How to Read Music: from Beginner to Advanced

In this lesson I am going to teach you how to read music from beginner to advanced techniques.

I will walk you through how to read sheet music from the very beginning to the more advanced techniques.

More lessons for reading music

[hikaritakashi]

I have to say I've been talking about your videos to my boyfriend who got me a keyboard for Xmas. I've gone through many of your videos and I really want to say thank you SO MUCH. Never learned sheet music but I'm getting there! Posting these videos is very noble of you and I'm sure many people feel the same. You are appreciated!

[dcle]

“Every good boy deserves friends” sounds so much better.

[TheSteveGainesRockBand]

One of the rules they teach you for sight reading is that you have to keep reading new sheet music. If you read the same sheet music it will begin to be muscle memory and not sight reading. That's partly true, but not completely.

I have been sight reading for over 3 years and I can play from sight now, even with new music. I bought about 10 songbooks 3 years ago with a total of about 500 songs. I played them from cover to cover. Then I did it again, and again, and again. It took about 3 or 4 months to get through them all each time. By the time I got back to the first song I didn't remember it so it was like reading a new song again.

After doing that for 3 years I began to remember bits and pieces here and there, but I can't play anything from memory. That was never my goal. My goal was to be able to play from sheet music. So I decided to test if I am really playing from sight. I bought a new book with about 80 songs that I had never played before. No problem. I'm not perfect, but I can get through them first time with few errors and almost at full speed except for some really difficult ones.

So, that's my experience.

[subhamshrestha]

Thank you so much. I'm a self learned pianist for nearly 3 years and don't have the slightest idea about reading sheet music or proper music theory. I can't describe how much your videos has helped me and hopefully other pianists as well. Again I would like to sincerely thank you for your help.

[juancamusic]

You Sir are an amazing teacher! Thanks

[izzylazy]

instead of blah blah, you are sincerely give some good advice and tool. Thanks a lot.

[Laventhy]

I like how you always emphasize the importance of sight reading, because that's the part that fascinates me the most. A linguist in me makes me look at sheet music and see a foreign language with its own morphology, syntax, grammar and whatnot. Being able to decipher all this seems like an awesome skill.
Anyways, I've been practicing it from the very beginning of learning piano and I've been instinctively doing this the "interval way", wondering if I was doing it right and not cheating because it felt easier and faster than naming all the notes in my mind first. In this video you helped me really understand what I was doing. Now, if you could help me really understand what I'm doing with my life in general, it would be great 😄
In all seriousness, thank you for making everything so clear! You're the best.

[roland]

These video's really are the best I've seen for us people trying to learn the piano.

[PhilipHarwell]

My favorite saying for the bass clef is Grizzly Bears Don’t Fear Anything.

[jimsmith]

You are an excellent teacher. Thank you!

[TheHansoost]

Thank you very much for the wonderfully clear explanation regarding the relationship between the treble and bass clefs. Much appreciated. I can sleep now.
Great demonstration using the piano.

[llarkin]

That reading note app is really helpful for someone who is a visual learner (me). Really helped refresh! Thank you!

[yameli.itzeli]

Learning to read music again and you are the BEST!

[vincentcurtis]

I am taking private lessons but this video helped me more then my teacher. Thank you for posting it

[lazyjerryguitarman]

These tutorials get better and better each time you redo them. Thanks so much for your effort.

[shirleylaux]

Thank you for sharing this lesson with us am a beginner and loving it

[chermckittrick]

wow, that makes SO much sense! Thanks Much for sharing this info.

[tiagho]

One good alternative to associate the treble clef with the bass clef is to actually make it like this:

Good Boys Deserves Fudge And

ACE Great

Hope it helps someone!

[lucimaramenezes]

Love your lessons. Found them recently and have learned a lot.

[FulanodeTal-kyus]

many thanks! Excellent. The intervals are very helpful for visual memory.