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Author Topic: Learning to Read Music  (Read 8923 times)

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gettabettabox

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #40 on: February 08, 2015, 01:25:56 AM »

better forget about the g push on the inside row then?!    ;)
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oggiesnr

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #41 on: February 08, 2015, 09:49:43 AM »

better forget about the g push on the inside row then?!    ;)

Nope, just have to get used to it being there  (:)

Steve
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #42 on: February 08, 2015, 01:34:33 PM »

Oggiesnr has made a very important point, in my opinion.
Through his current struggles with a new system, he's illustrated the point that after a while you think 'through' the music and relate directly to the buttons on the keyboard.

I.e. That dot on the music score = this button on the keyboard.
If I need to know what the note is called, I too use G ( or D ) as a reference and count up from there.

I know there is more to understanding music than just knowing which note relates to which button, such as length of note etc. but in my book knowing which button to press is a good start.
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Sebastian

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #43 on: February 08, 2015, 01:55:01 PM »

That dot on the music score = this button on the keyboard.
To me it works differently. I often play tunes written in G, in F, in C, in Eb, ... on the same melodeon (C/F). This means: When I see the score, I know which tone is the keynote. If it is a major tune, this keynote equals to my third button push on the inner row (regardless of the fact whether it is a C, a G, an F, an Eb, ... in the actual notation). The third above the keynote is the next button push, the quint above the keynote is the next button push and so on.
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #44 on: February 08, 2015, 02:16:06 PM »

Ah.... Fair enough Sebastian, we all work differently.
It was a simplistic quote from me.
I suppose, more accurately,

That dot on the music score = this button on the push, or that button on the pull for some notes, or in some cases just that button!

I totally understand we all work differently and understand things in different ways.
We are all different people after all !
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Rob2Hook

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #45 on: February 08, 2015, 02:20:41 PM »

Learning to read music and learning to transfer that music to the keyboard are two seperate skills to be acquired.  Unfortunately most of us end up trying to do them simultaneously!  I suppose the only people who can do otherwise are singers!

Coming into this discussion a little late, I believe some of the earlier comments have been incorporated into the guide.  The only thing that struck me as interesting was that the time signature 6/8 I always think of as two beats per bar - otherwise you don't get any feel to the tune.  In terms of starting to learn I believe it goes as far as you'd want in a first lesson.  Perhaps think of it as chapter one?

Rob.
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george garside

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #46 on: February 08, 2015, 03:37:21 PM »

another way of looking at the question of transferring the dots to the keyboard is to think in terms of 'knowing the route'   of a particular(s) key(s).

The ''route'' is of course  the ''scale'' of the key in question.  Practice scales whilst following the dots of the said scale can help to programme the 'route' into the head which in turn leads to reading/thinking and automatically pressing the right button/bellows direction for a particular note

george
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Sarah the fiddler

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #47 on: February 15, 2015, 03:20:37 PM »

Hi Happy Wanderer - this is my first post on here!

I come to this as someone who learnt to read music as a child - on violin which I still play, but also started on melodeon year ago after joining a Morris side. Although I could read music I had the same difficulty of knowing where those notes were on the buttons (DG Pokerwork) - way different from fiddle! It looks like there's already lots of great advice on here and I guess we all learn music in different ways, but I would agree with those who have said just take in the basics of notation and keep it simple. There's a lot of complexity in written notation which probably isn't going to help you much and is easy to get bogged down in!

The way I've found my way from dots to keyboard has been to learn the tune with the dots first. I will listen to a recording of the tune quite a few times with the dots in front before then finding them on the buttons. I also use the technique someone described earlier of having a few 'key' buttons on which I know the note on push or pull and returning to them when lost!! (frequently...still!)

One thing that has really struck me (coming from classical music) is how little the written dots can actually tell you about what a tune can sound like when lifted off the page, as so much in the playing isn't easily written down. I have a lot to learn!!

Good luck & don't let the dots stress you out too much - they're there to help! (:)

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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #48 on: February 15, 2015, 04:17:04 PM »

Hi Sarah,
Commiserations on buying a melodeon, something that has unfortunately happened to us all  ;)
Interesting observations from a classically trained musician, especially how little the dots can tell about the tune. I thought it was just my poor sight reading! Don't worry, I still count up from D and G still.

