How To Read Sheet Music

How to read sheet music. So you've made it to lesson two. Fantastic. Told you it was easy to learn how to read sheet music.

So, continuing on our journey on how to read music we will look at adding things to the staff. What's the staff? The horizontal lines where the music is written. But you knew that. Didn't you?

How To Read Music - The Treble Clef

First things first. The treble clef. This is a funny squiggly thing added to the start of each music piece.

There are other types of clef. But for the purposes of saxophone we are only interested in the treble clef.

How To Read Sheet Music - The Treble Clef

The treble clef sits on the second line of the staff. Notice how the start of the curl goes from the second line up and curls around inbetween the 3rd and 1st lines.

How To Read Sheet Music - The French Treble Clef

Important point in how to read sheet music. There is another clef called the French violin clef. It is different. The curl starts on the 1st line, falls below it and then up to the second line.

If you see this, then the music is not written for a saxophone

What this clef does is to drop the notes down one line.

So what does a treble clef do?

Without bringing complications into the art of how to read sheet music. The treble clef tells us that the notes we are about to play can be played on the saxophone. Just to note. The treble clef is used for a multitude of different instruments and is not exclusive to the sax.

It doesn't mean you can't play other pieces of music written with different music symbols but they won't sound right as you'll be playing the wrong notes.

How To Read Music - The Bar

Aside from being a place to drink alcohol a bar is a term in music. It's like splitting music into sentences.

A bar will split a piece of music so you know what speed or pace you need to play the particualar notes at. It can also end a piece of music.

Above shows you two different types of bar line. The bar is the bit inbetween the two different types of bar line. A certain amount of notes will be placed inbetween the barlines.

Now I hope, looking at the image above things in the picture will begin to make sense as you continue to learn how to read sheet music. I'm sure most of you will recognise the above. Although there are things missing, like a time signature and some notes, I'm sure you will recognise it as a music sheet. If you did well done. You are learning how to read sheet music well.

Continue To Learn To Read Sheet Music - The Time Signature

This is probably the most difficult aspect to grasp when you want to learn to read sheet music

Keeping it simple for the lesson we will use what is called common time. A 4/4 time signature

The time signature is placed immediately after the treble clef. Here we have the time signature 4/4. Usually written with a much fanicer 'C' and numbers but you get the point.

The 'C' is also used to show common time. You may see a piece of music showing 4/4 or 'C' or even both just to show you are playing common time

Learn to read music time signatures. What does it mean?

The time signature tells you the beats in a bar and how long each beat should last.

The bottom number tells us the note value of one beat.

The top number tells us how many of these beats are in each bar

For example. A 4/4 beat tells us there are 4 quarter note beats. A 2/4 tells us there are 2 quarter note beats.

How To Read Sheet Music - A 4/4 Time Signature

A 4/4 signature in the above picture tells us there are 4 quarter note beats to each bar. That means each note, of which there are four, must be played for a quarter note each. Why?

Because there are 4 quarter note beats in the time signature and 4 notes to play, all of which are the same. A quarter note. If you played the first note longer than the next three you wouldn't be playing four even lots of four.

Lets say you played - Paaarp, Parp, Parp, Parp

The last 3 are quarter notes. The first is longer. Lets call it a half.

Add them all together. 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 1 & 1/4. We've over played by a quarter.

More Learn to Read Music

So how did that grab you on the scale of learing how to read sheet music? A little more difficult? Still want to learn to read music?

Don't worry if you didn't grasp the whole time signature thing straight away.

Remember, there's no rush here. It's not a race. So just slow it down and take your time

Learning how to read sheet music does take a bit of perserverence so stick with it.

Feel ready to learn a bit more? Great! Click on the links below to take you to the next lessons in how to read music.

Back To Lesson One Of How To Read Music - The Staff

Lesson Three Of Learn To Read Music - Types Of Notes

Lesson Four Of Learn To Read Sheet Music - Sharps, Flats & Naturals

Lesson Five Of Learn To Play Music - Types Of Rests

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