventually the basic ABCDEFG in one octave is learned. Then onto the next octaves. How to do sharps and flats. And chords (combos of notes) come after. Then rhythm and strumming. Finger picking (guitar) is also taught alongside the notes - which is easy and intuitive.

It is REALLY easy. It’s just practice, daily. Pretty soon the notes are being played automatically without you thinking at all about them!😊

Of course there is always tablature for guitars and the like, but it’s more reading diagrams of your guitar or stringed instrument, it’s not learning to read notes. It’s another way to play music though, if you object to reading notes. The Mel Bay books actually include tablature as well as a way to make the chords easier to understand.

The photos show a variation of the covers of the first level of the Mel Bay books. Mine was closest to the top blue and white book, but it didn’t have an electric guitar on it I don’t think. (Either way, the notes are the same on both guitars)

r ransom wrote:Mmmmmm, fudge.

I am a bit nervous to admit, but I don't know enough yet to understand many of the words and phrases used here.  I feel this is an area I definitely need to work on.

Why do some notes not have sharps or flats?  Is this only European music tradition?  And how do we know which?  Is it always the same ltters or is there a logic?

Don’t worry. You don’t have to know ANY terms or words. If you get a basic booklet, like Mel Bay,  to learn with your ukelele or guitar, all the terms will be in there and introduced as you need them. And it is just a booklet. It’s thin and large format 😁
You don’t need to be concerned about “doing or learning anything first”
{I swear I don’t work for Mel Bay Lol😂 - I use it as an example because that book made it so simple for me. I just saw it on a newsstand when I was a kid and bought it}

r ransom wrote:.....Without investing in a new instrument, is there some way for my dyslexic brain (that is resistant to all languages)  to learn to read music?

For me, the solution was to join my church choir.

For context:  1. Born in the 50s; never had a music lesson; never learned to play any instruments; sheet music was hieroglyphics to me.  2. I did have the ability to remember melodies often heard (listening to radio), and could hum or whistle portions of those melodies.

My goal was not to learn to read music, but it happened naturally by immersing myself in weekly singing rehearsals and Sunday services (performances). It's a social activity that I look forward to each week.  The focus was never on reading music, but after 5-6 months of weekly singing practice, while reading the lyrics on the sheet music, my brain started to connect the pitch of each note I was singing to the hieroglyphics on the page. By 8-9 months, I could look at sheet music of an unfamiliar song and decipher the melody in my head. None of this was ever a priority; it simply happened because I enjoy singing in the choir.

All the best to you in your new learning endeavor!

It may help to know what kind of learner you are

Learners may find the ultimate is regular repitition, in learning efficiently.
Others find frequently is great and regular intervals seem to show no benefit...

No I don't have a reference, so just call it the opinion of an extinct music teacher 😂

For many, the solution is to join a church choir. It is a fun very social way of doing something regularly that you might benefit from, in learning efficiently

I belonged to a choir for a while and a lot of members couldn't read the music. They would pass it over to someone else to sing a little jingle. I used to do rapid chicken squark versions that would crack up the choir master! A 2 second squark could clue in the gang!

I found the easiest group to teach music reading to were my pre readers in kindergarten and junior kindergarten. You definitely don't need an instrument although I had them learning recorder before long.

What hasn't been mentioned yet is rhythm and that's where I always started, although I would ensure the children could play an instrument without written music so it didn't become a crutch as I found happened to me with piano.

If you're reading tablature you have a good foundation in rhythm, but you may wish to work on that first.

I find it's beneficial to learn to read rhythm independent of melody (the rising and falling of notes) and for a group I only had for a year with no prior music lessons, that was sufficient for playing drums in high school. I used their rap to teach it.

I learned the basics alone with a booklet for recorder when I was 8, although penny whistle with a booklet is possible. Personally I think this is easier than just singing for learning the notes. There is a certain logic to the lifting of fingers that corresponds with the rising of notes along the staff (the 5 lines). Excellent explanations here on how this works!

I might add having a music degree, I am still not fully fluent at sight reading, the act of playing that voice or instrument in your head, when the music is difficult. I used to use song surgeon to slow down music so I could hear it properly and write the music for it, or simply to follow along for fast fingerwork like Jethro Tull, but typically I use a short hand where I write the names of the notes and essentially do tablature -- for flute - I have been writing that way since I was a kid.

