Learn to Read Music

I bought this book last year for my Dad as he said he wanted to learn to read sheet music, but having seen it sat on the bookcase unused after 6 months had passed I decided to read it myself. I learnt a little about notation at school but I have to be honest I forgot a lot of this, but this book really helped me to recall the basics and then continue on to learn the more intricate symbols and activities. Now don't be fooled, it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fully understood in one read through. You will need to be prepared to actually "study" the book, much like a student. You will need to keep notes and also, ideally, need the use of a piano or a keyboard to learn the practical side of reading sheet music.I personally found it best to learn a little each day rather than read the book from cover to cover in one sitting. The diagrams and descriptions may seem very easy at the beginning but they will start to become more challenging and if you skip chapters you will not be able to fully read sheet music. That's the beauty of keeping notes. I kept going over things I didn't understand again and again until I had fully understood the lesson. Sometimes I would leave it overnight and continue from the same point the next day in sheer determination to understand all that I needed to.Basically If you really want to learn then this book will definitely help you on your way. It's not the end of learning sheet music but the beginning so always keep your eyes open for other books on this subject.

This is a very easy to understand book on how to read music - even without an instrument in your hands. Taken from the author's well proven seminars that promise to teach the audience to read and understand standard notation in less than a day. As this is a book rather than a roadshow with instruments at the ready to demo what's being said, the book claims a bit much considering most musicians take years to perfect their sight reading (and mines still pretty poor after 45 years) However most of my students struggle with timing and duration of notes rather than the third elemnt - pitch. This book is an excellent practice tool for learning timing. The book focuses on what it does well - note duration and poly-rhythm notation. Once you've cracked that you'll only have to practice playing the right notes - when, and how long, can be learnt from this book. Well worth the cover price if you need to read - but you'll still have to practice.

I bought this book thinking that it would be great for me to learn to read music but boy was I wrong! In the past I have learned a little music theory but that was many years ago and I had forgotten it all. Having gone on to YouTube I found people there that were teaching some lessons for free and it was not until then that some of that music theory came back to me. Howard Shanet does not teach music from the very beginning. For example, he only gives you the notes on the Treble Clef Staff but he completely ignores the Bass Clef Staff. If you want to play music either for pleasure or professionally you have to know the notes of both Staves. If you wanted to play the piano in particular you would have to be able to read both Staves because one is for the right hand and the other is for the left hand. I should be more clear on this, the Treble Clef Staff is for the right hand and the Bass Clef is for the left hand, so without knowing the notes on the Bass Clef Staff how will you be able to play the piano with your left hand? There are other things missing from the book which I will not go into here, but suffice it to say that this book is most definitely not for a beginner. I am waiting for a couple of more books to come through and I will see if they are any better than this one. For now, though, I will stick to listening to the people that I have found on YouTube as they are very good. You will need to listen to more than one person as each of them has something to offer that the other does not but together you really will get to know how to read music and also how to play piano a lot better than just having a book in front of you. The 3 people so far are Lypur, LessonsOnTheWeb with a person called Tim, and finally The 'Official' How To Play Piano-Lessons with a young lady called Alison. Please look up these people as it is better to be able to watch what these people are doing as well as listening to the music theory. I hope that this helps people out there and I wish you all well on your journey of learning about music.

As a complete beginner, and having read the excellent reviews about this book, I perhaps expected an 'easy' ride'.I found the 'two hour' learning over-stretching the truth.At a much slower pace it clearly does explain how music is written, and how to read it, and therefore in theory does indeed offer what it promises. I have gained from it but I am still on the search for that perfect guide.This book is not a quick and easy guide, and like all study requires many hours of concentrated reading.As a complete beginner I personally felt it was a little ' too wordy' although that seems a silly remark when we are talking about a book! I would have liked my learning in smaller 'bite size' pieces with a little more clarity, and was therefore a little disappointed.

Being a bit ancient I thought that this would be sooo difficult for me as memory is useless but I can now pick out a tune on the keyboard, albeit a bit slow. This book is excellent.You can go at your own pace. I've also downloaded an app on my smartphone to test me on notes and the combination of the two has been brilliant.

bought for my wife so she could read and understand the squiggly bits.

will help a lot

This book is really good. I learnt more about reading music in a few hours reading than I did in several years of music lessons at school.