Oh and welcome to the forum, good to have you on board  (:)
Q
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Sarah the fiddler

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #49 on: February 15, 2015, 04:31:17 PM »

Hi Sarah,
Commiserations on buying a melodeon, something that has unfortunately happened to us all  ;)
Interesting observations from a classically trained musician, especially how little the dots can tell about the tune. I thought it was just my poor sight reading! Don't worry, I still count up from D and G still.

Oh and welcome to the forum, good to have you on board  (:)
Q

Thank you! I understand buying melodeons can become a bit of a bad habit - I'm determined not to end up with a houseful!!
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #50 on: February 15, 2015, 05:25:28 PM »

Um.... I said that once  ::) And I'm a good boy with only two  (:)
Q
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Anahata

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #51 on: February 15, 2015, 06:29:01 PM »

The way I've found my way from dots to keyboard has been to learn the tune with the dots first.
In my experience you learn to read music in a quite different way as soon as you learn to play more than one instrument. With only one instrument, you can get away with mapping dots to fingers; add a second instrument and you switch to translating the dots to the sound of the tune in your head, and playing what you hear. If you can already play tunes by ear you're halfway there. Reading music that way also means you can sing at sight, transpose with ease, and even just look at a tune on paper and recognise what it is (if you know it) without hearing it. Some people think that's clever, but we all take it for granted that you don't have to read a book out loud to know what's in it.

I also use the technique someone described earlier of having a few 'key' buttons on which I know the note on push or pull and returning to them when lost!! (frequently...still!)

You'll find that the number of buttons that you know that way will gradually increase as time goes on...

Quote
One thing that has really struck me (coming from classical music) is how little the written dots can actually tell you about what a tune can sound like when lifted off the page, as so much in the playing isn't easily written down. I have a lot to learn!!
Full sympathy from a fellow traveller from the classical to the folk world (a long time ago).
To be quite honest, classical music is a bit like that too. Granted, you are expected to play the notes that are written, but there's a lot more to the music than that!
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Sebastian

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #52 on: February 15, 2015, 09:36:26 PM »

Granted, you are expected to play the notes that are written, but there's a lot more to the music than that!
Yes, but it is "in the dots" too. Not in the rough way that the ABC-Explorer plays lifeless MIDI-files. You need some background knowledge about the style, florishes etc. But if you have access to this background, than the outline, the notes provide, is enough to recreate the full music.

Of course it would be possible to make explicit much of this 'background' in the notation (that is what ethnomusicologists did [and still do]), but it would be much harder to write down all this than to sketch only the outline, in some sense the 'prototype' of the tune, from which all the different realisations can be derived.

(This might be one argument in favour of real notation against tabulature.)
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Sarah the fiddler

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #53 on: February 15, 2015, 10:26:27 PM »

The way I've found my way from dots to keyboard has been to learn the tune with the dots first.
In my experience you learn to read music in a quite different way as soon as you learn to play more than one instrument. With only one instrument, you can get away with mapping dots to fingers; add a second instrument and you switch to translating the dots to the sound of the tune in your head, and playing what you hear. 

That's an interesting point...I learned piano/violin as a child and I think of dots on a stave as a piano keyboard. But I can then send the keyboard to the violin without having to hear the sound of the tune in my head. Same with singing a tune & can 'read' tune by looking at the dots. But with the box I do have to hear that tune in my head first!

Quote
One thing that has really struck me (coming from classical music) is how little the written dots can actually tell you about what a tune can sound like when lifted off the page, as so much in the playing isn't easily written down. I have a lot to learn!!
Quote
Full sympathy from a fellow traveller from the classical to the folk world (a long time ago).
To be quite honest, classical music is a bit like that too. Granted, you are expected to play the notes that are written, but there's a lot more to the music than that!

I think I felt a lot more 'spoon fed' playing classical as there's so much notated on the music re speed/style/volume/accents etc etc whereas most folk tunes are just the bare bones which you get to add the flesh to. It's actually a lovely freedom to play off the dots and add interpretation (did you find that?). Then of course there's that phenomenon of when I play a tune from the dots and our foreman/box player says 'but we don't play it like that'!
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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #54 on: February 16, 2015, 01:13:35 AM »

I learned piano/violin as a child and I think of dots on a stave as a piano keyboard. But I can then send the keyboard to the violin without having to hear the sound of the tune in my head. Same with singing a tune & can 'read' tune by looking at the dots. But with the box I do have to hear that tune in my head first!
This is almost exactly my experience. I started to read music at the age of 9 when learning the recorder at school, then going on to play various woodwind instruments. Coming to the melodeon in my late 20s with a well-established background as an orchestral/chamber music clarinettist, I found that it wasn't immediately conducive to playing from the dots and I had to internalise the tune in my head first, just as you describe.