I expect by now, there are apps that will scan the scored music and play it for you, so you may only need a basic level of music reading and get by without any suffering!

Also there are bound to be apps out there that will teach you to read, and maybe have an interactive virtual keyboard on a touch screen so you don't have to lug around the actual thing, but I do think the keyboard is the best way to understand the sharps and flats (the same thing which is clear on a keyboard as being the black notes).

Repetition is key, as mentioned about the weekly choir method.

Ukulele is a great instrument to play! A fantastic choice!

I find it's beneficial to learn to read rhythm independent of melody (the rising and falling of notes)

Learning the ukulele, these feel like two different things too.

I have to teach my fingers what order to move, then I can bring the song to the metronome.   It's like starting all over again.

Most ukulele songs don't say how fast they should go.  I tend to start at 60 then move it 20 bpm faster until it sounds right.

I can see why tab lasted so long through history.  It's a direct representation of the physical world we can see.  So much is left to the person playing, as to how they play.

Music music seems to be more bossy.  Like chemistry has strict formula to give exact reproduction of a past action.  My brain can do that, but it resists.  

Tab feels like an old family recipe that changes depending on who bakes it and what fruit is in season.

Question time

Are these the same time?  

3/4 vs 6/8 time

Example, house of the rising sun (both animals and the older versions)  have a lot of different transcription on how to play it.  They all seem to put the notes clumped together with the bars in the same place.  But some say 3/4 and some 6/8.  Some say 80bpm, others say 160.

I can understand an old song having a lot of variations but this much confuses me.

They are... not particularly different.

6/8 means six beats per measure, with each beat being an eighth note. 3/4 means three beats per measure, with each beat being a quarter note. It is a rather fuzzy distinction.

It would be interesting to hear what the different versions sound like. I wonder if the 6/8 ones have arpeggios with more eighth notes, whereas in the 3/4 they have a slower accompaniment? That is at least what I'd guess.

3/4 is like waltz time. You can feel the three: ONE two three, ONE two three, ONE two three.
6/8 is essentially a two-beat structure, internally divided: ONE and uh TWO and uh, ONE and uh, TWO and uh.
So it's a question of whether the two or the three is the dominant feel of the music.

Think of Silent Night.
The Si.. is a stronger beat than Night. The Ho... is a stronger beat than Night. ALL is more emphasized than Calm and Bright. You can imagine a pendulum swinging back and forth: SIlent NIGHT (rest, rest), HOly NIGHT (rest, rest). That pendulum is your One, two. The threes are inside that main pendulum. That makes it 6/8.
Compare that to, say, Norwegian Wood. I (two, three) Once had a GIRL (two, three) OR should I SAY (two three) SHE once had ME (two three). All the main syllables are at the same level of emphasis. Dip, float float, dip, float float. 3/4.

The tutorials for house of the rising sun that have 6/8 time all say put the emphasis on first and third beat.

The ones that have 3/4 time say first beat gets the emphasis.

To my untrained ear, they sound identical.

From what I read here, I suspect there is a disconnect between what the music says to do and what the people giving the tutorials say it means.


And then we have 9/8 https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/joan-baez-the-house-of-the-rising-sun-tab-s1219785 but joan is special and can play how she likes.

Part of the difference is the phrasing of the lyrics. To my ear, the Animals sing it in 3/4: there IS a HOUSE in NEW orLEANS they CALL the RIsing SUN.
The Beatles again, You've got to Hide your Love Away: HEY!(two three) you've got to HIDE (2) your (4) love aWAY(23256) Hey.. The words on the ones are more important or more emphasized than the words on the fours.

r ransom wrote:

To my untrained ear, they sound identical.

And then we have 9/8 .

Actually 3/4 and 6/8 can be interchangeable although they aren't supposed to be, and a lot of songs started coming out with 6/8. 6/8 tends to be quicker. There is style as well that will affect how it is sung.

9/8? Occasionally and I used to use Question by The Fixx to demonstrate 7/8 at the time I was teaching this. Money is also another. Rhythm always fascinated me. I was thinking only this morning about all the stuff taught in schools that didn't fascinate me lol and those who were indoctrinated into duck and cover, teaching a generation to ignore everything they were taught 😂

I’ve found Duolingo’s music course to be very helpful in learning to read music! You pretty much need the paid subscription to make the app useful, all the ads on the free version are insufferable. I would highly recommend it though since I’ve been able to learn Spanish, read music, play chess and sharpen math skills.

