Everything You Need to Know About Reading Music

hello everyone welcome to the second installment of my music theory education videos before I begin this video I just want to thank everyone for all of the support on the first video many people had some great feedback that I will use in my future videos to continue to explain music theory in a way that everyone can easily learn in this video I'll be showing you how to read music reading music is often thought to be complex and difficult to get a grasp of so in this video I will explain just the basics of reading sheet music to not overwhelm anyone in later videos I will get further in-depth with sheet music reading so if you already kind of know how to read sheet music don't worry I've got a video for you coming soon reading music can be broken down into these two basic parts pitch and Rhythm when learning how to read sheet music it can often be helpful to understand how to read notes on a piano as well if you don't already know how to read the notes on a piano this may sound a bit overwhelming but once you understand how notes function on the piano it makes understanding sheet music much easier music is divided into 12 notes seven of those notes are referred to as natural and five of those notes are referred to as accidentals when looking at a piano the white keys are the natural notes and The Black Keys are the accidentals the space between each key both white and black is called a half step this is the smallest naturally occurring interval between notes all pitch is measured by the frequency of the sound waves it produces this is measured in what we call Hertz the note you just heard is a440 Hertz also known as A4 in music this is usually the frequency musicians tune their instruments to increasing the frequency will make the pitch sound higher while decreasing the frequency will make the pitch sound lower if I double the frequency from 440 to 880 the note name will still be a but it will sound higher than the original frequency of A4 we call this A5 if I half the frequency from 440 to 220 the note name will again still be a but will sound lower than the original frequency of a A4 we call this A3 if you found this surprisingly easy to understand you're probably right our brain actually is able to recognize the doubling or having of frequencies as the same pitch regardless of any music theory knowledge the doubling or having of the frequency of a note while maintaining the same pitch is known as an octave an octave is a musical interval that spans 12 half steps if we start at a and play all 12 of the notes in an octave the next next note will be a again but it will be an octave higher than the a we started on now that we know about how octaves work and how our brain perceives pitch it's time to learn what the 12 notes in music are western music theory originating from Europe long ago is the most commonly used Theory system in North America and Europe in western music the seven natural notes are a b c d e f and g on the piano those seven notes always fall on these keys and repeat every octave middle C is used as the main point of reference when talking about Pitch as you may have guessed it's called the middle CA because it falls just about in the middle of the keyboard middle C is known as C4 and it is the first note of the fourth octave in music that's right although a does come before c in the alphabet C is used to show the beginning of a new octave so if if we Mark the beginning of each octave on a piano it would look something like this The Black Keys on the piano are referred to as accidentals there are five accidental notes in western music since accidentals are placed in between natural notes all accidental notes have two names each accidental can be referred to as sharp or flat a sharp note is notated with a hash mark and tells the musician to play that note one half step higher than the Written Letter while flat is notated with a symbol similar to a lowercase b and tells the musician to play that note one/ half step lower than the written letter for example the note above G natural is called G sharp and the note below a is called a flat both gsh and a flat are the same note depending on the context of the written music a composer May refer to a note as sharp or flat compos are able to do this because of what are called enharmonics an enharmonic is two notes that sound the same but have different names for example D Shar sounds like this and E flat sounds like this notice how it's the same pitch that's because dsharp is one half step higher than D and E flat is one half step lower than e if we move up one key from d and down one key from E on the piano we will end up on the same note for what we are learning in this video it isn't yet important to understand why someone would choose to refer to an accidental as sharp over flat versus flat over sharp but we will discuss the differences in a video soon in the future now if we go back to the piano this diagram will show you all of the notes on the piano both natural and accidental you may notice that there is no bsharp C flat E or F flat on the piano these notes do exist but because of the tuning system we use B Shar will sound the same as C C flat will sound the same as b e Shar will sound the same as F and F flat will sound the same as e these are also examples of enharmonics however composers will almost never use bsharp C flat e sharp or F flat as their inharmonic equivalents are much easier to read and understand