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How To Read Music: For Beginners - A Simple and Effective Guide to Understanding and Reading Music with Ease
Learn to read sheet music one element at a the staff, clefs, notes, rhythm, key and time signatures, explained in plain words for any instrument.
A page of sheet music can look like a wall of symbols. Bars, notes, clefs, staves, time signatures, it seems like something you need years of lessons to make sense of. It isn't. Written music is a system, and once you see how its parts fit together, you can read it on your own, at your own pace.
This book walks you through that system step by step. We start with the staff and everything you see on it, move on to clefs and the names of the notes, then key and time signatures, rhythm, and the marks that tell you how to play.
What's inside
The staff and its staff and ledger lines, clefs, key and time signatures, tempo, bars, notes and rests, repeats, coda and segno, endings and the sections of a piece.Clefs and middle C and standard pitch, the treble, bass, alto and tenor clefs, the grand staff, ways to memorize the notes, and how transposing instruments work.Key and time the circle of fifths, a quick trick to tell the key from its signature, and a reference chart of key signatures in four clefs. fixed and movable do, and how relative pitch helps you hear what you read.Reading notes and note values, sharps, flats and naturals, single notes, chords and lead sheets. note durations and rests, counting and clapping the beat, the building blocks of rhythm, polyrhythm and polymeter.Dynamics and how loudness, articulation and playing techniques are written.Then practice. The last part shows you how to practice reading music and gives you exercises in naming notes, clapping rhythms, sight-reading and transposing, with scores to read and the answers at the back.
Who it's for. Beginners of any age who want to read music for the first time, self-taught players who learned by ear, and anyone coming back to music after years away, on guitar, piano, voice, violin or any other instrument. Notation works the same on all of them.
Read it with Music Theory. This book is the companion to my Music From Beginner to Expert, which teaches the theory behind the notes without sheet music. Read together, one shows you how music is written and the other why it works.
First published in 2017 and revised over three editions, How to Read Music has sold over 30,000 copies.
Take a look inside, start with the staff, and enjoy the process.
A page of sheet music can look like a wall of symbols. Bars, notes, clefs, staves, time signatures, it seems like something you need years of lessons to make sense of. It isn't. Written music is a system, and once you see how its parts fit together, you can read it on your own, at your own pace.
This book walks you through that system step by step. We start with the staff and everything you see on it, move on to clefs and the names of the notes, then key and time signatures, rhythm, and the marks that tell you how to play.
What's inside
The staff and its staff and ledger lines, clefs, key and time signatures, tempo, bars, notes and rests, repeats, coda and segno, endings and the sections of a piece.Clefs and middle C and standard pitch, the treble, bass, alto and tenor clefs, the grand staff, ways to memorize the notes, and how transposing instruments work.Key and time the circle of fifths, a quick trick to tell the key from its signature, and a reference chart of key signatures in four clefs. fixed and movable do, and how relative pitch helps you hear what you read.Reading notes and note values, sharps, flats and naturals, single notes, chords and lead sheets. note durations and rests, counting and clapping the beat, the building blocks of rhythm, polyrhythm and polymeter.Dynamics and how loudness, articulation and playing techniques are written.Then practice. The last part shows you how to practice reading music and gives you exercises in naming notes, clapping rhythms, sight-reading and transposing, with scores to read and the answers at the back.
Who it's for. Beginners of any age who want to read music for the first time, self-taught players who learned by ear, and anyone coming back to music after years away, on guitar, piano, voice, violin or any other instrument. Notation works the same on all of them.
Read it with Music Theory. This book is the companion to my Music From Beginner to Expert, which teaches the theory behind the notes without sheet music. Read together, one shows you how music is written and the other why it works.
First published in 2017 and revised over three editions, How to Read Music has sold over 30,000 copies.
Take a look inside, start with the staff, and enjoy the process.
- GenresMusicArtNonfiction
127 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 26, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 20, 2022
In a Nutshell: A much, much better experience this time around. A part of it could be because of my familiarity with the topic. But this book is much more reader-friendly than its partner volume.
