Customer Reviews

Learn to Read Music (Softcover)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is THE most useful book I've purchased and read on how to read music so far. I have just started learning to play the violin (I am in my mid-40s)and although all my life I've sung and music is, and has always been, a huge part of my life(many of my family members are accomplished musicians)I've never played an instrument or had any formal musical theory training. This book is the reference I have gone back to again and again as I progress with my violin and I have questions or areas that aren't clear to me (such as the concepts of major and minor scale, flats/sharps/accidentals and how they came about). . not only does this book take you from the very basics to the complex, Howard Shanet takes the time to explain WHY certain things are the way they are in written music. I was struggling with some concepts and when my teacher explained them to me I didn't get it....I looked it up in a smaller book on music theory and the explanation was there but I still didn't quite get it . . and then I looked up the subject (this happened to be accidentals/flats and sharps and also time meters) in this book and because Howard Shanet explained why sharps and flats are written the way they are, I was able to understand the concept and work beyond it. Just an excellent book and I recommend it to anyone learning to read and play music. It is true, this book will not teach you how to play any instrument, BUT without the basics and theory in this book it would be very difficult for me to progress with my violin playing. Highly recommend it.

This book is a gem for any adult interested in teaching themselves the fundementals of reading music.

It lets the reader teach themselves by presenting examples to be solved and then explaining the solutions with painstaking detail and clarity.

The examples proceed in a logical order; commencing soley with reading rhythms, then soley reading pitch, then finally combining rhythm and pitch into melodies to be analysed and played at the piano.

The chapter on explaining the concept of tonality is masterful.

The examples are plentiful, and over time (in my case about three months of 5 to 15 mins per day), are meant to instil the basic skills and confidence you need to acquire to read single note melodies by sight. As Shanet points out, and very accurately from my experience, the examples must be done, not glossed over, because one learns to read music by doing it, not only understanding it or reading about how to do it.

What the book won't do is teach you how to p! lay an instrument although the basic examples at the piano provide a solid foundation from which you can go on to learn any instrument with much more confidence than you might have otherwise.

The language is clear, though sometimes wordy (it was written in 1958 and so does reflect the language style of the day).

I feel that Howard Shanet has a real appreciation of the problems people face when learning to read music and has successfully written a text that works.

In my estimation, a classic educational text.

Though there is no substitute for one-on-one teaching, this book gives a very good introduction to the fundamentals of learning to read music. It has very thorough explanations on musical notation and offers many useful activities to build one's skill.

Upon finishing this book and its exercises, you will not have learned to play an instrument. What you will have gained is an understanding of how to read the notes and symbols on sheet music, which will be extremely beneficial to your musical development.

I bought Howard Shanet's book about 15 years after I had been playing guitar for 10 years, and after a short flirtation with the violin.

Although I had learned to play guitar quite well during that time, and although I had managed to fake my way through playing violin in the school orchestra when I was a teenager, I was frustrated by not being able to read and write music well.

In the following years, I bought numerous books - most of them guitar books with chords and guitar tablature which I understood fine, and others books on how to read and write music, which I found confusing, complicated and frustrating.

Despite progressing to writing and playing songs, and playing in bands, I resigned myself to thinking that I'd always have to rely on a combination of a tape recorder, chord symbols, and my own quirky form of notation in order to write down the music that I wrote.

Finally, I found Mr. Shanet's book, and it explained all that I had been confused about in clear, simple and enjoyable ways. I do think that people are right when they say that learning the mechanics of music (notation etc.) is related to mathematics; a subject that I have always failed miserably in, and that's where Mr. Shanet's book excels - he explains all of this in simple terms.

Just to be clear about this, I have a pretty good sense of rhythm and timing, it's just that I could never write it down in standard musical notation, nor could I read it very well.

The whole process of counting from, and writing to, paper was too complicated a process, and no other book had ever unlocked this process for me until I found 'Learn to Read Music'.

Another book that I found recently that seems to use the same kind of approach, relative to learning the piano, is 'Play Piano in a Flash' by Scott "The Piano Guy" Houston.

I cannot recommend 'Learn to Read Music' highly enough. Don't be put off by the fact that it was published in 1956: it is a gem and a classic, and I hope that Howard Shanet is still around, and is aware of the wonderful contribution that he has made to music education.

This book is very great to people who want to read music. You can learn about rythm, pitch and a little more. For those who want to learn (or teach) in an easy and fast way. Good for beginners and teachers.

If you want to quickly learn to read music and have a clear idea of every kind of musical sign, this book is REALLY helpful.

It has all the basics, so it's a good introduction to music notation. For those who forgot some things about reading music, this a good reference book to keep in your house. I strongly recommend this book.

This is an interesting, complex, detailed, authoritative, little book that promises 1. In two hours you can read it through and understand the principles involved in reading music and 2. In an evening you can learn to read practically any melody and pick it out on the piano. Amazingly, 1. and 2. worked for me. What worked for me might also work for you. Why not give it a try? Howard Shanet, the author, is more than qualified to teach music as he was a professor of music at Columbia and the conductor of that university's orchestra. But more than music, he knows the ropes through years of experience teaching this subject and actually makes learning easy and fun. In part I, he deals with the all-important and often neglected topic of rhythm and in part II, the important elements of pitch. It all boils down to when to play and what to play. Right? In parts III, IV, & V he puts rhythm and pitch together and introduces the elements of tonality. Along the way, we get brief asides on music history that help fix our memory. Since he explained the bass clef, I shall never forget where it came from and why in shows where F is on the written sheet. Can you guess why ¾ time was considered the perfect time in the middle ages? Something to do with the trinity? You bet. For better results, you should do as I did: work the problems and exercises with a piano so that you can see, feel, and hear what the text is talking about. Actually touching the keys makes all the difference and works lots better than the author's suggested tapping and singing. Despite some key signatures that are blurred and poorly printed, and two mistakes in the answer key on page 169, and the failure to give out the quick and dirty secret for reading any key signature (explained in Piano for Dummies)+, this little gem of a book is highly recommended for novices who need to learn the basics and previously experienced people who need to refresh their memories after a long absence from the keyboard. Also suggested: Paul Hindemith's Elementary Training for Musicians and Blake Neely's Piano for Dummies.

I already had a very simple understanding of music theory, so some of this stuff I skimmed over, but within the first few pages I learned things that immediately opened my eyes and my mouth in amazement. I found myself several times saying aloud, "So that's what that means!" I was ready to give up on singing in my church choir, but now I feel much more confident and am ready to resume with more vigor.

This book was a well thought out approach for learning to read music for the absolute novice. I used the approach with great succcess in teaching my church choir to read music quickly. I highly recommend it!