now that we know the basics of pitch in music and how they relate to the piano it's time to learn how to read pitch on sheet music for this video we will be reading music in the treble cleff as it is the most commonly seen clef in music if you remember from the previous video this is a staff the staff is made up of lines and spaces each corresponding to a specific pitch a note can be written on any of the lines or spaces to indicate which pitch the musician is to play in trouble cff the notes in the four spaces from bottom to top are f a c and e this is easy to remember if you think of the space notes forming the word face the five line notes in the treble cleff from bottom to top are e g b d and f I find that it is easiest to remember the line notes as thinking about the space notes around the targeted note each line note is written on the lines between the space notes therefore there will always be one letter away from one of the easy to remember face notes for example if we want to identify this note we know that the space note below it is f since every movement up or down from a line to a space or space to a line represents moving one letter and the note we want to identify is one movement up from F we now know that the unknown note is G accidentals are written on the line or space that corresponds with their letter A sharp or flat marking will be placed on the line line or space right before the note much like the piano the triple cff also shows the Octave of notes the note on the bottom space is f but so is the note on the top line the further down in the staff the note is located the lower the note is in the trouble cff the bottom space is F4 going up from there we have G4 A4 B4 and then C5 because remember C is always the beginning of a new octave after that we have D5 E5 and finally F5 F5 will sound one octave higher than F4 now what happens if a composer wants a musician to play a note higher than F5 well there is a system in place to continue the pattern of treble cluff notes outside of the staff after the Top Line F the next note is placed on top of the staff since the order of note names always stays the same the note on top of the staff is G more specifically G5 now if we continue to go even higher to A5 a ledger line is added Ledger lines act as a way to easily identify the notes beyond the staff a ledger line has been added and A5 will be a line note Crossing through the first Ledger line after that B5 will be a space note placed on top of the Ledger line once we get to C6 we will add another Ledger line and C6 will become a line note the same is true when playing below the staff to notate playing below E4 the next note lower is D4 D4 will be placed right below the staff as a space note C4 will be one Ledger line below the staff as a line note B3 will be below the first descending Ledger line as a space note A3 will be two Ledger lines below the staff as a line note this pattern of adding Ledger lines allows for infinite additions of line and space notes although typically instruments do not play more than three Ledger lines above or below the staff this diagram shows all the commonly used trouble cleff notes and where they are on the staff it is important to try to rely on memory when learning the notes on the staff rather than using the face method by committing the position of notes on the trouble cleff to memory you will eventually be able to identify notes very quickly and with enough practice you won't even have to think about it learning to read music can be very intimidating and challenging so I have linked some helpful resources for practicing in the description I have linked a website to practice reading note names on the trouble cleff and the piano the website will Generate random notes every time so it can be very helpful in learning to read music now to put everything together that we just learned about Pitch here's a diagram the full range of the piano with all of the notes labeled with their note name and octave if the note is an inharmonic both note names are given a typical 88 key piano can play seven and a quarter octaves now before we put Rhythm and Pitch together let's review some of what we went over in the previous video I will play six common rhythms in 44 time along with a metronome at cord equal 80 then I will break down the examples to help solidify the basic concepts of Rhythm if you feel more comfortable with rhythms feel free to clap or tap along each Rhythm will be played twice [Music] d [Music] [Music] t [Music] the first Rhythm was four quarter notes each of those quarter notes is one click of the metronome because we are in four four time the second Rhythm was one quarter note two eighth notes and two more quarter notes notice that the eighth notes were divided evenly over the time of one quarter note this is because two eighth notes are equal to one quarter note this is known as a subdivision a subdivision describes the mathematical relationship between note values each group of e notes will be divided evenly within the beat of one quarter note just as two 16th notes will be evenly divided within 1/ eth note additionally four 16th notes will be evenly divided between one quarter note and two quartern notes will be evenly divided over the same amount of time as one half note the simple version of explaining subdivisions is that every type of note will always be divided evenly into the note that is larger than it this is why the metronome is so important it is an incredibly useful