Posts tagged as:

how to read music

Piano Lessons Made Easier – How To Read Music Notes

by Tania Gleaves on January 12, 2012

One of the basic lessons of learning to play the piano involves how to read music notes. Reading music notes is like learning your ABC’s. Effectively reading music notes requires you to learn the basic parts of a music sheet; sometimes they call this song sheet.

If you look at the music sheet, you will notice that the notes are embedded on five horizontal lines with spaces in between them. This is called staff. It helps you how to read music notes correctly because each line and space represent different keys on the piano.

Click Here And Learn How To Read Music Notes The Right Way!

blank staff Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

The symbol placed at the beginning of the staff is called clef, which serves as a guide to read the different pitches on the music sheet. There are actually two kinds of clef, one is called the treble clef and the other one is the bass clef.

 Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

 Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

When both clefs are put together with a vertical line, they form the so-called grand staff. These clefs play a vital role in playing the piano since both treble and bass clef shows you different notes to play together in order to produce the sweet sounding music.

grand staff Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

After learning the basic parts of a music sheet, the next agenda we have on how to read music notes is learning the different pitches corresponding to each line and space of the grand staff. The pitches are represented by the first seven letters of the alphabet. As mentioned earlier, these pitches correspond to different keys on your piano.

piano key notes Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

Knowing this, how do you know whether you have to play the corresponding key or not? This is where the role of the notes comes in. There are actually five notes you can play. When these notes are placed on the grand staff, you must pay attention where they are positioned and what they look like. These notes represent different symbols which show you the duration of each pitch played.

music note values Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

Here is the breakdown of the notes’ different duration:

  • Whole note – receives 4 counts
  • Half note – receives 2 counts
  • Quarter note – receives 1 count
  • Eighth note – receives half a count
  • Sixteenth note – receives quarter a count

How to read music notes is definitely easy once you have mastered all of these basics. The simple illustrations guide you in playing the piano effectively using the basic knowledge of reading music notes. So go ahead and start fumbling with your hands on the piano keys to play your favorite music sheets.

Click Here And Learn How To Read Music Notes The Right Way!

  • share save 171 16 Piano Lessons Made Easier   How To Read Music Notes

{ 1 comment }

Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

by Tania Gleaves on January 6, 2012

You have been hearing about the music theory key signature during your first piano lesson but do you know what they are made of? Key signatures are actually one of the basic foundations of playing the piano. These music fundamentals guide you in “tuning” the music pieces you are playing.

Music theory key signature can be found at the beginning of every music sheet, other times they can be found in other parts of the music sheet, which all depends on the composer of the music piece. Key signatures are composed of either sharps or flats. At first you might think that they are similar to accidentals but they are totally different.

Click Here And Refresh Your Memory On Music Theory Key Signatures!

Accidentals only require you to play a key in its sharp or flat tune if you see the symbol right before the key. But key signatures require you to play the sharp or flat tune of every key they are embedded on, all throughout the music sheet except when you see the natural symbol before the key. You can see the difference of accidentals and key signatures at the figure below.

key signature Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

key signature2 Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

Another thing you should know about the music theory key signature is the enharmonic equivalents of all the orders of sharps and flats. The orders of sharps and the orders of flats may be written in a different manner and corresponds to different keys but they are all played the same way in the piano.

key signature3 Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

key signature5 Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

The easiest way to learn the music theory key signature is to memorize the C sharp and the C flat key signatures. C sharp has seven sharps all in all, when you remove the last sharp, you’ll get the next key signature which is F sharp that has only six sharps as its key signature. Keep on doing this until you reach C major, which doesn’t have any sharp in its key signature.

key signature4 Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

You can also apply this basic knowledge to the order of flats key signature. When you remove the seventh flat symbol of the C flat key signature, you will get the G flat key signature. The process goes on until you reach the C major which doesn’t have any flats.

Click Here And Refresh Your Memory On Music Theory Key Signatures!

  • share save 171 16 Music Theory Key Signature – The Basics

{ 0 comments }

Piano Sheet Music Confidential

December 28, 2011

Piano sheet music has been around since the birth of the piano. It is the diary of the process of the composer. All of the heart and soul of piece lies within the notation of the sheet music. Sheet music can be used to record or to create a musical score. Musicians often use it [...]

Read the full article →

Key Signatures – A Beginner’s Lesson…

December 12, 2011

What Determines The Quality And Quantity Of A Song’s Notes When watching musicians play piano, you may see them refer to a piece of music in the key of “A” or “C.” These letters refer to the key that the music is played in or its key signature. Key signatures are what determines the quality [...]

Read the full article →

Music Time Signatures – What Are They?

November 30, 2011

When you start studying piano lessons, you will learn the basic knowledge of music which also includes music time signatures. Time signatures are composed of two numbers in the form of a fraction which tells you the number of notes and the kind of note receiving one beat in each measure. Say what?! That might [...]

Read the full article →

Piano Music Notes – Hear Them Speak To You

November 10, 2011

Unless you plan to play music by ear, you’ll need to learn how to read sheet music for piano. Sheet music displays the notes of a song and musicians interpret it as if they were reading the words of a speech. It isn’t difficult to read piano music notes once you understand the basic structure [...]

Read the full article →

Music Bar Lines

November 9, 2011

Introducing the Bar In order to represent pitch and tone, music notes need a staff. If you’ll remember from our other lessons, the music staff is a system of five horizontal lines and it provides a foundation for all the beautiful music that we hear. Notes sit on, above, between, and below these lines. But [...]

Read the full article →

Learn To Read Music – A Gentle Introduction…

November 3, 2011

Figuring out how to learn to read music may seem intimidating — especially if you’ve never paid any attention to sheet music before. But once you learn the basics, you’ll discover a whole new world that paves a road of confusing symbols with a coat of comfortable, natural, and perfect logic. This article serves as [...]

Read the full article →

How to Read Music – Definitions to Help You Learn

September 23, 2011

L earning how to read music is like learning another language. It has its own letters, syntax and grammar. Whether you are learning to play the piano through the classic method or the chord method, you’ll have to be familiar with how to read music. A page of music has a lot of symbols and [...]

Read the full article →

The Play Piano Roadmap – Your Journey From Beginner To Advanced

August 5, 2011

Whether you already play piano or want to learn, I’m glad you stumbled across this page. It means there’s one more person out there looking for a better way to add music to his or her life, or perhaps to improve on an already established skill set. Either way, welcome. The good new is, I’ve [...]

Read the full article →