Learn to Read Music

All musicians, excepting blind ones, need to learn to read music if they are to make the most of their ability. The entire history of Western music is available to those who have mastered this skill. Yet for so many, reading music remains the single biggest obstacle to learning music.

It certainly was for me. I even had an incompetent piano teacher (famously, I think) fire me because I couldn't learn to read music. (I'm at long last more competent at sight reading than she was at recognizing musical talent, to say the least.) She literally told my mother, "Take your money every week and throw it in the garbage! Albert will never be able to play the piano!" Much as I'd like to, I won't name names, although I presume she is no longer with us (or at least, one hopes, has no internet access).

What Mrs. [expletive deleted -- her name really is an expletive!] failed, astonishingly, to notice is that music is sound. Nowadays, far too much emphasis is in fact placed on simply learning to read music, while neglecting this simple fact, and training the ear ought therefore to be favored above training the eye. I don't have statistics on the percentage of exasperated piano students whose flashbacks to stereotypical "mean old bat" piano teachers smacking their wrists with a ruler have cost them years of psychotherapy, though I can assure my readers that learning to read music need not be this painful.

Reading music should be thought of much like training a muscle. No one enters a gym with an Olympian physique for the first time. The rest of us may feel intimidated by the pros, but two things are important. First, they had to work very, very hard to attain that level of fitness. Secondly, and most importantly, they're still working out. To a certain extent, learning to read music is like learning to ride a bicycle. However, the human mind and body function according to a strict use-it-or-lose-it principle, and that ought to compel us to practice...

That said by way of introduction, here are some practical, general tips that will help you learn to read music with greater ease. (Be sure to subscribe to this site, as specific tips and exercises are added regularly.)

Practice regularly

This should be so self-evident that I needn't mention it, yet it continues to amaze me how many music students don't make time for regular practice and then wonder why they're not improving quickly. (Yes, people actually pay me to tell them to practice.) Good practice habits are absolutely essential if you wish to learn to read music or undertake any serious musical activity. In learning to read music, above all this means practicing regularly. Clearly, regular practice will bring results far more quickly than will intermittent work. Make a commitment to practice sight reading at least five days a week. It's useful to start practice sessions with reading music. This will quickly grow into a habit. As progress is cumulative only with regular work, 10 minutes a day is all most music students need to learn to read music proficiently. By working consistently, with proper practice habits, you'll astonish yourself with how fast your music reading skills will improve. Improvements on improvements will accelerate your progress. It's like getting compound interest on your sight reading skills!

Practice with a clear mind

Like all music skills, it is perfectly normal to be able to sight read well one day and less well the next. The mind must be receptive, and a tired mind can no more learn to read music than it can do any other activity that demands concentrated effort. Foreign language learners are well aware of this phenomenon. Some days you might be fluent and on others you can barely get the words out and you end up making a fool of yourself. Those are the days you get to tell your friends about (I certainly have my share of embarrassing stories), but in music it simply doesn't work this way. Never practice on fatigue.

Focus first on rhythm

Music of any complexity can always be broken into its constituent components. In reading music, this means first and foremost that rhythm must predominate. A valuable warm-up exercise to sight reading is simply to tap the rhythm while counting out loud. (It's best for this exercise not to be done with the metronome!) The simplest way to do this is with a single line, either melodic or accompanimental. If you're working with polyphonic music, or if the accompaniment has a different rhythm from the melody, it's incredibly valuable to tap one voice in each hand while counting aloud. Only once you're confident with the rhythm should you proceed to actually reading the pitches. Indeed, if you can't accurately tap the rhythm while counting evenly, it's impossible to expect to be able to read the music at sight! It is surprising how many music students continue to struggle with learning to read music but who never bother to first learn to tap the rhythm accurately. Much of the battle can be won by that alone.

