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Musical Literacy question
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| CynepMeH |
Just curious - how many of us, aspiring producers here, could not read sheetmusic to save their lives?
- make this one one of them, inspite of 4 years of music school.
If you do read sheetmusic, how long did it take you to learn it? How hard was it? |
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| pho mo |
I learnt piano + flute very young, so I've been able to read sheetmusic for ever, and I've no idea how hard it was to learn.
But I don't even read sheetmusic at all these days, it's all just the piano roll + knobs + buttons. |
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| echosystm |
I used to know how to read sheet music, but havent really looked at such things for years and have forgotten :(
I remember there was some little sayings which helped me remember the notes, "all good boys deserv fruit" or something like that lol.
Appart from remembering notes, i think the rest is pretty straight forward, note lenghts and all that bs. It didnt took long to learn at the time, but i had been playing instruments for almost my entire life up to that point :o |
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| DJ-Igloo |
| I can read sheet music i have played the piano since i was 8 and ive played eflat alto sax since i was 12 learing sheet music was hard at first but once u get the keys memorized you can learn alot and u fly thru sheet music like no problem. The think that botherd me the most was allways sometimes in marching band and concert band switching insturments somtimes i had to swtich clefs wich ed with my head. |
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| djdustx |
| whats sheet music? |
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| ZxZDeViLZxZ |
| it didnt take long ive been reading sheet music since i was 5 and started playing cello. given ive probly forgotten the exact shifting postions but i could probly swing it based on the fact that i have a tone enclined ear. reading sheet music is great just the only thing is theres bassclef trebbleclef and then theres another one thats used for violas i dont rember what its called tho. i found most people cant read sheet music. |
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| Derivative |
sheet music is very easy to learn. you can learn the basics in, not kidding, an hour. that is,
1) what each note on a stave represents (the bottom line is an E. the top line is an F with whole notes at half steps between them),
2) bass and treble clefs (bass clef for all scores played before middle C on a piano from left to right. treble clef for all scores played after middle C from left to right)
3) note lengths. a whole note is a single dot with the centre not filled in. all note lengths are written relative to a single whole note. a half note looks like a whole note but it has a 'stem' a line going up or down joined to the dot. a quarter note is a filled in dot with a stem. an eighth note is a filled in dot with a stem and a flag (a flag is a horizontal line at the top of the stem. sometimes a little wavey flourish). a sixteenth note is a filled in dot, stem and 2 flags. a thirty-second note is a filled in dot, stem and 3 flags. the flags join up to form beams sometimes where lots of notes of similar length are played in succession. this just makes it easier to read. each note always has the same beams as they would have flags. thats cuz they are basically the same thing. chances are you have been working in a piano roll and have been unconsciously doing all of this. its exactly the same principle.
4) tempos and time sigs. this is where people (including me) sometimes get problems cuz the tempo affects the time signiture which affects how long each note sustains for on a musical staff (all notes however are ALWAYS relative to each other. so no matter what tempo it is a whole note is ALWAYS 2 half notes, or 8 eighth notes etc). for trance you will probably be using cut time and it'll be allegretto (moderate/fast) allegro (fast). in cut time a half length note represents 1 beat.
so. if you see a staff with a half note, quarter note, quarter note you know its in 2/2 time because 2 quarter notes = 1 half note, thus there are 2 half notes which is 2 single beats, allegro, sustained for 2 whole notes. simple huh? when thats played addagio or largo for example the time sig would be different because a single beat would be longer and slower. this is one reason why music written allegro doesnt mix very well into much faster music (i.e. drum and bass) without sounding silly and sped up. beat length changes in presto (very fast) and prestissimo (crazy fast!). however, freeform hardcore is written like trance (constant kick drum, off hats etc euphoric trance melodies) but you CAN mix that into drum and bass without it sounding silly and sped up. thats cuz freeform is written in prestissimo. or you could argue that freeform sounds silly and sped up whatever speed you play it at :crazy:
once you know those basics you can read music. you wont be able to pick up some of the subtleties and you wont be able to sight read a piano concerto. but practice and it will just feel more natural and especially to those guitar players out there its much better than tab for telling what to play, where to play it for how long and when. tab just tells you what to play and where to play it on the fretboard. |
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| EliPsE |
| I learned how to read sheetmusic on my own when i started playing guitar years ago, I can read treble clef really well and bass clef i forget here and there some notes. I never really learned how to read chords tho:rolleyes: |
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| Zombie0915 |
I played cello too lol.
I learned how to read seet music in my early teens but haven looked at any recently. I could prolly pick it up again if I had to tho. |
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| DjSimonB |
I can read sheet music.
It's pretty irrelevant in making trance music though, as long as you know a bit of theory you're fine. |
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| ZxZDeViLZxZ |
| if you wanna learn how to read it goto your local music store and pick up a beginners book for a violin and a beginners book for a cello or bass. itll have in there how to read it and explain fingering positions also. both of which as stated or irrelvent to production electronic music, the only advantage is in logic and i belive cubase and sonar you can compose tracks bassed on writing the score in sheet music style which makes it alot easier for people whove played sheet music to compose as they can directly tie the two in. also ive found that switching the piano roll to note mode instead of just c1,c2,c3,c4,c5.... and so on is alot easier becuase you can accutally see if the note is an a note or d note and so on. |
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| EtherealSL |
i learned it and i know how to do it...
BUT never bothered to practice it, and never got good at it.
I play the guitar, I play by ear and whatever comes to my mind, which is the same with production, both of which I have been doing for years. I've had maybe one week of music theory education which i don't use either... It's not relevant to my music-making. I just go by my ears, and that's it. |
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