What's the best way to learn to read music?

First, if you're a guitarist and you use tabulature stop doing so immediately. Tabulature is a problem because it's much easier to read in relation to a guitar's fingerboard and can hinder you if you're familiar with it, the problem arises because tab doesn't convey any musical meaning, just relation to the frets. Tab alone is insufficient to read anything unless it's specifically for guitar. If you're not a guitarist disregard this of course.

Second, as much as you can, combine sightreading with ear training from the beginning. Learn to recognize the written note and connect it with the one you're playing. It will help you greatly later if you can hear in your 'inner ear' what you'll be playing on the instrument.

Third, if you're using sightreading for guitar or another instrument where it's possible to create a note on various strings or through various fingerings be prepared to have to think about the best location for the note to be played quite a bit at first. The best way to counteract this long thinking process it to confine yourself to the first position of the fingerboard at first as far as possible.

Fourth, practice sightreading often. The best practice at first will be a lot of contrapuntal music with limited chordal areas as complex chords will be hard to read quickly when starting out. Bach works best for practice in my case, quite simply because it is usually rather thin in chords and as the music is always interesting and satisfying to play it will hold your interest. Start out at a slow tempo (of course) and try to keep it throughout the piece, but go back and correct any problem areas immediately after you finish, it can be very difficult to break an incorrect passage from your memory once you realize your error. A piece can generally be practiced 3-5 times before you start to memorize large swatches of it and can be good as sightreading exercise until then.

Fifth, learn piano. The piano's fingerboard is laid out in such a logical way in that there's only one key to each note that it makes it a very good frame of reference when learning to sightread. Besides, if you're going to pursue schooling in music you'll have to learn to play it anyway.

Also: Count out problem rhythms by singing and tapping them. Don't confine yourself to just sharp or flat keys, depending on your instrument you may be more comfortable in one or the other (guitarist as simply a matter of its construction are always more comfortable in sharp keys, whereas wind and brass players are more familiar with flat keys) so spread out from your comfort zone a bit.

Study...practice.

Read on your own is the best way in my thought.

This is the most frequently asked question by my piano students. I will soon have a posting about this on my website (www.pianobody.com). Through the years, I have worked out an involved method where students exercise their "inner ear" by imagining the sound of different intervals and scales. As with everything else in music, the best way to learn is by DOING. You should start (instrumentalist or non-instrumentalist) by learning the simple relative intervals. BE PATIENT with yourself at first...growth is usually exponential, just get past the initial hurdle of the first few intervals. Focus on MELODIC shapes and "keep good musical company"....lots of Beatles, Mozart, and ABBA.

Good Luck

The top answer is a great one. I'm a guitarist too and I think that tab is a great too but we can become too dependent on it and that can stop us from being able to read music well ourselves.

If you are looking for a much faster than normal way to learn to read music, check out http://www.SpeedyMusicReading.com

hmmm ... i can give you advice from a singer's point of view?? but i don't know if you're a singer or not?! lol!! what i do, when not in an exam lol, is go to a piano, play the starting note and then read the music, then i echo what i have just sung on the piano and do it until i'm pitch perfect!! x

My drum teacher is teaching me.

To be honest, reading about tabs and notes online or getting a teacher works great.

The best way to read music is to fist identify all of the note... Study them and their key signatures... If you're still lost, try to make or purchase a note (keyboard) chart. Keep it out at all times until you are have learned all the notes without it.

Shannon

Print out a scale of all the notes and study them on their lines. Also, http://www.theviolincase.com/Flashcards/index.htm is a good website.

Speaking as a pianist, I suggest to you that you read music and learn the fundamentals. It's like working with Mathematics. The more problems you do, the quicker you will be at doing it. Same thing with reading. The more you read, the faster you read.

Practice. I play guitar,mandolin and double bass. Only practice can lead you to your aim.

http://www.howtoreadmusicguide.com

I have an ongoing music reading tutorial at http://www.howtoreadmusicguide.com

If you're looking for how to read music this website has the best course on music reading that I've ever seen:

http://www.musicreadingmadeeasy.com

Good luck!

