Several years ago, I was taught to read music using acronyms and mnemonics: FACE, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, and the like. This is, by far, the most commonly taught method for reading music. While the catchy sayings were easy to remember, it was a poor method of preparation for an early musician's ultimate goal: sight-reading, the ability to recognize notes quickly and play music fluently. I eventually managed to summit the sight-reading learning curve, but it was a long and unnecessarily tedious climb.

Upon studying music at Stanford, I came across something called the Landmark System, an unbelievably simple approach to reading music that required way less effort and memorization. All I could think was, "How much faster could I have mastered sight-reading if I had been taught this method instead?"

As you may have guessed, that's how this class was born. It was too late for me, but through this class, I now hope to share this knowledge with as many new musicians as I can!

This class is for you if any of the following apply:

You were taught to read music by using acronyms and mnemonics.
You are struggling with sight-reading, or simply want to accelerate your journey toward mastery.
You are a beginner musician, and want to learn how to read music.

In this class, we will cover:

(For complete beginners) The basic music notation needed to understand this sight-reading method.
The Landmark System: hands-down the easiest way to become fluent in reading music notes. This system includes:
- An easy-to-follow guide to find (and remember) the positions of our 7 landmarks.
- Explanations of best practices when approaching note-reading (i.e. reading notes in relative, rather than absolute, terms).
Easy-to-remember patterns for learning your intervals (unison to octave).
A simple, two-step process for using said Landmark System to read music, optimized for the fast pace of sight-reading.

Last thing: this class is meant to be a supplement, NOT a replacement, for a proper education in music theory. Music is so much more than being able to read notes, most of which this class does not even attempt to cover. Rather, this class was designed specifically to absolve the most common pain points of a musician learning how to sight-read. For lack of better words, this class is the Mario mushroom of musical sight-reading.

Eileen Sophia Patal

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