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Learning to read music is essential to communicating with other musicians.

Music is as much of a language as French or Spanish, all must learn before speaking.

All musical groups must have this written road map before they begin. As soon as man could sing he wanted to pass on his songs to the next  generation, hence the need for written music.

Before learning to have a musical conversation one must learn the language basics.

Simply put, if you cannot read you will never be in any ensemble that requires it. We could really stop right there.

Reading music is essential to understanding theory. All of the structure of chords, melody, harmony and so forth can only be understood completely through the written note. Music theory is the building blocks of harmony and melody and must be understood first. It may seem hard, but it is worth the effort.

You can learn music by only reading it like you would a book. When you follow music you can learn a song without an instrument in your hand. If you can read music you can go straight to the book and get all of the basic information on your own. Have you ever learned a song from someone else and not known if you got it right or got all of the information you need? This greatly speeds up the learning curve. You cannot learn from a book the particular way a band performs the song, but you can get the basis of the song and go from there.

It is fascinating to realize the author may have intended something different that what you have heard recorded. If you learn the music from the written page straight from the authors’ mouth, as it were, you know how he meant it to sound. He may have phrased it differently or wrote it on a different instrument or in a different key. In “Georgia On My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, for example, no ones plays the intro. The fact remains that just because you have heard it on the radio a million times does not mean it was written that way. It may be even better the way the author originally intended it! If you are involved in songwriting, I am sure you would want people to know the way you wrote it. Think about that for a moment.

If you can read, you can find new music. Imagine if you were in a library full of books and you could not read. How sad that would be. Learn to read music today and discover new worlds.

If you can read, you can find new music. It may seem a little hard at first, but so was riding a bicycle as I recall. In fact the first time my father let go from holding me on a bicycle I ran into a post and knocked it over! I rarely do that these days now that I have learned how. In fact there are days when I don’t knock anything over.

You may be suprised how much better you become when you can read music.    Learn to read music and you can discover music you would never hear otherwise, be able to speak with authority about the intent of the author and you will have more fun.

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