How to Read Music, Part One

November 27, 2018 | Isaac Han

Music!

Can you read music?

For many years, to many of us, reading a music score is as strange and foreign as reading another language. Unless you have had some experience in high school band, orchestra, or choir, your chances of learning to read music would have been even further reduced. Some of you who were fortunate enough to take private music lessons, or join the church choirs for many years will have no trouble reading music.

I remember a striking scene from an early 80's hit-movie, Amadeus, where Salieri is peaking over Mozart’s score with dreamy expression on his face. With the music playing in the background, Salieri is describing what he is seeing in the score. It was a prefect scene depicting someone reading the music and actually hearing it in his head! It was a beautifully executed depiction of what reading music was all about.

But something like that only happens in the movie, right? Too fictional, right? Consider the following points:

When you were in junior kindergarten class, your teacher would point a letter on the board and say, "This is a letter A!" and you dutifully repeated after, saying "A!" That’s how you began your journey into the wonderful world of literacy. From that class on you would begin to master the alphabet and, gradually, begin to read starting with easy sentences. Pretty soon you would be reading novels and other storybooks filled with all kinds of imaginary pictures. While reading, you can "see" the pictures in your head, right? Music works like that, too.

Those of you who can read music may say, "I read music, but I certainly don’t hear it in my head," but consider how much time you spend reading the music – 30 minutes a day, 1 hour, or 2 hours? How much time did you have to spend reading books before you could picture what you were reading? A lot, most likely.

You can do the same with music. Spend some quality time reading – I mean just read – the music. Personally, I read music scores about 1-2 hours per day. I can both hear the music in my head and I can also visualize the actual music score. In many instances, I can see the colours as well. This ability to see colours in music is called "synesthesia". It is not a disease, although it sounds like one, but musicians see it as an added bonus in reading music.

So, how do you get there? Take that first step, of course, and don’t stop! Here are some books that will help guide to your goal. Any one of these books are great for getting started. At the same time, it's your desire to learn that will guide you to that ultimate goal.