How to Practice Music Note Reading Online

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By Lawrence N
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Practice Music Note Reading Online

It is essential for music students to learn how to identify notes quickly and accurately. It is also important for students to learn how to read ahead. Certainly advanced students learn how to read music by patterns, as opposed to note-by-note, but at the very minimum, music students must be able to name notes as quickly as they can name letters of the alphabet. This article shows you the steps to using a free online site to practice note reading.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

The first step is to visit the totally free website of eMusicTheory (linked below). While this site is very comprehensive, and offers lots of free information and drills, this article focuses on two in particular.
Step 2

Click on the link called Free Theory Drills. Then choose the drill called Note Names. This drill will show you music notes which you must name by clicking a button on the screen, or typing the corresponding key on the keyboard. Click the Settings button to bring up the screen shown at left.
Step 3

If you are learning an instrument that only uses notes from one clef, choose that clef on the Staves option. If you are playing an instrument such as the piano which uses both the treble and bass staves, you can either practice them together, or independently. You can choose to either include or exclude ledger line practice. Beginners should start by excluding them. You can choose to practice both lines and spaces, or just one or the other.
Step 4

When you are ready, click Start Drill. You will see one note at a time, in accordance with your chosen settings. Click the name of the note using the buttons at the bottom, or type the corresponding key on the keyboard, which is faster. If you are wrong, the screen will "bump" a little, and you can try again. If you are right, it will show you a new note. On the right you will see your statistics. Try to get to the point where your average time is less than one second per note, and you have 100% accuracy. This will take time and practice. When you have had enough, click the Stop button.
Step 5

After you become proficient at naming isolate notes, you'll want to practice speed reading. The next drill is called Paced Note Names which you can access from the main page. The Settings screen is very similar, but you can set the speed at which the notes will scroll. Just experiment to find an appropriate pace, and increase it as your skill improves.
Step 6

For this exercise, notes will scroll across the screen from right to left. When a note "pops" into place at left and changes from gray to black, you must enter its name within a short amount of time. This is best done via the keyboard, and is even more ideal if you can type without looking. The window of opportunity to name the note is related to the speed setting that you chose. To do well at this exercise, you will need to read ahead. The moment you have identified one note, start looking at the next note while you are waiting for the first one to get into position. This is a very important skill to have.
Step 7

Note that you must take the above exercise with a grain of salt. Real music is based on patterns, and musicians learn to read music by intervals. This means learning to recognize patterns such as "one note up" or "two notes down." That is very different than this exercise which presents you with random notes which hardly comprise a song. Still, it is excellent practice, and forces you to read ahead, and not get "stuck" on any one note. Once you have identified a note, there is no reason for your eyes to hang on it any longer, and then jump cold to the next note. Musicians always read ahead, just like drivers always scan the road ahead of them. ♫ Keep practicing and have fun! ♫