tool to learn how rhythms sound in time now that we understand how subdivisions work let's move on to the other four rhythms that I played the third Rhythm was 4 16th notes followed by a quarter 28 and another quarter I've sectioned off this Rhythm by where the quarter notes and beats fall we can figure this out using the subdivisions of eighth notes and 16th notes since two 16th notes get evenly distributed in the same amount of time as 1 e note 4 16th notes will fall evenly within 2 eth notes we know that 2 eighth notes fall evenly within one quarter note so 416th notes will fall evenly under one quarter note as well the fourth Rhythm was just one whole note this Rhythm demonstrates how everything that was in Rhythm 3 all falls evenly under one whole note while we are discussing this Rhythm I'll review how many of each note type it takes to fill a measure of 44 time in one measure of 44 one whole note has a value of one meaning it takes up the whole measure two half notes each with a value of 1/2 takes up a full measure of 44 four quarter notes each with a value of 1/4 fill one measure of 44 8/8 notes each with a value of 1/8 fill a measure of 44 and 166th notes each with a value of 116th will fill a measure of four four time the fifth Rhythm was one quarter note 1/ half note and one more quarter note this Rhythm shows that although the quarter note gets the b in four4 time the metronome can also be very useful to count how long a note lasts in four4 time a half note lasts exactly two beats the final Rhythm uses most of the basic rhythms found in music and shows how rhythms are notated notes that are less than one beat get connected by a beam so in 44 time one eighth note will look like this while two eighth notes look like this 16th notes look very similar except they have two beams this is because when you see a single 16th note there are two flags at the top of the note the two beams show that two 16th notes take up the same amount of time as 1 eth note when any note less than a b is combined the amount of flags will always be the same as the amount of beams connecting the notes in 44 time notes that are less than a beat are always connected in groups of two or four in this last Rhythm there's one eighth note connected to two 16th notes this may may seem confusing to some so let me break this down to make it very easy to read this type of Rhythm notice how the eighth note has one beam and the following two 16th notes have two beams this notation helps to show musicians that the Rhythm will fall under one quarter note and helps make reading rhythms with eighth notes and 16th notes more fluid and less busy to the eyes the more practice you get with reading rhythms the easier it will be to read and understand subdivisions in a future video I'll be going more in depth with several rhythms to help familiarize you with what can expect to see in sheet music I will also teach you a very useful technique to help you read rhythms and I'm going go over different ways rhythms can be notated so you'll be able to successfully read any rhythm that you see let's combine what we know about Pitch and Rhythm I will show you four examples of pitch and Rhythm together then play what they will sound like with a metronome on the piano try to clap your hands or tap your fingers with the rhythms and try to say the names of the notes in Rhythm if you are more experienced and have access access to a piano or if you play another instrument try to play along it's good to practice on a real instrument if you have access to one if you don't have access to an instrument don't worry this is still a great exercise to see if you understand how pitch and Rhythm work together I will give you 20 seconds to play each example on your own then I will play them twice so you can see how you did I also put the names of the notes on the screen when I play the examples so you can see if you remember the note names example one will start on a middle C if you are playing piano middle C or C4 is the C that sounds like this to make it less complicated each example will start on the same note that the previous example ended on [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now that we've gone over some examples of pitch and Rhythm together hopefully you are beginning to get a better grasp on some of these Concepts even if you don't play an instrument this video was just an introduction to reading and understanding pitch in triple cleff and rhythm in future videos I'll be going more in depth with pitch and Rhythm Concepts also make sure to check out the resources in the description to help you become more fluent in reading music in the next video I will discuss the basic scales and keys of western music I'm also currently working on a shorter video about how to read another one of the most commonly used clefs Bass cleff hope to see you all there

Channel: Michael Parchaiski

Views: 9,891

Keywords: music theory, music theory for beginners, learn music theory, music education, music theory 101, basic music theory, jazz theory, advanced music theory, music, Music Theory Basics, Music Fundamentals, Introduction to Music Theory, jazz band, jazz, Rhythm Explained, time signatures, bass clef, reading music, Michael Parchaiski, MP, treble clef, how to read music, sheet music, pitch, rhythm, how to read sheet music, sight reading, music lesson, how to read piano sheet music

Id: JGGn5bEWCL4

Length: 20min 38sec (1238 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2024