Use appropriate material

The right material is essential if you wish to learn to read music and to sustain that effort over a long enough period to become proficient. Imagine a personal trainer forcing a weak body to push the crushing weights that professional athletes lift! While this analogy might sound extreme, in my experience this is certainly part of the reason so many music students struggle with reading music -- they see a tall mountain and are afraid to take the first step. Since every student will be at a different stage of development it will be impossible to make specific recommendations here (although exercises targeted to your specific level -- from rank beginner to experienced professionals -- are in the works at key-notes.com!). There is no need to limit yourself to music stricly for your instrument. Song accompaniments can make for useful sight reading material, for instance.

It should be axiomatic that every aspiring music student must find the best teacher possible. Let your teacher know you've set a goal to learn to read music competently and ask him or her for appropriate material regularly. Work with your teacher to select the proper material as mentioned above, find a volume of music at or just beyond your level, and set a goal to read through the entire book. Use a bookmark to mark your progress. Read a little each day until you've finished, then select the next volume.

Separate reading material from repertoire

Avoid at all costs the very bad habit of continually sight reading pieces you're learning! Truly sight reading music can only be done once per piece, since the brain will already begin absorbing the musical information. A key distinction is that reading music favors rhythm even at the expense of some wrong notes, while actually learning a piece must be absolutely precise in all aspects. Therefore, repertoire pieces may be sight read once, and fresh material must always be sought out for sight reading work.

Develop proprioception
(Keep your eyes on the page!)

When learning to read music it is imperative to keep your eyes on the page, not on your fingers or instrument. This is one of the most difficult tasks for many students, but it is the major hurdle to be overcome. The technical term for the essential skill required in sight reading is called proprioception. Proprioception is a sort of "sixth sense," an awareness of the body in space. Athletes and dancers, for instance, have highly developed proprioception, and musicians need to develop this skill as well. There's really only one way to develop proprioception in learning to read music, and that is to keep your eyes focused on the music rather than your hands.

On the piano, there is a simple exercise you can do that will help you to develop this "sixth sense." The piano keyboard has two groups of black keys per octave, one consisting of two black keys and the other three. By orienting yourself by means of the black keys it's possible to find any key relatively quickly. Try closing your eyes and challenging yourself to find all the D-flats, then all the E-flats, working your way through all the black keys. Then practice finding the white keys blindly by first feeling their relation to the black keys. This, by the way, is how blind pianists are able to play.

Know harmony

If you're versed in harmony and know all your scales and chords, learning to read music can become relatively easy. Once you can immediately recognize all the key signatures and know all the notes within each scale, you'll be able to feel your way within a given key. Sight reading music well demands the integration of many musical faculties, including full knowledge of the common harmonies and all scales. This is why genuinely musical material, rather than random notes as some misguided electronic methods use, is essential for learning to read music. Good musicians are able to recognize harmonic and rhythmic patterns and to anticipate what comes next. In this sense, reading music is exactly like reading language -- a context is necessary.

Read the following paragraph, for instance:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Since we know our own language so well and because we have a context (i.e., the words form whole sentences and the sentences make sense), we're able to understand the paragraph. Learning to read music works exactly the same way: We learn to recognize patterns and make inferences based on subconscious expectations.

Yet imagine how difficult it would be to have to read a series of nonsense syllables! Instead, we learn to read music as well as language by practicing with patterns of notes and words that we come to know. Sight reading methods that use random notes are therefore to be ignored for any but the most superficial tasks.

Read by intervals, not note names

Reading music is simultaneously absolute and relative. That means that the brain recognizes not only the absolute note names for each clef by memorizing them, it also should recognize the intervallic relations between notes. To aid in reading music, each clef has two notes that serve as references for the eye. By convention, C is common to all clefs. The treble clef is also called the G clef because the spiraled symbol is centered on the G above middle C. Therefore, C and G are the two reference notes for the treble clef:

The bass clef is also called the F clef because its two dots are centered on the F below middle C. Thus, C and F are the reference notes for the bass clef:

Like the treble clef, the C clefs (soprano, mezzosoprano, alto, tenor and baritone) also use C and G as their reference notes. Most piano students have never encountered the C clefs, and essentially only alto and tenor clefs are used nowadays for a handful of instruments, including viola, trombone and bassoon. Here is the alto clef:

It is a very good idea to familiarize yourself with all clefs no matter which instrument you play. The goal is not to learn the absolute note names for each clef, which will only confuse you, but simply to be able to find any note in relation to its closest reference note. Thus, for instance, if you understand that the C clef symbol is centered on middle C, you'll immediately know that the note directly above it is D, no matter which of the five C clefs you are learning to read.

