Learn to read music?

[jaycat]

It looks like I might have some time on my hands coming up, and I would like to put it to good use by attempting to learn to read music.

Any suggestions on how to get started on one's own?

Thanks! Jc.

[T.D.Nydn]

You can write the notes in pencil above the notation notes,,this gets you use to what they are and where on the fingerboard to locate them,,,

[Mandobart]

I learned on violin many years ago, and I don't exactly remember how I learned. I would start with a chart like the link below and some simple beginning violin or mandolin books. Write the name of each note in the song. Say the note as you play it. Repeat this a lot.

http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/mando_fingerboard.htm

[jaycat]

Thanks Mandobart. That looks like a good start.

I was sort of hoping to learn the whole shebang: time signatures, note values, etc.

[darrylicshon]

You need a good book on music theory

[JeffD]

Lots of great web sites explaining things.
Lots of great books out there if book learning is you prefer.

You are up for the ride of your life. Woo hoo.

[UsuallyPickin]

For reading standard notation take a look at "Standard Notation for the TAB Addicted Mandolinist" by Debra Chen http://www.stringthingm.com/Standard...Tab_Mando.html

R/

[Mateus]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHEIF0rT2w

He's a little weird but very very good. And free!

[Simon DS]

I've just done it! After twenty five years of guitar, I finally learned to read music. One month putting fears of dyslexia aside. I used two iphone apps that are addictive enough, 'music tutor' and 'music notes'. One teaches you to recognise the written notes as A, B, g, C etc. the other teaches you the position on the fretboard (once you know the names of each note). You could maybe use just 'music notes' and make a direct correlation in your mind between the image of the note you see on the page and the position of that note on the fretboard. The advantage is that you can use these programs (almost) anywhere.
Right now I'm using 'musescore', a free program, to write out random groups of four or eight note measures. Now I can make the correlation with my fingers touching the fretboard of the mando, and it's more difficult for my mind to guess the notes aurally. This would be the case if I were to use tunes that I already know. I've taken the top 50 most popular tunes on thesession.com and basically hashed them up. In that way, in the keys of C,D and G, I am now (fingers crossed) starting to learn the most common shapes of groups of four/eight notes, not just the note itself. It's like learning the letters in a book and then suddenly learning the words.
Good luck to everyone else who gives it a go, it's really well worth it. (and thanks again MandolinCafe)

[bigskygirl]

I would check out the Mel Bay or Hal Leonard method books...there are others too, I used Hal Leonard many, many moons ago when learning the guitar. These books start by showing you the basics of music notation and build on it until you are playing music.

I grew up reading music and only discovered tab when I took up the mandolin a few years ago. Recently I've been playing things by ear or from notation just to get back into it...notation lets me play anything on any instrument that I play. I have music scores from when I played clarinet and since I can read notation it's not a problem to play on guitar or mandolin.

It's a great skill to have, there are threads here debating the topic...

[Stacey Morris]

Hi Jaycat.

JeffD sort of recommended Marilyn Mair's book, The Complete Mandolinist, to me. I bought it and can highly recommend Ms. Mair's book for learning to read music. She focuses on reading the Treble Cleft that applies to Mandolin. I started in the Basic section (still there, by the way) and am really enjoying the learning. I knew absolutely nothing about reading music, so had to start at the beginning.

[jaycat]

All of this info is very helpful. I like the Youtube guy (so far anyway). The books look good as well.

Thanks everyone!

[John Kelly]

Think about why you want to learn, and what written music actually gives you. You mention "sort of hoping to learn the whole shebang: time signatures, note values, etc." Written music is an attempt to give you the tune when the composer is not there or you have no aural source to listen to, whether live or a recording. Tunes comprise series of notes of particular pitches and time values, and so you'll want to learn what those notes are and where they appear on your instrument; also how long each note should be.

Remember that actually starting to learn is the biggest step: there are only seven letters to learn, A,B,C,D,E,F and G (plus flattened or sharpened versions of them giving only 12 half tones to play with in our common diatonic scale). Our alphabet has 26 characters plus associated capital letters, so your first steps in reading music should be well within your grasp!

You will never regret taking the decision to learn to read music, just as you have never regretted learning the much more complicated codes of our written language.

[rwesleycarr]

The best piece of advice I got when I wanted to work on my reading was to sight read pretty easy tunes for ten minutes every day. (once you got the general note stuff down). Don't worry about perfecting them. The idea was to approach it like you would approach talking. You do it every day and it starts to become natural. Obviously, it's not that you wouldn't ever worry about trying to play something perfect. You would have the tunes that you spend a lot of time on still but you would also have the sight reading as a kind of warm up thing.