It is partly due to the push-pull nature of the melodeon - different notes on the same button - which makes the learning experience quite different from most other instruments (the anglo concertina is similar in this respect). With practice it becomes easier knowing exactly which buttons/bellows directions correspond to staff notation, but even after 30+ years of melodeon playing, I find myself 'sight-singing' new tunes in my head to get the musical shape and then translating that into the fingers/buttons/bellows directions.   
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Sebastian

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #55 on: February 16, 2015, 01:51:55 AM »

It is partly due to the push-pull nature of the melodeon - different notes on the same button - which makes the learning experience quite different from most other instruments (the anglo concertina is similar in this respect). With practice it becomes easier knowing exactly which buttons/bellows directions correspond to staff notation
It is fascinating to hear how other melodeon players 'think'. I 'think' (maybe) a bit differently: I think in harmonic progressions. When I see the notation of a tune, I see a progression of chords (which is quite easy on normal folk tunes). The harmony governs whether to push or to pull. This works more or less automatically.

If a tune modulates into another key, I have to rearrange the patterns, and this takes some time, so that I often slow down or pause when it is a new tune.

It would be interesting to explore, how much these differences are caused by different regional musical traditions (alpine music consists mostly of broken chords) or only by the instruments one previously played. I play the organ and had always to improvise chordal accompaniments to a given tune. And I remember that I spent hours on doing harmony-analysis on Buxtehude and Bach. ::)
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Stiamh

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #56 on: February 16, 2015, 02:26:01 AM »

It is fascinating to hear how other melodeon players 'think'. I 'think' (maybe) a bit differently: I think in harmonic progressions.

Here's a different experience again. I don't think harmonically but melodically. When I took up the box (C#/D) it was initially to play the same melodies I'd already been playing on other instruments for decades and although I have always been able to read I had learned most of these tunes by ear, and I always knew exactly what notes I was playing.

So learning the box was a matter of transferring onto the instrument tunes that were very well mapped out in my brain, and the way to do that was (in the initial stages) to learn where all the notes were on the keyboard and get used to the patterns of bellows movements needed to string them together. Which was easily done - surely less confusing on a semitone box than a fourth-apart system, because the great majority of the notes are in one place only!

So after that, when I needed to read tunes from music, the work was already done, I knew where the notes were and the process was completely straightforward.

I still don't think chordally but again, a 2-row semitone box simplifies matters by limiting your choices: on my system it's only chords involving the notes of F# or C# that require a millisecond's consideration of which row to play them on to suit the chord.

Having written all this I can't imagine how it could be of use to anyone else. But perhaps it adds more weight to the idea that there are many ways of approaching the DBA and the dots.

george garside

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #57 on: February 16, 2015, 09:04:36 AM »

pr0bably also of no use to anyone else  but I read the dots (badly) as the next note being so many notes up or down the scale rather than 'thinking' of notes by name. To do this and irrespective of  whether its a Dg, BC,CF or whatever absolute familiarity  with the relevant scales is essential - otherwise you wouldn't  know where 3 up or 4 down etc  is !

george
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Harp2

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #58 on: February 23, 2015, 06:03:14 AM »

A lot of good tips in this thread.
 Ill just add that for me it is helpful to have a tuner turned on while I practice.
Ive always been an ear player so I sometime play a game with myself and stop on a note and try to guess what the note is.  I am usually wrong lol but sometimes I surprise myself.
Hang in there  (:)
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Harp2

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Re: Learning to Read Music
« Reply #59 on: February 23, 2015, 07:10:49 PM »

pr0bably also of no use to anyone else  but I read the dots (badly) as the next note being so many notes up or down the scale rather than 'thinking' of notes by name. To do this and irrespective of  whether its a Dg, BC,CF or whatever absolute familiarity  with the relevant scales is essential - otherwise you wouldn't  know where 3 up or 4 down etc  is !

george


George you have given me something to think about with up and down idea. Thanks for posting this.
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