Read music in thirty minutes: No experience needed

1. Introduction: Hello, I'm Ben Lewis Smith. And today, I'm going to teach you how to read music. In the next 30 minutes, I'm going to show you exactly how the notes on the page translate into the piano. By the end of today's lessons, you will be able to work out where the seven notes are on the piano and most importantly, your anchor note, middle C. You don't need a four hour course to show you how to read music. Often in the past, I've heard people go, I can't read music. Music is just another language, and once you know the rudiments of how it works, you will become an expert. So stick with me for the next 30 minutes and we'll work on this together. 2. Pitch: So our first category is pitch, and pitch is how we describe high and low sound. And in musical notation, when a note is written higher up the page, for instance, here, it's at a higher pitch, a higher sound than a note that is written down here. So these five lines are called the stave, and they effectively show us how sound high and low is written out. Now, on the piano, when you see this symbol, otherwise known as the treble clef, we know that our right hand is going to play anything where this symbol is written, the treble clef, sometimes known as the G clef. And one of the most important notes in the treble clef that I'm going to teach you today is called middle C. A middle C looks a little bit like this note. Now, if you're near a piano, now might be a good time to go to your piano and try and find out exactly the center of the piano, you're going to see two black keys, and just to the left of that is your C. Now, if you go to the PDF document in this course, there's a picture of a keyboard if you don't have one to hand, and you can work out exactly where that middle C note is, and that is this one here. And we're going to call that your anchor note. It's so important because a lot of beginner piano music starts off of middle C. So have a go playing that or finding the PDF document and doing that. Now, this is the right hand, the treble clef. We also have the base clef, which looks a little bit like this. And the left hand plays the notes on the base clef. And this note, Middle C looks a little bit different on the base clef. It's actually written a bit like this. So you see in the left hand, middle C is at the top of the stave. And the right hand, middle C is at the bottom, but they're actually the same note. It takes a little bit of time for people to get used to, but this is the same note, middle C. This is where a lot of music starts. Now, let's go up a little bit from middle C. So we found our lovely middle C. Now, there's a note on every line and space, okay? Every line and space. So the space just above middle C is on note D. The line just above the D is on notes E. And the space at the bottom, here is F, and the line here is G. So you see, as we ascend, the pitch of the sound is getting higher. For instance, if this was C, C, D, E, F, G, please forgive my singing voice. I'm still in training, but you get the idea, right? You got a low note, you've got a high note. As you go higher up, we get a higher pitch of sound. But it's actually the opposite for the left hand here. We've got our middle C, and we go down to B, down to A, down to G, and down to F. So remember, there is a note on every line and space. And this is the same note middle C. We go down to B in the left hand, down to A, down to G, down to F. And it's really important to use C, middle C, particularly as your anchor. So go to the piano, find that real anchor of middle C and then see if you can play five notes up from it in your right hand and five notes down from it in your left hand. Obviously, there are more notes, and we'll go on to learn those at another point. But even with five notes in the right hand, five notes in the left hand, you're going to start with a really good beginner piano technique. Well done. 3. Rhythm: So our next section is rhythm, and the wonderful backroom technician, Mr. Paul Dempsey, encouraged me to present rhythm in this exciting and multidimensional way. So we've got four types of note we're going to talk about today. We've got the Semibreve, the minim, the crotchet, and the quaver. Now, this is what we call them in the UK. In the US, it's different words, but don't worry too much because the symbols look exactly the same. So our top note, the semibreve lasts for four beats and looks like this. Our minim lasts for two beats and looks like this. You see, there are two minims in a semibreef, yeah. Our crotchet is a one beat note, and they look like this. Four crotchets in a semibreef and two crotchets in one minim. Our quaver, each of those last for just half a beat, okay? So they're pretty quick notes, and they look like this. Now, these are two quavers joined together. Sometimes an individual quaver can look a bit like this. I'll draw it down here. I hope you can see. If you're just showing one quaver, you put a little flag on it, a little sort of tail off to the right there. But usually quavers come in pairs or groups. They can be two or four, whatever. So two quavers, equal one crotchet, two crotchets equal one minim, and two minims equal one semi Breathe. That's how it works. Now, I've got four rhythm drills for you here. So at this moment, you might just want to pause and remind yourself, four beats, two beats, one beat. And each of these is half a beat, okay? So our first rhythm drill, number one, I'm going to clap it to you and then if you would like to join in. So number one, here we go, two, three, four. So, nice and straightforward. I hope four crotchets, four, one beat notes. And so there's a clap on each beat. You try, two, three, four. Smashed it. Really