How to - Read sheet music (for dummies)
 

I haven't got a clue how to read sheet music but I'd love to be able to play some through a program called 'Reason' which uses an interface like this -

http://tinypic.com/5sf4o

It's a pattern sequencer. It can be programmed to play only one note at a time (complex chords can be programmed through a separate part of the program but I'm only taking baby steps at first).

Did I mention that I don't have clue how to read music?

If you can only provide me with some basic termnology, please do so because I don't even know what to search for.

Links to sites with very basic tutorials would be useful.

My first hit on Google was Introduction to Reading Music, and it looks like a good start. On the other hand, I do read music, and I have no fricken idea what that interface is trying to tell me. Best of luck with it!

whoa.. Reason! Nice!
I play quite a lot with that program (time to time)
I can't read notes also... I just try and find the startnote from the melody in my head and advance further in the melody by deciding if the next note is higher/lower and how much...
Goes terribly slow, but works.

Holy shit redlemon, that's the introduction?

I think I need to explain myself better. What I want to be able to do is take a sheet of music and translate it to keys on keyboard (like a piano keyboard) and understand the timing involved.

I'll be back with a picture...


o.k.

http://tinypic.com/5sq2s

Suppose I want to play that piece of music, which keys would I press on the keyboard? or am I oversimplifying things, please tell.

Er... yeah. It might move along quickly, but you can keep going back. There's some sound files with it as well (look for the colored notes icon).
The second page of the link that I indicated (Clefs) gives a graphic for the notenames:
http://datadragon.com/education/read...treblenote.gif
So, the notes in your song are G, B, D, E. Note that your little keyboard is only one 'octave'; the last two notes (D and E) are in the next octave above that keyboard.

I think I'm starting to get it now, cheers.

I'll give you a credit in the sleeve-notes.

Well, last night I sat down in front of my darling computer and managed to program the ever popular 'Abide with me' (what you laughing at? It's all I had, right?). It seemed ok except for a few notes which had me stumped, but this were quickly drowned out by the old school hip-hop beat and a stomach churning bass-line.

I've got a few more questions I'm struggling to find answers for. Your assistance is, as ever, mucho appreciated.

1. I've found out that flat and sharp means to raise or lower the note by a semi-tone, which (from what I've learned) is half a note up or down the scale.

How does this translate to a keyboard? The way I read it, it was described as between two notes???

2. Bass clef and treble clef. Does this mean two different instruments or does it mean bottom end and top end of the scale (or something completely different)?

3. More of a request than a question. Searching for sheet music on the web is proving to be a royal pain in the arse. Got any links? (I'm mostly searching for something I already know the tune to, TV themes, pop songs, national anthems... anything)

The following answers are simplifications, but should be accurate enough. You really don't want the full details yet. :D

1. Using the example scale above (which is a C scale), all the notes of the scale are on the white keys. A sharp indicates that you go to the black key that is to the right of your white key; a flat indicates that you go to the black key that is to the left of your white key. "Wait", you say, "there's no black key adjacent to the left of my F. How do I play an F-flat?" Well, in that case, F-flat is the same as an E.

2. Think of an entire piano keyboard, stacked vertically so that the lowest note is on the bottom. The 'bass clef' shows about an octave-and-a-half starting at the 3rd floor. The 'treble clef' starts at the 4th floor. On a keyboard, you generally play the notes on the treble clef with your right hand and the bass clef with your left hand.

3. Get a copy of the free Finale NotePad 2005, which looks really good, and is available for Mac and Windows; once you have that, you can download sample songs and user-submitted songs from their website. I was just reading about it yesterday, haven't tried it yet.

Thanks again, redlemon. I really couldn't have figured this out without your help.

I'm just waiting for a password to download the Finale Notepad. It looks like it will be very useful. I've got hundreds of old computer game soundtracks saved as midi files. :D

Look at the Bass and Treble clefs for a moment. Notice that they "split" at middle C (as it is referred to on the keyboard). You can visualize this by taking the treble clef and flipping it upside down using middle C as the "pivot point". (at least that is what helped me when I was learning to read music).

