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Start Learning To Understand Music

The most enjoyable thing to do when learning piano is to pull up the piano bench, stretch out the limbs and rip out a song you’ve previously learned, or a solo piece you’re experienced with. What’s not so much fun is sitting on piano benches trying to learn what all the squiggles and dots of music notation mean, and trying to understand them as fast as possible. Often the music you’re trying to learn will be thrown into a sheet music cabinet, not to be considered until motivation happens to come again. Is learning to read music all that important? Wouldn’t it just be better to focus on the aspects of playing that is fun and easy?

The answer to that is an emphatic “No”. In order to become a well-rounded player, the difficult aspects of music will have to be studied along with the easy parts. But in stating that, I’m misrepresenting the actuality of studying music. The fact is that all aspects of musical learning can be fun, and as you become more and more proficient in reading music notation, you’ll notice yourself enjoying the experience.

The basics of reading music are pretty elementary. The difficulty, of course, is learning to understand these symbols well enough so that it becomes second nature.

If you’ve figured to begin practicing to read notation, make sure that you do it all the time. Don’t just cram 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 notation for ten minutes each day than to practice for a full hour every six days. You want the definitions of markings to stick in your head the same way language does.

Notice for a moment how easy it is for you to understand everything I’m writing here. If you’ve ever attempted learning a language with a unique set of letters, you’ll know just how difficult it can be to get into your head what those squiggly lines mean. But when it comes to reading English, we don’t think of squiggly lines or even individual letters, the words just come out at us with seemingly no effort from our mind.

The same is possible| to achieve with reading music symbols, and it’s called sight-reading. Sight-reading can only be achieved with the classic method of practice, practice, practice.

Remember, when you find an aspect of music that’s difficult to learn, that’s a good thing. The more difficult something is for you to do, the more your mind will benefit from tackling the problem head on. Some musicians focus on repeating individual pieces they know well and can play fast, while some are always looking for what they don’t know, for what they can do better. This is what separates a good musician from all the rest.

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