Customer Reviews

How to Read Music: Reading Music Made Simple

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Hmm...If you aren't learning to read music as you learn to play your instrument, you've got the wrong primer and the wrong teacher. Or maybe you're teaching yourself, so to speak. (A Milton Babbitt witticism: "You know the trouble with autodidacts: they've got the worst teachers.) Or maybe you're not an instrumentalist at all, an interested layman. Well, it doesn't require a whole book to explain musical notation, you know. Musical notation is really very simple. It scarcely requires a chapter.

What to do? Get hold of "The ABC of Music: A Short Practical Guide to the Basics" by Imogen Holst (daughter of the famous composer Gustav Holst). Musical notation is explained therein clearly and deftly--and the rest of "The ABC of Music: A Short Practical Guide to the Basics" by Imogen Holst is worthwhile too.

If you ARE an instrumentalist you also need to PRACTICE reading music, preferably in a graduated way. Maybe you think yourself too technically accomplished to bother with, say, "The Alfred Guitar Method". Not if you can't read it. If you can play the tunes and exercises easily but read them only with difficulty, then you're ISOLATING the reading, the very thing you need-and you'll move through the series quickly. Get a primer for your instrument.

Or perhaps you want to learn how to write down music--a different thing from learning how to read music. Then I can do no better than recommend "The Norton Manual of Music Notation" by George Heussenstamm.

Well, I haven't seemed to say much about the book I'm reviewing, not directly. I'm trying not to be negative. I don't have room to set right most of its inaccuracies, but I'll venture to point out two very small errors-they particularly irk me: 1) This book calls a scale a set of notes related to "a tonic or a root". This statement is misleading and dangerous because the terms "tonic" and "root" are frequently confused by novices. A key has a tonic; it does NOT have a root. Neither does a scale. A chord has a root; it does NOT have a tonic. 2) This book says that the singular form of "staves" is "staff or stave". In fact, the singular form of "staves" in the MUSICAL sense of the word is "staff" and "staff" only. It is categorically incorrect to speak of a musical "stave", a solecism.

Terry Burrows' "How to Read Music" is the ideal for adult students who want to read music without attending classes. Thorough tests are given throughout the book, to assure you understand the material. A CD is also included to help you understand the text better, by listening to examples of written music.

I don't get the negative review at the bottom of the page. As somebody who can already play an instrument to a high level, but couldn't read music, this is a GODSEND. I'd always found the subject intimidating until studying this book - now I don't. I REALLY recommend this book. LOTS

This book assumes you learn to play an instrument without learnning to read music notation. It tries to match the note with the sound, and test you to see if you know the notes. You take each test using the CD. In order to use the CD correctly The author recommends a CD player that "searches tracks", not a CD that shows "time remaining". You can use a "time remaining CD to synchronize but it's not easy.

I've never read music and want to start playing violin. This book said it was suitable for any instrument, but by the notes and exercises, it is CLEARLY geared towards piano. Even so, I decided to continue on. This book was so utterly confusing and only half explained things in the first few pages that I gave up and will be taking this useless book back to the library and be in search of something that REALLY IS for beginners and can give complete explanations. I would not recommend this book to anyone that is a beginner....it may be okay for those of you who know a little about how to read music to begin with, but I don't know.

Also, the cd that comes with it is so old, that it's not even in mp3 or wma format and you can't select tracks like it wants you to do. You just have to assume you know where to pause within each lesson.

CD was missing. I have written to the shop but no answer. I would like to have CD also with the book. CD is very essential!!

The book, while usable, is neither scholarly nor thorough. Merely an introduction of what you will encounter in your music studies.

I'm a beginer at the piano and I'm using this book in conjunction with a DVD coarse. Where one misses out on details the other picks up. I would recomend this book highly. Goes into detail on the basics.

The course was well-structured, easy to follow and also with a good CD. Probably good for people who can't read music but can already play well.

Let me put it succinctly:

1) ANYBODY who can read music could have written this.

2) Many people who can read music HAVE published books about how to read music: there are MANY better alternatives available.

3) Much of what this particular book tells you is WRONG.

Here is ONE much better alternative: The ABC OF MUSIC: A SHORT PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE BASICS by Imogen Holst.

So what part of "NO" don't you understand?