Since the dawn of time, people have been trying to figure out how to write stuff. In the beginning, we didn’t have much stuff to write. Mostly grunts. Eventually we drew pictures that represented ideas; like, a cave painting of a mammoth could be interpreted as a mammoth. Eventually those pictures became words, which is how I am writing this essay!!

But how do we write down stuff we can’t see? I am talking about music, which is something that we cannot see, but we can experience. How do we write down music? Maybe you could write out instructions in English, but what if a musician doesn’t know English?! That would be very selfish of you.

There is a whole language of written music that can be understood by anyone who can read music! It is very difficult, but also very useful. Like English, you write music on lined paper, but instead of one line, you use FIVE parallel lines ~ this set of FIVE parallel lines is called a “staff,” like the people who watch you at summer camp. Instead of words, you use “notes” ~ a note changes depending on which of the five lines it is written on. Unlike, English, you can actually write music THROUGH the lines; isn’t that cool?

There is a very easy way to identify notes. Starting from the bottom of the staff, the order of notes with a line through them (from bottom to top) is: E, G, B, D, F ~ You can remember this as Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, which is true! The order of notes which go in between the lines is: F A C E ~ You can remember this as FACE, like the word face, which we all have. If you do not know English, you will need another way to remember these notes, because Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and FACE will not mean anything to you.

Once you know the notes, you almost know how to read music! You should also know about meter. In math class, we were taught that a meter is a little longer than a yard; the meter we use in music is totally different! Meter in music tells you how fast the notes are read ~ sortofliketakingoutspacestellsyoutoreadthisquickly! I mentioned math class because meter is actually a number ~ it is a fraction, like ⅜  or ¾. In this way, math is important no matter what language you speak!

There are many other things you must know to read music. Sometimes, you do not want to make any sound at all; you can show this by drawing a rest, which looks like a squiggle or a hat, depending on how long you  have to be quiet. English would be very confusing if there were no periods you would have no idea where to stop or where to start that is why music has something like a period but instead of a dot it’s a vertical line through the five horizontal lines that means the end of a musical sentence.

There is also a special symbol called a cleff, which looks like a very fancy cursive letter. If you do not know cursive, you should learn, because you will need it in everyday life as an adult. In chorus class, we use the treble cleff, which means that the notes written in the staff are kinda high. In grown-up choruses, they sometimes use the bass cleff, which means that the notes written in the staff are lowish.

In the end, I would say that reading music is very difficult but very fun. To conclude, I would say that if you do not know how to read music, you should learn to as it is a very useful skill.

 

 

Single source? Now that’s good research!

http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Music