Lesson #1:
How to Follow Along With A Musical Score
Memorizing all of the choir music can be really challenging! To make singing in a choir easier, we use sheet music to teach and remind us what to sing so we don't have to memorize everything. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll go through the basics of reading music.
Click on the first video to help you learn the basics of following along with the sheet music ("the score"). It will show you how to follow along with your part, how to follow along and find your place using bar numbers, and how notes show you generally how long, high, or low you sing: Now, even if we can't read the notes, see if you can follow along with the words and measures in video 2 or 3. |
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Lesson #2:
Reading Notes & Rhythms
Today, we're going to learn how to read the notes on the staff.
The important thing to remember, is that the higher the note is on the staff, the higher you sing; the lower the note on the staff, the lower you sing!
When reading music, we assign each pitch a letter name (A B C D E F G). When a pitch sounds twice as high, we call it an octave, and we start the letter names again.
Here is a short tutorial on reading the notes in the treble clef, for sopranos and altos:
https://www.teoria.com/en/tutorials/reading/12-notes.php
And for the basses and tenors, it follows the same logic, but the notes are in a slightly different place (1 space/line lower than in the treble clef.) You can read more about the bass clef here:
http://www.simplifyingtheory.com/bass-clef/
Now, it's time to practice identifying notes!
Try some of these exercises:
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/note
(You can customize it by clicking on the cog in the corner. You can change between treble and bass clef and change the note range to something with which you are comfortable and turn accidentals to "key signature only").
As you're singing in choir next week, see if you can follow the contour of the notes with how high or low you are singing. To start off, the important thing isn't what note letter name you are singing, but the relationship between this note and the next.
Next week, we'll look at how to read time signatures and start learning how to read rhythm!
The important thing to remember, is that the higher the note is on the staff, the higher you sing; the lower the note on the staff, the lower you sing!
When reading music, we assign each pitch a letter name (A B C D E F G). When a pitch sounds twice as high, we call it an octave, and we start the letter names again.
Here is a short tutorial on reading the notes in the treble clef, for sopranos and altos:
https://www.teoria.com/en/tutorials/reading/12-notes.php
And for the basses and tenors, it follows the same logic, but the notes are in a slightly different place (1 space/line lower than in the treble clef.) You can read more about the bass clef here:
http://www.simplifyingtheory.com/bass-clef/
Now, it's time to practice identifying notes!
Try some of these exercises:
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/note
(You can customize it by clicking on the cog in the corner. You can change between treble and bass clef and change the note range to something with which you are comfortable and turn accidentals to "key signature only").
As you're singing in choir next week, see if you can follow the contour of the notes with how high or low you are singing. To start off, the important thing isn't what note letter name you are singing, but the relationship between this note and the next.
Next week, we'll look at how to read time signatures and start learning how to read rhythm!