nice, okay? Now, exercise number two, we've got two minims. Each of these lasts for two beats. So let's try clapping that. Ready? Three, four, one, two, three, four. One, two. Three. So you see, there's no clap on beat two or beat four, because the minim only comes on beat one and beat three, we hold each of those for two full beats. Now, if you want a technical challenge, go to number three. Let's try this one. We've got pretty much everything. We've got quavers, crotchets, minims. We've got half a beat notes, one beat notes, and two beat notes. Here we go. Ready? Two, three, four. And again. Really nice, so da ta, ta, ta. Really good. Four is a bit of a jokewm really, 'cause it lasts for four beats. It's ring. But let's do it anyway. Ready? One, two, three, four, two. Three, bar. Two, three. If your music looks like that, I'm really sorry because it is quite boring. Weirdly, you can actually get shorter notes than quavers. You can get semiquavers. You can either get demi semiquavers or hemi demi semiquavers. You know, like a quarter of a beat, an eighth of beat, a 16th of a beat, you can get really short notes. Also, you can get longer notes than a semi Breeve. You can get an eight beat note called a brieve and it looks a bit like this. Yeah. So it's like a sort of it's like a semibreve on acid. You know, it's got kind of two lines either side. Perhaps I should say spaceship. I think that's more appropriate, okay? So breve lasts for eight beats, and this is semibreve for four beats. Look, there are more rhythms than that. That will get you through an awful lot of music. Best of luck. Well done. Right. 4. Bar lines: The pitch and the rhythm is divided up into things called bars, and a musical bar shows us how the notes are all grouped together. So a bar line looks a little bit like this, just a kind of straight line going down through the stave. But sometimes you see different types of bar line. You might see a bar line that looks a little bit like this. We've got a really thick final line and then a thin line just before it. That shows you when a piece of music is finished. This is the very last page. So if you get to that and your music, that's it. There ain't no more coming from the composer, okay? This is a final bar line. Another symbol you might see with your bar lines is this symbol, two dots. Within the music. This means repeat. If you see two dots, it means right. I quite enjoyed that go back to the beginning. So the composers saying, right, go back to the beginning of the music and play the whole thing again. Sometimes you can even see two dots here. So that would mean play from the beginning, Dalila. But just play this bit, okay? So wherever those two dots are, that's where you go back to. But sometimes there are no dots, and you just assume, right, I'm going to go right back to the beginning. Without bars, all music would be is just sound traveling through the air. And as lovely as that is, turn it into music, it needs a semblance of structure through rhythm, through pitch, and through bars. Bars haven't always been around. Back in the olden days of the church, notes were just sort of written on the page, free hand, low, high, low, high, but there were no bars. Today, bars help us to identify shapes, patterns within the music. So they're really, really important. 5. Accidentals: So now we talk a bit about accidentals. We've covered pitch, rhythm, bar lines. The accidentals are the things that slightly change those notes on the piano. For instance, our bottom space on the treble clef is called F. Our second space is called A. Our third space called C, and then our fourth is E. Luckily, spelling the word face. Now, the thing is if you just stuck to the seven notes of the musical scale, which are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Music wouldn't sound that fun. It would sound a bit boring. Have you ever looked at the piano? Seen, Oh, right, there were black keys as well as the white keys. And the black keys, we use accidentals to access those, to open up different, like, sound worlds of music. So if we want to go from F. The white key on the piano. Just to the right. And up to F sharp, we add this symbol. The hash tag, yeah? Well, we call it the sharp. And it makes this F into an F sharp. So if you look at your piano keyboard, just that black key just to the right of the F, and that's where we're looking at. That makes it higher. If we want to make the pitch slightly lower, we add this symbol. It's like a B with a pointy front bit. And this is called a flat. And this makes the note slightly lower. So this note E now becomes an E flat, okay? The way I remember this is if a car has flat tires, the cars going to go lower, yeah? You have to remember your sharp key in your own way because I can't think of anything useful. But the flat goes just that slightly bit lower, yeah. So this is called an E flat. Now, sometimes you'll see a third symbol. This is quite rare, but sometimes in music, you'll see this symbol. And this is called a natural. And what a natural does is basically saying, No, no, no, I've had enough of the accidental, so I don't want a flat. I don't want a sharp. I'm going to have a natural instead. So if we wanted to change this into an e natural, we would actually draw it like this. Yeah. So you've got your three symbols, you're sharp, which makes the note slightly higher. You're flat, which makes it lower, and you're natural, which cancels both of those signs, just makes it a normally. And that opens up so much more music and different keys and harmony, which we'll go on to talk about in a minute. Well. 6. Scales: We're going to talk a bit about scales. Now, a lot of piano players hear the word scale, and they think, Ah, no. Practice. But actually, scales