Reading sheet music is pretty easy, it just takes time and practice
before you can identify the notes on sheet music without having to think about it.
i'm going to try to make it as easy as possible for you to understand. I'm going to
assume that you know that there are 12 notes. CDEFGAB and C# D# F# G# A#, and that
C# is the same as Db and D# is the same as Eb. And if you ever see E# or B# being written,
E# is just F and B# is just C, but this is rarely written in my experience with
seeing any popular music.
There are 5 lines, and 4 spaces in between.
This is only applicable to the treble clef, if you don't know what that means, it
probably doesn't matter right now unless you play some bass instrument like bass
guitar or tuba or something.
From bottom up, the 5 lines are E, G, B, D, F. The way I was taught to remember this
is Every Good Boy Does Fine
From bottom up, the 4 spaces are F, A, C, E. So just remember the word FACE to remember
the spaces.
So if you start from the bottom line, and then go up to the next space, and then up to the
next line, and so on. You can see that the notes are EFGABCDEF. Which goes in alphabetical
order since I assume you know that after G there is no H note, it just starts at A again.
When you go past the 5th or 1st lines, they add "ledger lines" which just sort of extend the lines,
and let's say you'd see a note on the the first ledger line below the 5 lines, that would be a C. The note
past the first ledger line, which is just like a space, would be a B, and the note on the 2nd ledger line
below the 5 lines, would be an A. The note above the top line on the 5 lines, would be a G, and the note
on the first ledger line above the five lines would be an A.
-- The way I learned how to read sheet music easily without having to think in my head, "okay a note on the 3rd line, ok E, G, B. Oh it's a B," was from playing trumpet in high school. You could do it with guitar or piano also, I would just make sure that when you're memorizing that you're not just memorizing the shape of your hands, and that you're actually memorizing the placement of the note on your instrument, whether it be a a fretboard or a button or something.
There are also different "keys" you can play in. Really the only ones I'm going to talk about
are the keys of D major, G major, and F major, and C major, and A minor, since most of the
songs I've seen are usually written in this key.
In D major, there are two sharps, C# and F#. So in a D major scale you would play D E F# G A B C# D
In G major, there is just one sharp, G A B C D E F# G
In F major, there is just one flat, F G A Bb C D E F
In A minor, all the notes are natural, A B C D E F G A B C
I just talked about these 4 keys, because they don't have many sharps or flats compared to other keys,
which is nice because most people don't like having to read a buncha flats and sharps, playing a song
in the key of C major or A minor is convenient since you don't have to worry about flats or sharps.
But sometimes, a song might sound better in a different key because of the range of notes, or some times
your band's singer's voice range doesn't mesh well with the key, maybe he can't sing high or low enough or something.
To figure out the flats and sharps of a certain minor scale, for instance A minor,
it's pretty easy. You just go up 3 half steps and use the flats and sharps of the scale of the note you stop on.
For instance, if you go up 3 half steps you would start with:
A
A# (or Bb) - 1 half step
B - 2 half steps
C - 3 half steps
So since you land on C, that means the sharp/flat notes in the A minor scale would be the same as the C
major scale, since there are no flats in the C major scale, that makes it pretty easy since in A minor
you don't have to worry about sharps or flats.
There are also things called "modes". Basically if you take a C major scale,
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
And you start on the 6th note, you would play A B C D E F G A. Which is just the A minor scale.
But if you started on the 2nd note it's called the Dorian mode, you would play D E F G A B C D. Which is called the D Dorian.
It sounds kinda like a minor scale, if you start on the other notes there are also other modes, but I'm just going to talk about D
Dorian since I see it used a bit more often than the other modes. A good example of a song written in D Dorian is
Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel.
To be able to distinguish between whether or not a song is being written in C major, D Dorian, or A minor, since all 3 have no sharps or flats,
the thing that probably gives it away is that what note you'll see a lot. Perhaps a melody will start or end on a C, which might hint it's in C major.
If it ends on a D or starts on a D, it could be in D Dorian. Just maybe though, it might not always be the case.
To create major chords, they will have the 1st 3rd and 5th note of the major scale. So remember 1 - 3 - 5
For example a C major chord.
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Would have C E G in it. It could also have C E G C, or E G C, any combination works as long as you're sticking with C E G,and you can have as many
C's and E's and G's as you want it'll still be a C major chord. There are chords called slash chords, like if you see C/E, what that means is that
the chord is a C chord, except the lowest note of that chord is an E, for instance if you played E G C together. C/G would mean you would be playing
G C E.
so a C major chord would be C E G
A D major chord would be D F# A because
D E F# G A B C# D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The third note in the D major scale is an F#.
A G major chord would be G B D
G A B C D E F# G
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Notice that in a major chord, the 3 notes that form it are two notes away from each other in the major scale.
An A minor chord would be A C E
A B C D E F G A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
To form chord progressions, a common chord progression in pop or alternative music you would hear on the radio is a 1 4 5 6
or a 1 4 6 5 or 1 5 6 4. Basically a mixture of 1 4 5 6 chords.
Basically this is what you would do, let's say you want to play a chord progression in the key of C.
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
To form a 1 4 5 6 chord. You would play a C major chord C E G
An F major chord, F A C
a G major chord, G B D
and an A minor chord, A C E
Notice that we wouldn't play an A major chord, for the "6" chord because we're in the key of C and C has no flats or sharps ( the A major scale has several sharps)
There are many chord progressions in pop music that might not use a 1 4 5 6 progression, sometimes they might involve the 3 chord or the 2 chord or something.
A good example of a 1 6 4 5 progression is the song "In An Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel.
Now playing only major and minor chords can get boring sometimes, so to make things more interesting there are little things you can add to make your chords sound
cooler.
To for a major 7th chord, you would play the major chord, but add the 7th note also. It kinda adds this dreamy kinda sound to it.
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
So for a Cmaj7 chord ( C major 7th), you would play C E G B
For a Gmaj7 chord, you would play G D B F#
Sometimes you'll see C7, or G7, this is just a dominant 7th chord, instead of playing the 7th note, go down one halfstep on the 7th note
so instead of playing C E G B like you would in a Cmaj7 chord, you would play C E G Bb. This gives it a sorta twangy sound that you'd
might use for blues or country or something.
Sometimes you'll see suspended (aka sus) chords, like Csus2, or Csus4, or Dsus2 or Dsus4
This basically means, you replace the 3rd with the 2nd or 4th, depending on what it says after the "sus"
So instead of playing C E G for a C major chord, Csus2 would be C D G, Csus4 would be C F G.
Dsus2 would be D E A, Dsus4 would be D G A
Remember that in a sus chord, you're replacing the third... you get this sorta floating kinda feeling. When you play sus chords, they usually
sound well when you follow it with the major chord, like if you played Csus4, and then C major, it would sound cool. If you ended on a Csus2
or Csus4, it might sound weird, because your ear feels like the melody or chord progression still needs to be resolved.
Sometimes you'll see add chords, which are like sus chords, except you don't replace the 3rd, you keep the 3rd and add the note that it says.
a Cadd2 chord would be C D E G. Since D is the 2nd note of the C major scale. Add chords sound good with the regular major chord too.
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