The reason why any trained musician from across the world can play a piece the exact same way is credit to the standard way of writing music. (This is specifically for Western music, though we can use the same ‘language’ to write any music.) Thus reading music is a skill that every musician (whether instrumentalist or cantor or conductor or composer) ought to have, and this in turn requires knowledge of both music theory and musical notations. These two topics are in turn co-dependent; you can't understand musical theory without knowing musical notations and vice versa.
I had read the first book of this series, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert a few days ago and come away with mixed feelings. While the content was mind-blowing, the approach was too technical to be beginner-friendly. This book is much, much better in comparison.
Like all languages, music has rules, and knowing how (and how long) to play both sounds and silence are important. Sheet music doesn't just reveal the notes but also their length, their pitch, the volume at which to play them, their accidentals, their pulse,... Reading this book will ensure that you get a basic familiarity with these concepts, if not a complete understanding thereof.
The content covers every element important to sight-reading: scales & notes, notations for music and rests, chords, clefs & bars, nomenclature and explanation for tempo and volume, and so on. Basically, whatever information you need to read sheet music is provided herein. As my instrument of choice is the keyboard, having the information presented through keyboard/piano friendly examples is always to my advantage. But the author does cover other instruments and clefs as well.
In many ways, this is a less ambitious book than the first one and therein lies its advantage. Rather than trying to include everything under the sun, it sticks to its focus on “reading music” and doesn’t divert into complicated information. That said, a basic familiarity with musical concepts would still be helpful to you if you have to get the best out of this book. A rank newcomer will also find it helpful but a tad complicated.
I found this book a lot easier on the mind than the first one. Then again, I'm not sure if it's because of my greater familiarity with the content. As a self-taught musician, I wanted to streamline what I know and refine the concepts I was unfamiliar with, and this book served my purpose well. I also learned two amazing tricks of how to read key signatures quickly and how to use the solfege scale to practice pitch.
Definitely recommended to anyone interested in honing their sight-reading skills.
4.25 stars.
This book is available on KU.
The book uses the American musical notations for its purpose, though it does specify the relevant British term for the same notation in one section.
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter
The reason why any trained musician from across the world can play a piece the exact same way is credit to the standard way of writing music. (This is specifically for Western music, though we can use the same ‘language’ to write any music.) Thus reading music is a skill that every musician (whether instrumentalist or cantor or conductor or composer) ought to have, and this in turn requires knowledge of both music theory and musical notations. These two topics are in turn co-dependent; you can't understand musical theory without knowing musical notations and vice versa.
I had read the first book of this series, Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert a few days ago and come away with mixed feelings. While the content was mind-blowing, the approach was too technical to be beginner-friendly. This book is much, much better in comparison.
Like all languages, music has rules, and knowing how (and how long) to play both sounds and silence are important. Sheet music doesn't just reveal the notes but also their length, their pitch, the volume at which to play them, their accidentals, their pulse,... Reading this book will ensure that you get a basic familiarity with these concepts, if not a complete understanding thereof.
The content covers every element important to sight-reading: scales & notes, notations for music and rests, chords, clefs & bars, nomenclature and explanation for tempo and volume, and so on. Basically, whatever information you need to read sheet music is provided herein. As my instrument of choice is the keyboard, having the information presented through keyboard/piano friendly examples is always to my advantage. But the author does cover other instruments and clefs as well.
In many ways, this is a less ambitious book than the first one and therein lies its advantage. Rather than trying to include everything under the sun, it sticks to its focus on “reading music” and doesn’t divert into complicated information. That said, a basic familiarity with musical concepts would still be helpful to you if you have to get the best out of this book. A rank newcomer will also find it helpful but a tad complicated.
I found this book a lot easier on the mind than the first one. Then again, I'm not sure if it's because of my greater familiarity with the content. As a self-taught musician, I wanted to streamline what I know and refine the concepts I was unfamiliar with, and this book served my purpose well. I also learned two amazing tricks of how to read key signatures quickly and how to use the solfege scale to practice pitch.
Definitely recommended to anyone interested in honing their sight-reading skills.
4.25 stars.
This book is available on KU.
The book uses the American musical notations for its purpose, though it does specify the relevant British term for the same notation in one section.
