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why isn't music written on 6 lines?

I'm not saying I'm having trouble learning to read the music scores that I need for the music I want to play. I'm saying that this is an intriguing quirk in a set of numbers and their visual analogue. Ok?

I think this made us think you were :)

And indeed I tend to get the tune and then write out the letters in a straight row under the line of music.

As long as you can play what you want to and are enjoying it :)

Jx
 
I think it's a mathematician's problem
I've felt for many years that reading sheet music will come more easily to those who are gifted in maths. I'm not. I've always said, and still do, that playing by "ear" is more important to me (not necessarily to everyone else) and I'd prefer to devote my efforts in that direction. However, I'm having to decipher sheet music, partly to cope with my lessons, but more because the stuff I hear comes with a large degree of improvisation, so I need to refer back to sheet music to find what the original tune is. In the course of doing so I'm getting better at it, something I thought would never happen.
 
Is it so different from learning to read words? Shapes standing for sounds, position makes a difference?
We seem to make a 'mystique' out of reading music, some folk can, others can't.
I'm sure it's just familiarity and practice?
 
Is it so different from learning to read words? Shapes standing for sounds, position makes a difference?
We seem to make a 'mystique' out of reading music, some folk can, others can't.
I'm sure it's just familiarity and practice?
You're right but some of us have much more difficulty with reading than others. One example is my friend Dot who started on sax about two months and already she can sight-read, something I still can't do after struggling for years.
 
Reading is really simple for saxophone. You've only one note at a time and only one clef to learn. Organists often have to read 3 lines, 2 different clefs, 4 or five notes at a time and 2 or even 3 different rhythms all at once. That's literally 10 times as hard as what a saxophonist has to do yet many manage to sight read that in real time.
 
Reading is really simple for saxophone. You've only one note at a time and only one clef to learn. Organists often have to read 3 lines, 2 different clefs, 4 or five notes at a time and 2 or even 3 different rhythms all at once. That's literally 10 times as hard as what a saxophonist has to do yet many manage to sight read that in real time.
They're more organised.
 
And that's why more people take up saxophone ;)

I don't think I know an organist.
I know a fair few - I suspect part of their brain is in a different dimension. In order to get your ARCO, let alone FRCO, they have to be able to play at sight from all 4 standard clefs simultaneously and reduce to keyboard...
 
Learning to read and play music is a "sequential" subject, much like mathematics. The concepts need to be mastered at one level before proceeding to the next. One can think of it as going up a staircase. If one or more stairs are skipped then there is a larger, more difficult step to take.

For anyone learning to read music and play the saxophone, I highly recommend subscribing to "Smart Music". One can then pick one of the beginning band series, purchase the book(s) and play along with the Smart Music accompaniment. One of the advantages is that there is a green cursor that always shows your place in the music. Another advantage is that you can set the accompaniment at any tempo you wish. You could just play from the screen without purchasing the book, but that would not give you the text explaining the counting, the fingering of new notes, key signatures, meters, etc.

The one I am most familiar with is "Standard of Excellence" by Bruce Pearson. The accompaniments are very nice making even the most simple exercises sound musical. Playing along with the accompaniments helps one develop a sense of pitch playing along with an ensemble and a sense of tempo playing along with a metronome-like rhythm track. An adult learner could probably master a page a day and get through books 1 and 2 very quickly. But again, it is important to practice one page at a time in sequence and not jump around. This is how the method books are structured to be the most effective.
 
Standard of Excellence books is what I started on. Very good books.
 
If you don't like the G clef or the F clef there is the C clef. It's moveable, you can make it alto or tenor.
 
Seeing this thread re-activated, I re-read it. I think a useful lesson can be learnt from my experiences with a friend this last year. My friend is in her early 30s and has never been taught to read music, nor an instrument, but wants to do both.

I offered to teach the basics of music theory / reading music. We had a regular one hour once-a-week session for about 6 months. In that period we covered all of the ABRSM Grade1 theory and fair chunks of 2 and 3 (I didn't tell her that). I reckon she'd get a solid pas if she took G1 now.

Two things I focused on were rhythm and note recognition. I would either give her some music, or write something myself, set a tempo and get her to clap the rhythm. She found this hard, but we made decent progress.

I would constantly ask, 'What note is that'. It was a struggle at first and needed a lot of repetition of how it works (treble clef is a stylised letter G and wraps around line 2 etc). After 6 months, we were getting reasonably OK at this in both treble and bass clef, leger lines were still tricky.

Was she fluent at the end of this period? No, but decent progress had been made. She struggles with time (she has two jobs).

Conclusion? I am generally of the opinion that just about anyone can be taught to read music. Some will pick it up very quickly, some won't. You have to be prepared for people having very odd ideas at times (one person I helped out struggled until I sat them at the piano and pointed out how the note names repeat and that going down from A is G, F, E...). I'm not a teacher and I have not studied the relevant pedagogy my limited experience is that you just need lots of repetition and practice - you just have to keep doing it and become self-reliant and accept it may be slow at first.
 
If you don't like the G clef or the F clef there is the C clef. It's moveable, you can make it alto or tenor.
Conclusion? I am generally of the opinion that just about anyone can be taught to read music. Some will pick it up very quickly, some won't.
I often quote my academy ordeal of the so called "setticlavio": reading a piece of music where the clef changes continuously.
Seven clefs: bass and baritone are F clefs (fourth or third line). Tenor, alto, mezzo, and soprano are C clef. Treble is a G (we did not use the "French Violin" since the bass almost covers it)

The main point is that non using them, I lost the ability. It is important to know what they do, but actual practice makes their use natural.
Same with the related transposition: I can reasonably read a concert part on tenor/sop. Less reasonably on alto. Simply because I don't use much alto outside big bands.
 
I haven't yet read the page jbt linked to but it's an interesting question!.Wikipedia gives a short history of how the staff evolved over time and it mentions that 4-, 5- and 6-line staves were used up until about 1600. I'm pretty sure I've seen illustrations of lute music on a 6-line staff like the one underneath.

220px-Byrd_manuscript_sample.jpg


Perhaps the Italians had something to do with it (other terms in musical notation are Italian too).
BTW John Renbourn's arrangement of the 'Trotto' tune on jbt's page used to be one of my party pieces on guitar. Brings back memories!
 
I think the answer to the original question is simple---"evolution". All systems tend to evolve to have attributes that are the easiest to use and understand. Who knows, with modern printing technology written music may evolve even further like using colors to denote the most important notes in a phrase that should get more emphasis.
 
What am I missing here? The number of lines is irrelevant to whether the A is on a space or on a line.
 

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