Chapter: Reading Music

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

This chapter explains the basic concepts of the system of music notation that has been in use in the Western world for the last several hundred years. It uses the piano keyboard to illustrate its points.

The discussion is primarily intended for those who do not know how to read music at all. It provides enough information to allow one to play the various notated examples used throughout the program, assuming you know how to find the various notes on your instrument. Since this program can play all of its examples through your computer, it is possible to take advantage of the rest of this program without having to read music, but it will be much easier if you do possess this ability, particularly if you are a musician and wish to learn the techniques presented.

This chapter is not intended to help one improve one's reading skills. If you already know how to read music but can do so only slowly, you should turn elsewhere for the sort of practice, exercises, and drills that are required in order to become a good sightreader.

Even you already read music well, you may wish to check out the section on transposition, as it contains some interesting historical and theoretical information with which many musicians are not familiar.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Chapter: Reading Music