Have you tried FastKeys?
It's a little flash game I made to make learning music easier... and fun.

Here's the site:
http://martypapa.blogspot.com

Hope it helps!

http://knowingmusic.blogspot.com/

Source
http://knowlearning.blogspot.com/

Heres another thought.

Reading music is like reading a book. The challenge is doing something physical at the same time. The better you are at reading the more proficient you will be with the instrument you are playin. So...reading. When you were in grade school learning to read you took each letter of a single word and sounded it out. Eventually you got to the point where just looking at the word your brain recognizes all the letters and automatically puts the word in your mouth. Reading measures of music is the same. Read an entire measure or even an entire four bar phrase at a time. Good luck!!!

there is a game by weiser software called sight reading challenge. it is 10 bucks. buy it. play it for 3 hours a day for a month. thats it man. get to it.

There are cute things to remember the notes on the staff(lines) and in the spaces in between. In treble cleff starting on the bottom line the notes are e,g,b,d,f. Every Good Boy Does Fine. The notes in the spaces are therefore f,a,c,e. That obviously spells face. In the bass cleff starting from the bottom, the notes are g,b,d,f,a. Great Big Dogs Fight Always. I don't know anything for the spaces. Btw, the musical scale only goes from a to g then it goes back to a. There is no h.

Practice practice and practice, its easy it just goes in order a-g.

make up some silly phrases to help you remember certain ones, like for all the notes that are not sitting on a line (treble clef) from top to bottom, g, e, c, a, f, d, b, g, e.

Make up a phrase that will help remember eg Gary Eats Curried Apples For Dinner

then the next three ect ect ect

There are many resources on line, you can go to “How to improve on piano sight reading: “http://yokewong.net/sightreading.html

You can also find sight-reading books to help you with your sight-readings. For example, the super-sight reading secrets. You can also pick out a few pieces of music and sight read them. Make sure you only sight read it through once and put it away. Reading it more than once will not help with your sight reading. After that, move on to another piece of music. You can also go to my website for more information.

Here are some tips taken from my site:
1. Only practice a portion at a time. Have you heard of the saying : "How do you eat an elephant?" - a bite at a time. This is
true in any given task. Do not practice the whole piece in one day. Breakdown the piano piece you are going to learn in
many portions.
You will need time to digest any given measurements. The fingers need to familiar with the location and touch of the notes.

2. Analyze the piece - You may analyze the piece by observing any repeating segments. Very often a music
piece has repeating segments. Sometimes the repeating segments might varies slightly. By doing this, you achieve
the goal of practice a small segment but covering the repeating portions that appears later on in the same piece.
Also analyze the forms of the piece. A common music form is ABA , AABA, AABB, ABCA etc.

3. Chord/Cadence analysis - The same chord may appears for a few measures. This is true in any musical period
(Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, etc). If you notice a same chord is repeating for many measures, then the notes
within those measures belongs to the same chord and scale. This also helps your sight reading abilities. You get to predict the
chord and notes ahead of time.

4. Warm up the fingers by playing the key of the piece - If the music piece is in the key of A major, you may want to warm up
your A major scale by playing them numerous time to have a feel of A major's tone and fingering.

5. Write down the three most important chords of the key - If the piece is in the key of A major, you may write down the tonic,
dominant, and subdominant chord respectively. They are A chord, D chord, and E chord. You will soon discover the left
hand part of the music comprised mostly of these three chords. This is true in any given music. These three chords are
mostly used and harmonized.

6. Practice each hand separately first - This method is most useful if you are playing pieces from the Baroque period. Music
composed by Bach have many themes. Very often each hands is playing a different subject. Practice slowly in the
beginning, speed up once you have a good understanding of the piece. This is important when you have a music piece that
varies in rhythm (going from quarter note to half note, dotted quarter note, etc).

7. Do not lose your sanity - Some music can be frustrating to learn. Keep a positive attitude. Though you are practicing a
small portion at a time, you are still making progress. Some advanced repertoire may take 4-6 months or even longer to master.


Yoke Wong
Take Your Piano Playing To The Next Level
http://www.YokeWong.net