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter
December 25, 2022
Amazing Book And Very Simple
December 29, 2021
I want to listen more appreciatively to the music I like best so I’m starting to review (in some cases, learn from scratch) aspects of music theory that I haven’t looked at since I was a youngster. If you’re familiar with the material, it only takes a matter of hours to go through this book.
This is a pretty good basic introductory review of musical notation, though it contains a surprising number of typos and grammatical errors. Also, the book is 143 pages long, not the 84 pages indicated on Goodreads.
It covers the basics – staffs, clefs, key and time signatures, solfege, bars, rests, repeats, codas, segnos, reading notes and rhythms, dynamics, phrasing, and so on. I learned new things, e.g., about conventions used in musical notation software (which didn’t exist in the prehistoric mists when I learned this material), and in areas of music I hadn’t bothered with because it’s irrelevant to keyboards (e.g., annotating percussion rhythms, details about the tenor and alto clefs, clefs for instruments such as woodwinds, etc.).
It has written exercises, but not many. I would have liked more since, for me, learning musical theory involves acquiring skills via drills. Something useful was the link the author provided to the International Music Score Library Project, http://imslp.org. And, for that matter, even www.blanksheetmusic.net. Now I’ll go look for a book on theory more broadly speaking.
This is a pretty good basic introductory review of musical notation, though it contains a surprising number of typos and grammatical errors. Also, the book is 143 pages long, not the 84 pages indicated on Goodreads.
It covers the basics – staffs, clefs, key and time signatures, solfege, bars, rests, repeats, codas, segnos, reading notes and rhythms, dynamics, phrasing, and so on. I learned new things, e.g., about conventions used in musical notation software (which didn’t exist in the prehistoric mists when I learned this material), and in areas of music I hadn’t bothered with because it’s irrelevant to keyboards (e.g., annotating percussion rhythms, details about the tenor and alto clefs, clefs for instruments such as woodwinds, etc.).
It has written exercises, but not many. I would have liked more since, for me, learning musical theory involves acquiring skills via drills. Something useful was the link the author provided to the International Music Score Library Project, http://imslp.org. And, for that matter, even www.blanksheetmusic.net. Now I’ll go look for a book on theory more broadly speaking.
December 8, 2019
Comprehensive beginner musicianship, very good
I thought the book was very well thought out, and written with the non-musician in mind. I have been a voice teacher for 38 years, and I will be using this book to teach my students.
I thought the book was very well thought out, and written with the non-musician in mind. I have been a voice teacher for 38 years, and I will be using this book to teach my students.
October 6, 2026
Great intro to reading music
I have tried to start on sight reading before and this is the first book that I have actually made it all the way through without switching off. Very clear no nonsense style would definitely recommend to others as a good starting point to build from.
I have tried to start on sight reading before and this is the first book that I have actually made it all the way through without switching off. Very clear no nonsense style would definitely recommend to others as a good starting point to build from.
January 15, 2019
Great read and reminder
Very articulate and right to the point. Easy to understand and apply. I specially liked the circle of 5 section
Very articulate and right to the point. Easy to understand and apply. I specially liked the circle of 5 section
April 25, 2021
Only basics are there. I think some notations related to articulation are missing. Overall book is very good explained in very easy way.
November 4, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nice introduction; it really helped. Although the author used some unfamiliar words that made it hard for me to understand without researching what they mean in music.
Nice introduction; it really helped. Although the author used some unfamiliar words that made it hard for me to understand without researching what they mean in music.
May 6, 2025
A good introduction. (3stars is worth reading on my scale, 4 & 5 reserved for my favorites).
September 26, 2025
A very clear and engaging book on how to read music notation. Does not go into much details on the theory and left it for his other book on music theory. This book on the downside is not specialized in the notation of any specific instrument but rather keeps it generic, so it will be helpful if you are looking for the basics of music notation. I'm aware that Nicholas is a guitarist and could have added a chapter at the end for the notation symbols specific to guitar but he preferred to keep it generic and high level. Overall a good book for beginners but does not show everything there is to know about notation for any specific instrument.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews