Learning how to read music

[PSMKay]

Remember when looking at systems that they won't necessarily have just two staves tied together. Even some piano parts can go to 4 clefs or more.

For example, view this page from Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor for Piano, which has 5 systems. The lowermost system is meant to be played simultaneously by a single pianist, but is spread out across four staves instead of the standard 2 to make it more easily legible. (I should note that this is the piece that my high school piano instructor pulled out when I started getting cocky about my sight reading skills.)

EDIT: Can't deep link to the individual page. Go here, view PDF, I was referring to pg. 3.

[SMeustace]

So a system is a stave or grouping of staves, then?

[iamchristuffin]

Yes! Sorry, I've never used staves!

PSMKay, afraid your link returns a 404!

C

Fixed. - PSMK

[DiploMattOnline]

As everyone has said, the best way to learn how to read music is by learning an instrument.

When you're part of a production that has music involved, a copy of the score/sheet music should be available. If you don't really know how to read music, try and get the copy with Vocals. 99% of the time, there will be lyrics below the top line (Treble) of music.
Each mark on the page has a meaning. There are various different notes etc. The easiest way to learn what each note (sound) on the page makes is by learning your scales and the musical alphabet which only contains 8 letters (A B C D E F G). For example: the Treble clef (looks similar to an '&') each line and space has its own Letter. Starting from the bottom line of the stave, the lines have a letter associated to them. The lines are E G B D F. The best way to remember this is Elephants Go Bonkers Drinking Fanta. The letters of the spaces are F A C E.

Music theory is something that will take you a long time to get your head around. You should be able to find various tutorials on YouTube. This one is very basic but it should get you started in understanding what notes are what. newbielink:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leIpJWeWYfA [nonactive]

[DiploMattOnline]

Here's a brilliant article showing the basics of how to read sheet music.

newbielink:https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014/04/11/how-to-read-sheet-music/ [nonactive]

[BrandiShook]

Here are a few Youtube videos that may help if you're more visual!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyqthu9T2xc (16 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJSQ9t0nG3Q (22 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFaKNR7eeJk (4 min)

I used this website to help me as I started learning.

https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014/04/11/how-to-read-sheet-music/

Also, you might be able to find some Music Education majors at a college who may volunteer to help teach you.

[emma]

I would suggest googling the different note names and values of the notes. If you want a more thorough understanding, I would suggest getting a book on music theory and reading it. the third thing I would suggest is to find what time signature a song is in and then listen to it and try to find the beginning and ends of the bars. This can be very overwhelming at first but once you start to understand it I think you will be able to grasp the concept of music a lot better.