How to Read Sheet Music Using Scales

[urucoug]

Guys,

I'm new here to your forum, and wanted to share a project I've been working on for a while. This is a method I've come up with to learn sheet music easily if you know your scales. In the video, I'm using the scale form that starts on the 'A' string, but you can apply it to any scale pattern that you know, as long as you know what the root of the scale pattern you're playing is (and playing a major scale if the piece is written in major, or minor scale if it's written in minor).

Check it out! I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone has about it, or listen to any feedback you might have. I hope it can help some of you learn to read sheet music if you have a desire to learn that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYEmN-5DZ50

[JoeCharter]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting that video.

For beginners, I think learning to actually read standard notation is more time efficient and useful than the exercise you demonstrated.

It's a temporary shortcut AND an extra layer that will quickly become a limitation rather than an asset.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by urucoug

Guys,

I'm new here to your forum

Hi urucoug...

Hello and Welcome to the Forum! Glad you joined and started a discussion.

What you are actually discussing in your video is learning scale degree, which is a very important part of learning music. You are applying it to transcribing melodies from sheet music, but it is useful in and of itself.

Your video certainly provides a good exercise for discovering scale degree of notes within a key, once you know how to read notes. Also implied is that one knows the keys associated with the sharps and flats.

I think what you have is a good start.

If you are working toward building a system, then you need to organize it better and collect all the components a beginner would need to know before applying your process You obviously know it.

If you expect a raw beginner to use your method, then you need to systematize it so it follows a logical progression from knowing nothing to being able to do what you suggest. That involves quite a few steps you didn't include (understanding notes on the staff and knowing how to interpret keys by the sharps, flats, and whether the piece is major or minor).

One thing your process does (which I like) is allows a player to switch octaves with little effort. Note reading specifies and implies a certain range where a melody/note/passage is to be played, whereas applying only scale degree allows one to move around the octaves with little effort.

Other than trying to put too much into one short video, you have a good handle on an important aspect of music (scale degree), which a person can learn without note reading.

Now a comment on the video from a technical point of view...
Too much variance of the sound quality and video quality. There were sections where the quality of sound, and lighting were so poor that it was distracting.

Hope this helps...and again welcome to the forum.

[urucoug]

Thanks for responding, guys, and thanks for your welcome. I appreciate the feedback. I've posted this on a couple other forums, and nobody else seems to want to talk about it, which is disappointing, I spent a lot of time on it!

@Joe and ljguitar: I agree with you that this isn't the best for a beginner. This method is more for the intermediate student trying to learn sheet music--students who know their scales pretty well before they try it. There's tons of videos online about how a beginner can start to read sheet music. They're mostly 'take it by force' methods, which can work but take a while (and miss the obvious shortcut--that you don't generally have to worry about notes not in the key!). I would argue it's more worth a beginner's time to learn a scale form first anyway, because it will help with other things as well (playing solos, etc), but then again, teach to what people are interested in. This method is probably at best a supplement (but I see it as a highly effective supplement).

@Joe: I don't really see it as a temporary shortcut. The only thing temporary is writing down the scale degrees above the notes. After you've done it for a while, you can see 1, 3, and 5 on the staff no matter what key, easy. (I still look at sheet music this way, even though I know all of the notes on the guitar, and what everything is on the sheet music). If you know your scale, and your hand is in the right place, thinking is over! One example where this really shines, let's say you're playing in the key of Ab major (4 b's). Most beginners would probably find a different piece at that point, because it's too tricky to learn what the notes are! (Let's see, Ab Bb C Db...). With this method, if you know where Ab is and how to play your scale, there's nothing else you really need to think about. You'll just see that Ab is on the second space of the treble cleff (scale tone one), and the two spaces above it are scale tones 3 and 5. After some practice, you'll see it easily, and it's easy to recognize that scale tone 6 is the top line in this case, etc.

