As a teacher, I essentially teach two types of students: those who must read the music in order to learn it, and those who must hear it. I’ve also found that these two camps tend to champion the particular method with which they are most comfortable, and demonstrate reluctance to even try the other method. I can understand…. One learning method focuses on visual and corresponding tactile learning, while the other centers around aural/ tactile learning. You usually go with what you know.
Well, my students who need sheet music, you’re off the hook for the moment.
For all my friends and students who would rather hear a new piece than sit down and try to read it off the sheet music, I have some strategies for you for how to start your journey to reading music. These particular strategies apply to stringed instruments, for sure, but I think they’d be easily adaptable for other instruments with partials or “anchor notes”. A few of these resemble each other, but take into account different ages and “stories”, which I use for comparison.
1. The highway system: When you look at music, you’re basically looking at a roadmap. The first step is to find the “major highways”: find the notes which are open-string notes. Circle them, put an “0” above them, and if you need to do so, put their note name. Then, find your first open-string note in the piece, and look at the notes surrounding it. Are these notes close to the open string? If so, determine how many steps it will take to get from the open string to the notes close to it. These are your side roads. Any note which sits slightly above an open string will most likely be 1,2, or 3 (or 4 for cello!) fingers on that string. Any notes slightly below will be on the next string down, which means you’ll have to change highways- or in our case, strings, and repeat the process.
2. The octave method: In music there are only 7 note names. Since they are destined to repeat, pick one of your open strings and find all the other notes on your instrument (and in the music) which are octaves of the open string. On violin, I suggest starting with the G, and viola the C. Figure out where these live on the staff, and remember what they look like. Use them as references for figuring out the notes in between. If this is too much space in between notes for a good reference, try then memorizing the octave notes for the next string up: D (violin) or G (viola). It’s a little like the highway method, only with different anchoring points.
3. Labelling your staff: one method of practicing learning notes is to just label a blank staff. I especially like this method when switching to another clef, like a violin player learning to read viola, or learning a new position. Just label all the notes for all the lines and spaces, then go back and label open strings and corresponding fingers in 1st position. If you’re at this level of advancement, continue with corresponding fingerings for 3rd position. Do this several times, starting the next time with labeling open strings first, and the third time with labeling 1 fingers in 1st position. As you continue writing, the physical action should help you digest the information.
4. The stair-step method: I like this explanation the most for younger students, because it’s a pretty simplistic explanation of music: when notes go up one by one, it’s like walking up stairs one-by-one. Start on an open string, and just follow where the notes go. This of course applies most effectively when the music is predominantly scale-based, and it also doesn’t address the concept of application of note names, but it’s a starting point!If you’re reading this post and itching to contribute a way in which you teach students to read music, please leave a comment! This list is by no means exhaustive.