There are many ways to promote your band, but there is never a more effective way to promote your band than to know your stuff. In this edition of Gorilla Promotions, we take a look at sheet music and learn how to decipher a page of dots into musical sound. Though it should be said, the ability to read sheet music is not an essential skill to your future musical career, it is in no way a hindrance. The ability to read music will become another weapon in your arsenal of rock.
Understand the Keyboard
A Piano like Keyboard
A keyboard is a series of black and white keys. From the picture above we see the black keys come in sequences of 2 and 3 keys. Think of the black keys as eating utensils. The black keys can be both sharp and flat like a knife. The two black keys are like the end of chop sticks and the three black keys are like the end of a fork. Chopsticks starts with a C and Forks starts with a F. So the white key in front of the chop sticks must be C and the white key in front of the forks must be F, right? Correct!
The keys' key.
The white keys are a repeating succession of notes A through G. Your fingers can start on A and flow down the keys to G. But once you are past G, your fingers are back to A. However, each note down the keyboard is a step down. Therefore, the A note, you play at the top of the keyboard, is not the same as the A note you would play at the bottom. This difference in tone is called an octave and octaves denote the place on the keyboard.
We can see here the Chop sticks do start with the letter C, and Forks do start with the letter F. Like knives, the black key are both flat and sharp. To tell which note is flat or sharp, we look to the note it effects. Sharp is like smart or a head, if the note is before the black key it is sharp. Flat is dimwitted as in flat head, if the note is behind than it is flat. The first black note in our picture is both a C #, # means sharp, and it is Db, b means flat.
Spare the Staff, Spare the Musician
Stories are written in words and songs are written in the musical staff. Not a weapon of combat, the musical staff hold all the information a musician needs to play. The Musical staff comes in different shapes and sizes. There is even a Grand Staff, but we will get to that later. In the picture above, we can see a Treble Clef or a G clef. The G clef is denoted by the stylized G. On a piano, the Treble Clef or G clef denotes the actions of the right hand.
Exceptionally Good Buds Deserve Flame
You can follow along on a piano or a keyboard, if you have one handy. Apple users can use the program “Garage Band” to convert your word keyboard into a musical set. No matter which way we slice it, the keys all look the same. The same set of black and white keys with tones from A to G.
The music staff is 5 lines and four spaces in between those lines. Each line and space represents a note to be played.
The lines from top to bottom are E, G, B, D, and F. A common mnemonic for the line notes is “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” but feel free to make up your own. Try “Eat Good Burgers, Drinks, and Fries” However you remember it, be sure to start from the bottom. So your right hand moves away from the middle of the keyboard as you climb the staff.
FACE rhymes with mace.
The spaces, in between the lines, represent the F, A, C, and E notes. I remember these as they spell out Face, my favorite A-Team member. Like the lines, the spaces also start from the bottom and move up the staff. Again this is to move your fingers away from the middle as the dots move up the staff.
When we put these two pictures together, we notice that every line and space on the musical staff translates to a key on the keyboard. If you start on the E note of EGBDF, then strike the next key to the right, you find a F. From the F note to a A note, your fingers skips over one white key and the musical staff jumps over the line into the next space.
Cooking with Grease
Now we know the basics of the common Treble Clef. From E to F, from F to E, the building blocks of our musical foundation has been built upon solid ground. With our knowledge, we can decipher a page of lines, dots, and over stylized letters into a song. Let’s try an example together and see if we can’t make sweet music together.
Mary had a What?
There are a couple elements we haven’t discussed but, first, let’s tackle the things we already know. From the information so far, we can decipher which notes are to be played. We know the middle line is a B note and the first note appears on the middle line. The first note of our song is B. The next note is the space under the B line or one key to the left of the B, which is an A. Now go down the line and decipher each note.
Mary's got note, dictated.
Now we know the notes, but how do we play them?
Knowing the notes is the hard part. How to play them is already written for us. Hint, it’s in the notation.
Do you see the 4/4 next to the first Treble Clef? The 4/4 is known as a Time Signature, which tell us how many beats are in a measure. A measure is the pace of a song played and is represented by the vertical lines. Think of the measure as a sentence and each vertical line is punctuation for your musical piece. Therefore, in our example, the 4/4 time signature tells us there are 4 beats per measure.
Note Values
Now there are a number of different notes in our example and each note represents how long you should play that note. Think of the notes as the place to put your fingers. No matter what kind of note is shown, your finger must strike the key that is associated with the round bottom part of the note, unless noted as a sharp / flat.
To understand how long to strike the key, we need to understand the math of music. Think of each measure as a ounce of cannabis. With a ounce of cannabis there are a number of things you can do to store it. You could keep it as a full ounce, or your could break it up into a number of different increments. But no matter how small you break it up, the total amount will remain at an ounce.
If there are four beats per measure, then we can fit 4 quarter notes played on each beat, into each measure. Can you guess how much a quarter note is worth… yup it’s a quarter or about 7 grams of musical delight. 4 quarters make a ounce and 4 quarter notes make a measure.
In the second measure of our example, we see three notes. They are two quarter notes and one half note. If a quarter note is worth a quarter then a half note is worth a half. Two quarters and one half make a whole bag. Jump back, kiss myself , and let’s start tickling the fake ivories.
Now we have all the information we need to play our example piece. However, do you know what song it is? Try to use the skills we have learned to play our example piece. Once you know the name of the song, shout out the answer in our comment box. Then grab another piece of sheet music and see if you can’t decipher it. Next time, we will take a look at things to keep your left hand busy, while your right hand is tapping out sweet G Clef harmony.
Bonus Binary
The Basics of Reading Music
Free Online Piano Lessons
How to Read Sheet Music
WHAT TO DO NOW?