@lguitar: yeah, looking at things as scale degrees was really a turning point in my playing, everything makes more sense. Yeah, I probably did try to pack too much in to one video. I think I'll use it as a starting point, though, for lessons--have them watch it before the lesson and have them ask me their questions during. Yeah, I know the sound and picture is bad. If people like it enough, I'd consider redoing it. My focus on this was to be a tool. I was originally thinking of writing a pamphlet on it and giving it out during lessons, but thought video was a better medium. Maybe I should make a pamphlet to clarify some things.

(Sorry for writing a novel).

[JoeCharter]

You'll find plenty of nerds to discuss with on this forum.

I think the system you propose creates an unnecessary extra layer because if I'm knowledgeable enough to figure out that F# is 5 on the B major scale, I'm knowledgeable enough to find F# on the fretboard.

Players who understand music know instinctively that F# is the 5th degree of the B major scale.

Rather than taking the time to write numbers everywhere (which implicitly means that I can read standard notation), I think actually practicing the tune is a better use of my time.

I said that this approach will eventually be a limiting factor because of accidentals (sorry for using "alteration", I learned music in French...) and your explanation still doesn't address that.

You will have to use *.5 to illustrate certain notes.

Add to this the fact that guitar playing is hardly just a matter of playing notes within scale positions, and that's another reason why I wouldn't encourage fellow musicians to follow this approach.

[urucoug]

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

You'll find plenty of nerds to discuss with on this forum.

Well, that's good! I appreciate feedback from fellow musicians.

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

I think the system you propose creates an unnecessary extra layer because if I'm knowledgeable enough to figure out that F# is 5 on the B major scale, I'm knowledgeable enough to find F# on the fretboard.

Players who understand music know instinctively that F# is the 5th degree of the B major scale.

I agree that if people are serious about music, they should eventually learn all 12 keys, and know as well as you do what all the notes are. I could figure it out if I think about it for a second, but not real time, I'm not quite that good. I'll eventually get there. But, it doesn't stop me from reading the correct note. I think there's also a subset of people out there who don't care what the actual name of the note is as long as they play it correctly.

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

Rather than taking the time to write numbers everywhere (which implicitly means that I can read standard notation), I think actually practicing the tune is a better use of my time.

Learning 12 keys before you read sheet music also takes a lot of time! It is very worthwhile, yes, but doesn't have to get in the way of reading sheet music now if a guitarist knows his/her scales.

Again, writing every single note is only something you do the first couple times. After that, just write 1, 3, and 5, and big intervals if they give you trouble. But after a person has practiced that for a while, they don't need to write that down either. They will see the 3 lines or 3 spaces that correspond to 1, 3, and 5, and can just play.

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

I said that this approach will eventually be a limiting factor because of accidentals (sorry for using "alteration", I learned music in French...) and your explanation still doesn't address that.

You will have to use *.5 to illustrate certain notes.

I addressed that very briefly towards the end of the video, maybe I should have touched on it a little harder. If there's an accidental, you would simply play a half step higher or lower. I would annotate it #5 or b5, etc. If it's not 1, 3, or 5 (or a big interval), I would likely not write it at all.

Originally Posted by JoeCharter

Add to this the fact that guitar playing is hardly just a matter of playing notes within scale positions, and that's another reason why I wouldn't encourage fellow musicians to follow this approach.

Could you expound a little on your statement?

There's more to learning guitar than knowing what notes you could possibly play in the key you're playing in, but I think it's a big first step, and step that many intermediate guitarists with good ears haven't taken, and will limit them in the future if they don't start learning what a key is.

One final comment about how I see the simplicity of this method. Every scale has some form of A B C D E F G, could either be sharp, flat, or natural. A guitarist has plenty of time to learn which one it is for a note in a given key (sharp, flat, or natural). If the guitarist looks on the sheet music and sees that there is no accidental written, then it must be on the scale, and doesn't have to worry about whether he/she should be shifting the note a half step up or down.