Learning to read music is the first step to enter this fabulous world. we all love to listen to melodies because they are able to ignite in us often conflicting emotions. The interesting thing about this art is that, if you are satisfied, at least at the beginning with basic instruments, it is not very demanding from an economic point of view. So, you can not only listen to it, but also practice it. Not just being a music lover, but an exponent of music, whether you do it on an amateur or professional level.
It’s normal that you have to study and practice a lot in order to get interesting results. This is so that you can become the master of all aspects of this art. To begin with, it is necessary to keep in mind that the basis of the study of music is the understanding of its language.
Yes, even this art form has its own language formed by a series of signs that allow composers to create their own masterpieces. As for any form of communication, also in this case it is necessary to make a great effort to learn how to read it. With time, and therefore with experience, it will become an increasingly less burdensome operation. Although the workload will increase, you can count on the knowledge gained.
What you need to know before you start learning to read music
First of all, to obtain the best possible result in this operation, it is necessary to dispel a legend. It is said that it is possible to study and achieve the result that was set quickly and easily. It is not so, it takes a great deal of work both in the study and in maintaining the knowledge already acquired. Only in this way can the notions be firmly in the mind of the student.
It is also necessary to have some basic notions of reading the stave. What’s to our advantage is that music has no boundaries, so the notes written in Rome can be understood in Beijing and New York. At the base of it all is the stave, made up of five parallel lines and four spaces. So, it follows that line one corresponds to space one and so on up to line five. Inside the stave are the musical notes that represent the sounds, and these can be more or less acute depending on their position.
It is also interesting to note that these signs can be placed either in the lines or in the spaces. The notes are seven: SOL,RE,MI,FA,LA,DO,SI, but the sounds are not only seven but twelve. This is because we must also count the flat king, the flat E, the flat G, the flat E and the flat B. Another aspect to know is that of the musical keys. There are seven of them and they allow us to provide a method for reading the notes inside the stave. In addition, another element to take into account is the one concerning the extensions, which enlarge the stave. These are made up of dashes above or below, although usually no more than four are used.
LEARNING TO READ MUSIC THROUGH VALUES AND DYNAMICS
The notes have special characteristics, which must be prepared to try to understand how to read them. At the base of each composition there are notes, but these are equipped with special features that directly affect the reading of the same. Until now we have seen the notes as white circles with a black outline and as black circles in their tonality. It is necessary, however, to take a step forward, because we will determine the duration of the note. It is therefore important to keep in mind that to get a great job in this field, you need to count the height and the distance. To be clearer we note that the various lengths of the notes are as follows:
- Semibreve: it is characterized by a black circle with a white interior and has a speed of four quarters.
- Minimum: it is a black circle with a white inside with one leg and it is worth two quarters;
- Semi-minima: it is represented with a completely black circle with a leg and is worth a quarter.
- Chroma: it is like the half-fine but with a moustache and is worth an eighth.
These values are classified from the highest to the lowest, that is from the one that lasts longer to the shortest. Moreover, it is good to keep in mind that there are many musical values, but these are the most important ones. Dynamics are a very important element, because they can determine the variations of the sound. The piano is a very particular instrument, equipped with various elements that more than others allows us to understand what has just been said.