Practice with others

If you have the opportunity to work with other music students, by all means take advantage of it. If you don't yet have this opportunity, make it. Reading through music with others is one of the best ways to learn to read music, since you'll be forced to stay in rhythm. I often play duets with my students to help them acquire this skill. You can play with any combination of instruments and accompany singers. The more variety, the better.

Work according to these suggestions and you'll be surprised at how rapidly you progress! Best wishes in learning to read music and in all your musical work.

Ear Training

Is your musical brain "wired" backwards?

Our brains naturally navigate towards what we think is the easiest way to accomplish any given task. But what if I told you that what might seem easiest right now might actually crippling your musical efforts in the long term? And that you might actually be damaging your efforts to learn music?

If you struggle to learn music, if you can't hear music you've never played or heard in your "mind's ear," if you can't recognize essential harmonies, then you're missing the most crucial aspect of learning music: ear training.

"Listening comprehension"

Ear training is literally the "listening comprehension" of music. It is without a doubt the single most neglected aspect of music training today. Many teachers fail to systematically train the ear at all, assuming that training the eyes to read and the fingers to play are sufficient.

Yet since music is sound, ear training ought to be the first and foremost task of any developing musician. This ought to be self-evident. Just as the painter must develop the most acute visual perception and the gourmet chef a refined taste, so must the musician develop acute aural sensitivity.

"Opening" the ears

Our first essential task as students of music is to "open" our ears. This implies learning how listen to music we hear as well as listening to ourselves as we play. This latter aspect of ear training is unquestionably one of the most difficult tasks for the developing musician. It can take many years to synthesize one's inner conceptions with the sounds we're actually producing. In other words, until we're very advanced musicians, the sounds we think we're making simply aren't the ones other people are hearing. (This aspect of playing music obviously has very much to do with technique, which must at all times be married to the ear.) Simply recording ourselves and playing it back will reveal how disparate what we think we're playing and what we're actually playing can be.

The second aspect of ear training is recognizing what we are hearing, just as we recognize objects we see. It is not necessary for a listener to recognize with scientific precision everything he or she hears. It is, however, necessary for us musicians to thoroughly understand the compositional material of every piece we play, just as actors must understand language. Meaning lies behind and between the notes, and it's our job to communicate that meaning. It's impossible to communicate musical meaning if we don't understand the basic vocabulary.

Playing music without this essential ear training would be like trying to speak a foreign language without understanding the words. You could learn by rote -- it's indeed possible to learn how to press the right keys in the right sequence simply by repetition, but if you don't understand the actual "words" -- the notes, intervals and harmonies, you're merely exercising your fingers. Your fingers are learning, but not your ears. This "muscle memory," as it's popularly called, is infamously unreliable. It's guaranteed to give you serious performance anxiety, and it's a practical 100% guarantee (no money back!) that you'll blank out right when you most depend on it.

Tragically, most pianists play like this. They learn entire fugues this way and then have panic attacks when they attempt them in front of others, and memory slips abound. If you're in the habit of practicing like this, the time to break this habit is immediately. Every time you practice with a disengaged ear you will be reinforcing the very habit you're trying to break. Hence, you will actually be doing harm to your musicianship. The more you work improperly, the harder it will be to create retroactively that ever-critical ear-finger connection.

"Hear" with your eyes and "see" with your ears

Your goal is to learn to "hear" with your eyes and "see" with your ears. Your fingers must be guided at all times by your inner ear. We shouldn't hear because we play, rather we play because we hear. In other words, we don't hear a note simply because we happen to have struck the right key, we strike the right key because we hear the right note in our mind's ear. This is the essence of getting the mind ahead of the fingers, and this is the ultimate goal of ear training.

The first aspect of this goal is technical: Your inner sound concept must always direct your fingers; that is the aim of technique.

