Why Learning Notation Will Set Your Music Apart
February 6th, 2010 by Classical Music Expert
The most fun thing to do when playing piano is to pull out the piano bench, stretch out the limbs and rip out a song you already know, or a solo piece you’re familiar with. What’s not so much fun is staying on piano benches attempting to learn what all the squiggles and dots of music notation mean, and trying to read them as fast as possible. Often the tunes you’re trying to study will be thrown into a sheet music cabinet, not to be looked at until motivation happens to come again. Is practicing reading notation all that important? Wouldn’t it just be superior to focus on the areas of playing that is fun and simple?
The answer to that is a definite “No”. In order to grow into a well-rounded musician, the difficult aspects of music will have to be studied along with the fun parts. But in stating that, I’m misrepresenting the actuality of learning music. The fact is that all aspects of musical learning can be fun, and as you become more and more proficient in reading sheet music, you’ll notice yourself enjoying the experience.
The basics of reading music are pretty simple. The difficulty, of course, is learning to comprehend these symbols well enough so that it becomes second nature.
If you’ve figured to begin practicing to read music, make sure that you do it all the time. Don’t just shove in as much learning as you can while your motivated and then dismiss it all until the desire to learn again comes back. It’s more effective to practice reading music for ten minutes each day than to practice for a full hour every six days. You want the meanings of markings to stick in your head the same way language does.
Notice for a minute how easy it is for you to comprehend everything I’m writing here. If you’ve ever tried learning a language with a unique set of characters, you’ll know just how hard it can be to get into your head what those squiggly lines mean. But when you consider reading English, we don’t think of squiggly lines or even individual letters, the words simply jump out at us with seemingly no effort from our brain.
The same is possible| to have with reading music notation, and it’s called sight-reading. Sight-reading is only achieved with the classic technique of practice, practice, practice.
Remember, when you find an aspect of music that’s hard to learn, that’s a good thing. The more difficult something is for you to do, the more your brain will benefit from attacking the problem straight on. Some players focus on repeating individual pieces they know well and can play fast, while some are always searching for what they don’t know, for things they can do better. This is what differentiates a good musician from all the others.