Each key (black or white) on a piano represents a half step.

In a scale it helps to know the whole step/half step pattern. A step refers to how many keys you jump between notes. A whole-step equals two keys (because each key is a half-step).

All major scales are:

whole-step whole-step half-step whole-step whole-step whole-step half-step

This is for equal temperament and Ionic mode only ... don't worry too much yet about temperament and modes. Modes will be important later when you begin to grasp theory a little more ... and THEY ARE IMPORTANT. Temperamant is not so important ... but you will need to watch out for it if you start composing for "exotic" instruments.

There are minor scales that you probably shouldn't be worried about right now.

How this translates to keyboard is fairly easy:

C-major scale
C D E F G A B C ... all white notes starting on any C-key.
(C to D = whole-step; D to E = whole-step; E to F = half-step; F to G = whole-step; etc).

D-major scale
D E F# G A B C# D ...
(D to E = whole; E to F# = whole; F# to G = half; G to A = whole etc)

E-major scale
E F# G# A B C# D E

Sit in front of your keyboard and think about the whole-step/half-step pattern while playing those keys and you might begin to figure that part out. At first you'll have to think about it; but eventually it becomes second-nature.

Notes can be read like math (oh what fun, right?). Notes are divided up into main types. Whole notes (4 counts), half notes (2 counts), quarter notes (1 count), and eigth notes (1/2 a count), this goes on, but let's stay simple for now. The notes lay on a bar, or 5 horizontal lines. The song is divided up into measures. Each measure is a division of the piece of music. Notice in Redlemons post, after every 4 notes there is a line that intersects the bar. In the beginning of a song is your time signature. This is the set of two numbers, one atop the other. The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure. The bottom assigns worth to those beats. For example: 4/4 time means that there are 4 beats per measure, and each beat is given a quarter of value of the measure. Again, in Redlemons post, you see there are 4 quarter notes (quarter note is a vertical line with a solid oval attached to it) in every measure. This is because it is in 4/4. I know I'm going too fast, but rereading is a great tool of the forum, right? If those were in 3/4, or 3 beats per measure and 1/4 value for the notes. So there would be only 3 quarter notes.
I want you to count outloud to 4 over and over again. Now do it to a song. Go turn on the radio to a pop station or jazz or counrty or whatever. Odds are that the song is in 2/2, 2/4, or 4/4, so you can count outloud in 4s to the music. Get the feel of how the beats coincide with the song. You are counting off measures. every time you begin a new set of 4, you are in a new measure. One you have that down, try to look for songs that are in 3/4. Songs that feel like down, up, up in their beat are usually 3/4.
This is enough for now. Please PM or post here if you have any questions.
I am a music major, so I should be able to explain most of this stuff (but I hope I don't have to pull out the old textbooks, I am a bit rusty).

Thankyou vanblah and willravel. For the next few days I'm going to practice programming (not playing yet, but I do have an old pianola that I could practice on) a few simple-ish pieces of music before I try anything too compex.

I'm sure more questions will arise.

notation is just a convention for ordering sound--there are other ways to do it/think about it as well--much depends on what kind of thing you want to do--if you are interested in reproducing stuff by other folk, then learning notation is a good thing--useful in any event, but not more than that.

but if you are trying to figure out ways to organize sound for your own purposes, then you might also experiment with graphic notation/scores
(a good place to look for really simple versions that i found helpful when i was starting to play around with this device is anthony braxton's "for alto"--which is one of his earliest records--his later stuff is much more complex and personal---for a cool example of how far you might go with this, have a look at cornelius cardew's
treatise" sometime)

another option is text-scores
(my favorites are from la monte young: "draw a straight line and follow it"--which i use quite a bit for my own purposes, because he does not say how far from the line you are to imagine yourself, and i like to think about following a graphite line at the microscopic level---or "feed a piano a bale of hay: when the piano has finished eating, the piece is over"--which i think is funny)