The second aspect deals with pitch and harmony. Your understanding of harmony must be so ingrained that your ear seemingly automatically tells your fingers which notes to play.

If your ear isn't guiding your fingers in this manner, you're on very dangerous territory indeed. Your musical work isn't based on real musicianship; rather, you're "simulating" playing the piano. Recall the language example: It's possible to learn to type the right letters of words and sentences in succession, but in the long run it's infinitely superior, not to mention vastly more enjoyable, to actually know the language. Then you can say anything with ease.

"It's the method, stupid!"

This is the problem with so many "quick and easy" piano methods nowadays, and this is why they fail to create authentic musicians in the long run. They cater to the instant gratification mentality, lazy students fall prey to them, show modest progress at the beginning and later invariably give up in frustration.

Even advanced music students face this problem, since ear training is no longer an integral part of all aspects of music education, but is rather relegated to only a few semesters in a separate course that has no relation to music students' "core" instrumental work. This reveals a gaping hole in their musical education. And it's not the students' fault, it's that of the music educational system. In most cases ear training is never even mentioned until the student enters a conservatory or university program, and then most of class time must be spent on remedial work that should have begun with the very first lesson. How embarrassing that the final exam so often consists of the identical material to the entry exam, only played faster!

The good news...

The good news is that there's a solution to this problem, and a very large part of that solution is proper ear training. The bad news is that it takes considerable mental effort, and lazy minds would prefer to just exercise their fingers and hope for the best. The effects of this "malpractice" rear their heads at all the wrong times: when it really counts. The deficiencies can be embarrassing. I've encountered graduates of well-known conservatories who could, after much diligent practice, perform extremely difficult pieces but who could not distinguish a major third from a minor third by ear. They learned to learn primarily with their fingers rather than their ears.

What's wonderful about training the ear properly in this manner is that the work is largely cumulative. In the beginning it will require great effort, like running a mile for the first time. Like athletic training, with regular practice you'll develop quickly and will come to enjoy each further step. Yet, also like athletic training, it requires regular practice. The body operates according to a strict "use it or lose it" principle. Ear training therefore needs to be a part of your daily practice regimen.

How to test your ear

A simple test to see whether you're learning primarily with your ears or merely with your fingers is to transpose your music (without the aid of the score, of course). Obviously, extremely technically difficult pieces such as etudes don't lend themselves to this sort of ear training, but slower pieces do. Fortunately for us, it's the slower pieces that tend to give us memory trouble since we're unable to play them on "autopilot"; that is, our muscles don't readily take over.

It's also best to use practice pieces rather than performance pieces for transposing, at least at the beginning. Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos is absolutely ideal for this work, especially since it's so full of surprises. When working with this material it's essential to stay very alert for unexpected notes -- you can't simply play notes within a conventional scale or chord.

Another simple but powerful method of ear training is to sing each voice in all pieces you play. This is an especially useful method of testing whether you're really hearing everything. In most cases, students hear only the melody and bass. They tend to have only a vague impression of the vital middle voices and hence the piece as a whole. This accounts for much of their high degree of uncertainty, difficulty memorizing and performance anxiety. Sing each and every note without the aid of the piano, making sure you're staying absolutely on pitch. The piano is used only to give a starting note and to periodically check your pitch. While tedious at first, this method of basic ear training will ensure that you're truly hearing everything and will give you far greater security so that you can concentrate not on playing the right notes but on expressing the music.

If you're using music such as Mikrokosmos, which I highly recommend, be absolutely certain you don't "cheat" and merely sight-read new pieces at the piano! All the ear training value, hidden in the many unexpected melodic turns, is lost forever the moment you press the keys to hear the correct pitch. You only have one chance to do it per piece! Remember, this is exactly the habit we're seeking to correct -- the goal is to create an accurate inner musical impression rather than rely on external auditory feedback.

This, by the way, is why Beethoven (and Gabriel Fauré, as is less known) could go on composing music in the face of deafness. Thanks to their impeccable ear training and musicianship, they indeed heard every note.