Slightly off topic response but I thought it was worth adding anyway.

Up till around 1900-1920ish, sheet music literacy was very high—almost as high as alphabet literacy.  

But by the 1920s, it took a drop—slight at first, but one that compounded over time to the point that very few people are sheet music literate.

The reason was the invention of and commercial availability of recorded music.

Prior to recorded music, a person might go to a concert and then buy the accompanying sheet music that was sold on the side.  As the sheet music was read, the musical experience was remembered with considerable detail.  In fact, the experience of reading sheet music was something like a fusion of re-reading a beloved book and playing a song one now has on some recorded (or downloaded) device.

But add in increasingly high fidelity recordings and the need for sheet music literacy is now limited to those persons reading the music for playing an instrument and not a recreational activity by itself.


Like I said, just a historical curiosity/fun fact.


Eric

The history is so interesting.

Music music used to be a big part of everyday life. Even into the 1950s in our non-musical family, there were always musical instruments in a house.  It was part of evenings together.

The ukulele books like to talk about why TAB is best and how much older it is to modern musical notation.   Long history there and very interesting stuff.

But I need to learn modern music music writing so I can move notes and stuff about and get a better feeling of time.  Maybe even make learning new instruments easier.  

I suspect music is going to be a big part of my life moving forward.   If only I could read the darn thing.

Here, in the USA, at least, in the '80s & '90s, public school music programs were being cut from school budgets, too. Fewer and fewer options for learning to play an instrument or even sing are now available for anyone who can't afford private instruction, in the younger grades.

I looked at pricing for Duolingo premium. It's around $80 something Canadian.
Here's another option: ISBN 978-1497440500 it's $17.22 cad on Amazon 50 Christmas Carols with Sheet Music and Fingering for Tin Whistle or you can check the other books this author has written for instance Easy Tin Whistle Tutor Book 979-8312827170 $21.66 -- both include tin whistle fingering, so depending partly on whether you play more by ear and would like to be able to bring along a whistle to Christmas celidhs, etc, or whether you like a very structured approach, I am confident with your existing background in music you would have no problem with any of these books.

They are probably for the key of C but as you may notice, penny whistles are made in various keys. I find it pretty fun to whip out a penny whistle and just start playing along and although you aren't necessarily interested in learning another instrument, it may make learning to read music very easy.

I find when sight reading music, it's easier for me to do so with a flute of some kind rather than trying to do it in my head. Probably because I have a strong ear as you will having used tab.

Just a thought

r ransom wrote:The history is so interesting.

Music music used to be a big part of everyday life. Even into the 1950s in our non-musical family, there were always musical instruments in a house.  It was part of evenings together.

The ukulele books like to talk about why TAB is best and how much older it is to modern musical notation.   Long history there and very interesting stuff.

But I need to learn modern music music writing so I can move notes and stuff about and get a better feeling of time.  Maybe even make learning new instruments easier.  

I suspect music is going to be a big part of my life moving forward.   If only I could read the darn thing.

The beautiful thing about music notation and notes is that it’s not limited by instrument, the way Tab is. Anyone in the world with any instrument can take that paper with the music written on it and play it on their chosen instrument. The universality of this is valuable.
As is the ease of writing music down, without having to do a Tab out for every note.
Though it’s certainly not required in order to play one’s instrument. Many folks play beautifully without reading music👍

Honestly music notation is incredibly visual.
Don’t be intimidated by it. It’s different perhaps than what you’re used to, but in doing it, you may find it is easy once learned, and becomes your best friend in putting down ideas.

I taught myself as a kid with beginner books that will help you get started with the basics. Youtube is very helpful too.

Time and note length seems a good place to start as it's what i need for ukulele practice.

but, I'm confused by this

3/4 time, means 3 quarter notes between each vertical line.  Quarter note is a black circle with line, right?

Eight note is black circlr with a flag on the line, some times joining the flags together.

So, I would expect 6 quarter notes between the vertical lines.

But here, I see 9 quarter notes between vertical lines.

What am I missing?

I can't help but wonder if this is more what it's trying to be?


This has something to do with "multiple voices" and works better in my brain.