A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A B C
When you sing sing you begin with Do Re Mi
Do Re Mi, Do Re Mi
The first three notes just happen to be
Do Re Mi, Do Re Mi
For sure you are familiar with these famous lines from The Sound of Music's soundtrack 'Do Re Mi'. Actually the whole song really mean a lot. It's true that when you sing you begin with Do Re Mi. That was the first three notes on the scale. The Scale compose of eight notes do,re,mi,fa,sol,la,ti,do that was equivalent to the eight steps on a piano/keyboard keys. Scale is one of the basic of piano. To be able to read notes you must be familiarize your self with the symbols, fingers and the keys.
The Symbols
A music sheet compose of symbols like notes, lines, keys, number. The symbols represent as the musics language. Like computer it has also a language in graphical representation that interpreted by pressing the keys on the keyboard or piano. The keys I'm talking about that you can see on the music sheet is not the key of the piano literally but on what key you are playing, if you know what are the chords probably you know what I'm talking.
Here are some of the musical symbol. Since we are on the basic practice you don't need to memorize all.
The very important symbols are the Staff, G-Clef, and notes. I also start with the basic but I first use a xylophone toy when I was a kid. I just borrowed it from a friend and with my passion to music I start to read it's manual. The Staff is the five lines. It is called a Grand Staff if it was compose of two staff which played with both left and right hand. The G-Clef or treble clef means that the composition is played at the right hand and in soprano pitch in voice. The whole note is a kind of note and count as 4 beats.
The Fingers
The Keys
This image was exactly your right hand to be place. The first five notes signifies the five fingers of your hand. Your hand must be in a relax position like the image above. Those notes are the Do,Re,Mi,Fa,So. Sometimes other people use numbers 1,2,3,4,5 for them to familiarize. But wait, a scale is compose of 8 notes while the fingers of my hand was only five? Do I need the left hand? No, just a little bit of change finger's position.
Let's just focus on the right. If you would play the scale compose of 8 notes, the pattern of the fingers would be like this: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. On this pattern it will be exactly 8 fingers to play without the help of your left hand and the good thing is it's not confusing. That scale is called the Key of C, which is the basic key. If you observe, key of C has only Staff, G-Cleff, and the notes. Very simple with no extra symbols. It means your first finger will start at C. Don't be confuse with the alphabet, this image show you why.
Image courtesy of www.piano-keyboard-guide.com
Image courtesy of www.instructables.com
or like this
C D E F G A B C
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do
1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5
Usually when you buy a piano or keyboard, it has a manual or instruction to play. But, if you don't have any, you can use this simple tutorial to start. Playing piano or keyboard don't just teach you how to play music but it helps you on voice lesson. Even the most popular singer also use this to know the exact pitch, notes of song when practicing. In short, as you play you can also learn to sing correctly. How about trying a simple song "Happy Birthday". It could be funny to play but it is a song for all ages. lol Here is the music sheet for the song.
Image courtesy of www.musicnovatory.com
On the music sheet above, it still on key of C. Some additional symbol called the time signature. It was the fraction 3/4 on the image. The 3 means the number of notes and the 4 means the beat will be use in a measure. Yes, learning to play piano also use mathematics but only the basic counting. A simple song will be more meaningful if you are the one who play and sing. At least you learn something new as a beginner without looking for a professional music teacher.
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