make up so much of music. And if you know them, they're really going to help your playing. So you've got two main types of scale we're looking at today. Got a major scale. Let me play you. Traditionally thought of as kind of happy, you know, like a sort of militaristic, happy feeling. And then you've got what's called a minor scale. Sounds a bit like this. Generally thought of a bit melancholy, a bit sad and a bit more. Sort of peaceful, yeah. So you've got your two scales major, minor. Let's look at the difference between the two. Now, we need to look at what's called a tone and a semi tone. Remember we talked about Beefs semi breeze, kind of similar here, but slightly different. So a tone is the space between C and D. For example, C and D. Is a whole tone. A semitone is the spec between C and C sharp. Do you remember the symbol, the hashtag symbol? So C and C sharp. It's called a semitone. And scales are formed of different combinations of tones and semitones. For a major scale, we've got a tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone. Semitone. And you can play a major scale in any key. That was C major. You can play in F sharp. Major. Play in B flat major. Okay, you don't have to. Don't worry, but those are your options. Any note you start on, if you use those combinations, you'll get a major scale. A minor scale slightly different. It's all about the space between the second and the third note. See how it's different. So remember, major tone, tone, tone. Minor tone. Semi tone. You hear the difference? Just that third note being slightly lower and in this case, on an E flat makes the entire difference between the sound of the music. So major? Bright third note, minor, lower third note. B. And that is the key distinction. Get to know your major and your minor scales. There are different types of major and minor. But for now, if you know those two, they are the ones that are going to come up throughout music time and time again. 7. Key signatures: Now, with the accidentals, if you wrote accidentals next to every note, it would look really busy and really unclear. So what composers use is called a key signature. This comes right at the beginning of the music to tell you that say, every note, every F in the entire piece is going to be an F sharp. So when you start your piece, look right at the beginning, and sometimes you'll see some sharps. Sometimes you'll see some flats. And what that means is as you're going through the piece, every time you see an F, it's going to be a sharp. And this key sinture applies to the whole piece. So let me show you a different one. So this is with that one sharp, is the key of G major. If we instead have a flat on B, that key is F major. Don't worry. You don't need to know the names of all the keys. Doesn't really matter. All you need to know is every time you hit this line, this B line. My finger on the piano is going to go just slightly to the left to the lower note to the B flat, yeah. Some keys can be really complicated. For instance, you can have B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, C flat. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Sometimes you have to play where every single time you play one of these keys, like a minefield. Every time you play one of these, you've got to play a black key, so it's really confusing. Don't worry, okay? Again, most music, especially before about 1,700, 1,800, was written in sort of fairly simple keys. C major, G major, F major, one or two sharps or flats, either way. So you'll find plenty of stuff to be playing and not have to worry about these horrific keys, answers on a postcard. What keys that? Anyway, well done. You're doing really well. Stick with it. 8. Time signatures: So we looked at key signatures. Now we need to look at time signatures, and this is how the rhythm is displayed in each bar, okay? At the beginning of your piece, you're going to nine times out of ten, see a few numbers. The most common one you're gonna see looks like this. Now, it's not a fraction. Don't worry, but what it's telling you is how many beats are in each bar. So we have 2 bars here, one, two. And in each of the bars, look at the top number. They're going to be four beats. The beats we're talking about here are actually crotchet. Do you remember crotchet, a one beat? They're going to be four crotchets in each of these bars. Now, don't worry about the bottom number. It's not as important. The top number, though, is very, very important because if that four change to a three, how many of these are we going to have? We're going to have three of those fitting in each bar. Now, why is this important? It means that you know how many notes you're expecting to see in each bar, which makes it so much easier to play. Imagine if you looked at a bar and you thought, you just panic, couldn't you? But I know I'm going to identify three beats per bar. Now, the rhythm could be different, but one rhythm, for instance, could be a very simple rhythm, three crotchet beats. Or you could even have a rhythm that looks a little bit like this. And with this, we introduce something similar but slightly different to time signatures. We introduce a dot that follows a note. Whenever you see the dot after a note, it's going to make that note just a little bit longer. It actually turns it into a three beat note. It's basically two plus one. So the dot after the note makes it a little bit longer. Sometimes you see a different dot, and that goes under the note. That actually makes the note shorter. Okay? Under, shorter, to the right, longer. Who said music was confusing? Very straightforward. No, no, I realize this point is a little bit esoteric, but if you're still here, you're doing really, really well. So top number is