[LongBlackVeil]

im starting to work on this. So far im liking the Joe Carr book. I havent gotten very far with it yet simply because i havent put enough time into it. but im liking this approach better than the traditional EGBDF/FACE thing. It associates the lines and spaces directly with open strings and fretted notes on the mandolin. I feel like its a little more direct and you dont have to take the extra step of figuring out the note names and where they are.

but idk ill have to see how it works out for me. i dont really care too much about being able to sight read, if it comes it comes, fine, i really just want to be able to learn the tunes and songs though

[CarlM]

It associates the lines and spaces directly with open strings and fretted notes on the mandolin. I feel like its a little more direct and you dont have to take the extra step of figuring out the note names and where they are.

Most of the notes are in more than one place.

[ralph johansson]

It's been very long since I learned to read music, actually before I even picked up my first instrument, the guitar (58 years ago,
I believe). I learned that instrument key by key, starting in C, then proceeding along the circle of fifths in both directions: C, F,G, Bb,D, etc. I cannot offer any suggestions on the best way to proceed when you already play an instrument, but the guiding principle should be: reading is a musical skill. It should go together with a thorough understanding of theory, on keys and their scales, relationships between keys (parallell, relative, dominant, etc.). Some people, when looking at a score in, say, Eb major, try to "remember" to flatten the notes b, e, and a, instead of simply placing themselves in the actual key, letting the key signature structure the staff, as it were. Incidentally, I found it very useful to learn grand staff (really, the two staves are continuations of one another) so I could study songs in piano arrangements - I always wanted to understand all of the music, from the bottom up.

[kmullinax]

I'm in the same boat and wanting to learn theory and standard notation for the mandolin.
I downloaded Music Theory and Practice by Musicopolis on the app store and frankly it's completely amazing.
It fun and engrossing and in the past week I've quickly learned where on the fretboard all the corresponding notes are from the treble clef.
It has tons of lessons to quiz you and quickly teach you theory and reading music. You can enter the name of the key, note, chord or scale in portrait mode, or by turning the phone in landscape mode you can answer the questions on a fretboard.
Unfortunately the app doesn't have a mandolin as one of the instruments, but it has violin, so I've been using that and it suffices as a "fretless" mandolin.
I highly recommend this app to help get you up to speed quickly. After one week I'm ready to start reading simple tunes.

[jaycat]

Thanks kmullinax.

So . . . what's the equivalent for those of us who don't own "smart" phones or do "apps?" (I know, extinction) . . .

[Timbofood]

I do not read, I appreciate John Kelly's initial sentence thought, paraphrased, "Why and what is your reason?" To expand your knowledge is admirable but, consider the application to keep things in perspective.
"It is wise to know the language of ones adversary, don't you think?"
Reading is one very valuable tool which, I do not, have in my box.
Let me know how you do Jaycat!

[bbcee]

+1 to LongBlackVeil. I'm working my way thru Joe Carr's book, and finally, I'm getting it. It will open up a whole world of non-tabbed fiddle tunes, I'm already starting to crack them and I'm still not too far in. It's a great feeling.

[farmerjones]

My adventure in learning to read notation:
In the front of the Fiddler's Fakebook, there is a treble clef with all the notes named. So I thought, hey all I need to do is to pencil the name of the note above the notes of a tune. That was the start. What I found was I needed to start with a tune I didn't know. (familiarity breeds contempt). Then I found there were whole books of tunes that were lettered. Then I read somewhere that was bad. Who knows? What really struck me was to follow a tune being played as it is notated. It was probably a hymn. Problem there is the goofy keys. But to follow a tune as you both hear it and see it, that is much the same as when we follow speech & text. It doesn't seem to hurt my head as much. But to find the simple tunes and find them transcribed. Then also to find tunes that I would be unfamiliar with, so recall doesn't interfere. . . I am looking for the source.

[tangleweeds]

what's the equivalent for those of us who don't own "smart" phones or do "apps?

My favorite free online music theory website is Teoria.com, which has both explanations and interactive exercises. The basic lessons are about simply reading music, though it goes into much more advanced theory too.

[Davey]

I joined a Session which prints it's own tune book, all in standard notation. I started by trying to find matching tab so I could learn the tunes but they were often slightly different so I had to buckle down and get on with learning to read.

I noticed that the middle line of the stave is the 2nd fret on the 2nd string & the line above is the fifth fret, same string.
In fact all the lines are either on a 2nd or 5th fret.
Starting from the bottom line it's 3/2 (string three fret two) followed by 3/5, 2/2, 2/5, and 1/2.
Memorise these five and the gaps plus the notes above and below the stave will just fill themselves in given a bit of practice.

[bobby bill]

I also think the Fiddler's Fakebook is a good place to start. Almost everyone from very early on can play two octaves of a G major scale from the low open G string to the third fret of the high E. Memorize where these three G's are on the staff and you are practically home free. I wouldn't so much try to memorize all the other notes on the staff, but rather think of where they fall within the G major scale you already know. If you see a note on the second to the bottom line of the staff, then a note on the space above, then a note on the line above that, it seems (to me) more intuitive to think 1-2-3 than G-A-B. So pick out all the songs in G in the Fiddler's Fakebook and you are off to the races.