This Simple Exercise Will Help You Read Music Much Faster

Learning to play the piano is a bit like learning how to build something.

Before you can build say…a house…you gather all of the tools you’ll need to get the job done. You then start filling your toolbox with the needed tools and then make sure that you know how to use each tool so you can successfully put everything together.

Reading music is one of the sections of the “house” you are building when you learn to play the piano. There should be a section in your piano learning toolbox for note/music reading just as you keep screwdrivers in one section of your house-building toolbox.

Today, you’re going to add to your piano learning toolbox and specifically this section for reading music. There’s a very simple exercise that I’m going to teach you that will enable you to read music much faster.

Before we learn this new tip for faster music and note reading, make sure that you are at the place in your own learning that you already know the layout of the piano keyboard and what the note names of the keys are. You also want to know the basics of note reading and be pretty familiar with the notes on the lines and spaces of the staff.

Now for this particular exercise…find Middle C. We’re going to start from there.

• Instead of playing note to note like we do in a scale, we’re going to now play just every other note…not each note consecutively.
• In this case, you will play C, E, G, B, D, F, A, and so on, all the way to the top of the piano keyboard; naming each note as you play it.
• Do you notice a pattern of repeated notes as you continue to play and say these notes all the way up? These notes are repeated the entire way!

It is challenging to do this the first few times and that is the point!

Mixing up the patterns you’re set up in your brain will enable you to learn the notes at a deeper level. Practice this pattern so that you know it and can play it easily.

Next, you’re going to do the same thing except you’re going to go down the keyboard from Middle C instead of up like we just did above.

• This time, play the notes C, A, F, D, B, G, E, and so on all the way down the keyboard.
• Again, did you notice the pattern of repeated notes as you played and named them?

Learn this pattern just like you did the previous one.

The next step is to do this exact same exercise starting on a different note.

• For example, you could start on D and then follow the same route by playing and saying every other note going all the way up the keyboard and then all the way down the keyboard. You can start on a different note each day or each week…just make sure to get pretty secure with one before you start the next one.

Finally, you are going to verbally say each pattern without looking at your piano!

• Yes…this is the most challenging but it’s also really fun. You have to do both forward and backward patterns.

When it comes to note reading, the same patterns that you just learned by skipping notes will be in your sheet music all the time; in chords and in melodic sections.

• If you look at a chord that has 8 notes in it, and each note is a 3rd interval apart, you now know that pattern and can identify any note in the chord easier – including the very top note.

​This can be especially helpful with notes that fall on ledger lines instead of the main staff. If you aren’t that familiar with ledger lines at this point, don’t worry. In the following video I have several examples of what they look like in sheet music and what the notes are. We’ll also go over the above exercises and you can watch me play and say them which will help you know just how to do them yourself. 

If you like my tips and lessons, you will love the courses over on my website. Whether you are a beginner looking to get a solid foundation to build on or you are looking to take you existing skills to that next level, the online music courses on my website https://www.pianolessonsontheweb.com will help you do just that.