the most important thing. Tells you how many beats there are in each bar, and it's so important. The majority of times, 90% of the time, you're gonna have four beats in a bar or three beats in a bar. Sometimes you got two. You can have one. I think the most I've ever seen is 16 beats in 1 bar. That is a really long bar. The printers had to go and re mortgage to make that piece of music. But anyway, well done. You're doing really well. Hey. 9. Rests: Now, we've spoken about filling the stave with sound with notes and with rhythms. But if music was just notes and rhythms and there was no silence, it would be really strange. A piece of music needs silence in, and we show silence in this way. It's basically a squiggly worm, and that shows you when you see one of those, you're going to have one beat of nothing. When you see one of these, you're going to have two beats of nothing. These come up in music all the time. Take Beethoven's fifth symphony. If there were no rest in it, it would be a really, really strange piece of music. Yeah, it would be very odd. We need the rests. Forgive me. I'll try that again. The tension is built up in the rests, and so they're really integral part of the music. So don't forget if you're writing a piece, if you're composing something, use rests along the way to put in those bits of silences and those pauses within the music. 10. Chords: So we've spoken about one line of music, one set of notes like a tune. But when you play more than one note at the same time, we call this a chord. Okay? So here's an example of a chord. Particular chord is C major. And most chords comprise of three or more notes. We call C major. This particular chord, CE and G, a triad. Triad because it's got three notes in. But the weird thing about this triad is we can actually move the C to the top of the chord. So rather than C EG, we have E G, C. We call that first inversion of C major. We can then move the E to the top again and get G C E. We call that a second inversion. Why is this important? Well, if you played chords just in their root position, this is how it would sound. It's actually not the most dreadful song in the world. But if you put them in their inversions, you can get something a bit more interesting. Yeah. You just jazz it up a bit. So play with inversions of chords to allow you to make music that bit more interesting and a bit more seamless. Within that, you can also add extra notes into chords to make them even more jazzy. So take your C major chord. If you add a B flat into it. We get what's called a C major seven, and that just adds just that bit of spice into the chord. Now, this isn't a lesson on jazz harmony because that would be a long, long lesson. But I'd be interested by if you hear a chord, I really like the sound of that. When I was growing up, my favorite cord was this. Still absolutely no idea how to describe that chord, but play around on the piano, try different combinations of chords and see what you fancy. Remember, music isn't just about reading that notation. It's about also how it sounds. Once you find a chord you like, practice writing it down on the stave, and then you'll be able to remember it. Well done. We 11. Intervals: So we've got our chords and our different inversions, which is great. We're now going to talk a bit about intervals and intervals of the space between notes. Remember, right at the top of this lecture series, we spoke about high and low pitch and how important that is in music. Well, the interval is a really specific way of realizing the pitch. For instance, from our lovely middle C, which we remember there, if we go up one note to D, we call that a second. The interval is called a second. We count the first note and the second note to give us a second. If we go further up, we call the space between this note, this E, and this C, a third. So we've got a third, here, we've got a second here. If we keep going, we keep adding numbers. So I'm just going to pick sort of two random notes here. So we're going to go from there, A, up to E. Let's together try and work out this interval, so we've got A and we've got E. A and E. I hope we don't need that with too much music theory going to our brains. But look, we've got A, we go to B, C, D, E, one, two, three, four, five. So we call this interval 85. Now, I might just head to the piano very shortly and just demonstrate how this interval might sound because it's a very old fashioned interval, and you might hear it B, B, B. You might hear it on, say a trumpet. Have a listen. It's like a sort of fanfare trumpet call, yeah. And different intervals have different meanings. A sixth, for example, from C to A. My Brnlis the start of that song. And different intervals can you can remember them in different ways. So I would if I was you sit down at the piano, practice how different intervals here, and then have a go on your stave, on your five lines at writing those intervals out. Hold on. 12. Conclusion: Thanks so much. I've been Ben Lewis Smith, and thank you so much to Broom technician Paul Dempsey for his excellent sound and video technology. And it goes without saying that this has been a whistle stop tour through music theory. Yes, you can see courses that are four, five, 6 hours long. Goodness me, but I do believe you just need the essentials. And once you've opened this wonderful world of music, you can go off and you can explore different pieces of your own. That's the beauty of written music. It shows you how pieces go. It's great to play things by ear, but I think it's nice to see how composers intended their pieces to be. And I've just got a little piece to leave you with, and I think it's appropriate. It's time to have a little bit of Abbot. I just want to say, thank you for the music.