# Can you read sheet music?



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

There is a wealth of videos on Youtube of classical music with the accompanying score. This helps me digest new music tremendously, I find it difficult to absorb a new piece on audio alone. But I guess this requires one to be able to read sheet music. So, can you?


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

As a matter of fact, I can't NOT read it. When you're fluent in a language, say English, any sign, label, title...anything in English your brain instantly reads it - it's automatic and barring brain damage unstoppable. That how most musicians are with sheet music: as soon as you see it your brain starts to read it and "hear" it. Real musical skill resides with those who can read the sheet music as the work is performed and identify differences and errors.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I can sight-read somewhat, but there is a big gap between the seeing and the hearing, they're not connected or very little associated with each other. They very much remain separate.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I can usually follow a score well enough and play simple melodies in standard clef with one finger on keyboard (or in former times on a clarinet) but I can not really sing from a score, cannot fluently read bass clef or see the harmonies with the different voices. For such cases I'd have to slowly decipher note by note (because in principle I know the bass clef, but cannot fluently read it).
Nevertheless I have a bunch of pocket and Dover scores and sometimes like following along with them (or nowadays on youtube).


----------



## Musicaterina (Apr 5, 2020)

I can read sheet music because I play the recorder and the tenor viola da gamba. I can read best the treble clef, but I' m now learning the alto clef, too, for the viola da gamba.


----------



## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

Started to learn the piano 30 years ago, would like to read other instruments' sheets (e.g. strings) as well.


----------



## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Phil loves classic said:


> I can sight-read somewhat, but there is a big gap between the seeing and the hearing, they're not connected or very little associated with each other. They very much remain separate.


I am with you on that Phil unless you are a LvB or Wamy.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> I am with you on that Phil unless you are a LvB or Wamy.


It sounds like some people can do it here on TC too to various degrees, especially among the pros here.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I can read, but not quickly. I took Suzuki piano lessons which focuses on ear training over sight reading.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I can probably still translate in my mind from reading the sheet music to playing on the keyboard, even though I stopped playing organ about 20 years ago. I definitely cannot hear the music (not even a melody line) in my head when I look at the sheet music.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I read music. I realize that a person can appreciate and even understand classical music without reading music, but the genre has so many facets that it almost calls for a score that can be marked in order to highlight all its nuances, whether it's harmonically, in the scoring, or in the melodic manipulations. For example, I get so much more out of Renaissance music when I can see all the individual melodies interacting with each other that I would miss just trying to hear it all.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Yes I can. But if I'm listening to a piece for the first time for pleasure, I prefer not to have a score in front of me because it tends to distract me with detail when I want to absorb the big picture. If I'm reading the score as the music unfolds my brain will immediately start analyzing the harmony, phrase structure, and so on. Even when my purpose in the long run is to analyze a composition to see how it works, I tend to listen without a score several times because I think it's important to start with what is immediately salient to the aesthetic experience.


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

I can read, but not by sight. I'm literate but not fluent. I will differ in that unlike reading a spoken language, reading music is a skill one loses if not used regularly.



Phil loves classical said:


> I can sight-read somewhat, but there is a big gap between the seeing and the hearing, they're not connected or very little associated with each other. They very much remain separate.


Adding to that, I feel it's a mistake to teach piano exclusively through sight reading. It's at least as important to play just for the sake of playing, in real world situations. Doing so develops muscle memory. Sight reading alone, one must think about what their fingers must do to play what's on the page. With muscle memory, if one sees a series of arpeggios on a Bach transcription, one's fingers know how to play them without even thinking about it. Not to mention, playing an improvised solo with a band is just plain fun. Students who have fun are more likely to stick with it.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

To an extent. I'm not fluent in reading music.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I suspect this poll is showing bias towards those who can read sheet music. Many who cannot read sheet music will not find the topic of enough interest to open the thread let alone vote.

I am totally illiterate on reading music and it makes it difficult to join in to any group singing.

Singing hymns at church I would just be able to follow along with everyone and kind of see the dots on the line going up and down. The Lutheran church always ran the soprano line for melody which kills me as a baritone, but was good in that everybody sang the same melody line. Then I was attending a different church where they would sing all four melody lines and I got really tripped up and could only follow whoever was nearest or loudest. Often a loud bass would be nearby and his singing would throw me really bad as it overpowered all others and bass I could not do. I think i may be a tenor, but back in the 1980s a choir director said I was a baritone, well maybe that changes. I managed for a short time in that choir because I sat next to an elderly lady (I was in my 20s then) who sang baritone. I did fine following along with her until she did not show up one day and I was lost.

Worse about the church that sang all four melody lines was that at the Lutheran church I always watched above the words for the notes. Trying to see notes below the words was a very difficult transition.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

SixFootScowl said:


> Worse about the church that sang all four melody lines was that at the Lutheran church I always watched above the words for the notes. Trying to see notes below the words was a very difficult transition.


Don't feel bad; being able to participate in corporate singing with 4-part harmony is a lost art, at least in the US. There are actually some churches that still publish and use them, but in general every sings the soprano line. Reading the text while singing one of the other parts takes a lot of practice and skill. Some of the fondest memories I have go back to summers in a small Iowa town church - grandma played the piano and boy, could that small congregation - mostly farmers - sing! It was a Lutheran church attended mostly by descendents of the German and Swedish founders who took music seriously and everyone could read music well. What a glorious sound.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> Don't feel bad; being able to participate in corporate singing with 4-part harmony is a lost art, at least in the US. There are actually some churches that still publish and use them, but in general every sings the soprano line. Reading the text while singing one of the other parts takes a lot of practice and skill. Some of the fondest memories I have go back to summers in a small Iowa town church - grandma played the piano and boy, could that small congregation - mostly farmers - sing! It was a Lutheran church attended mostly by descendents of the German and Swedish founders who took music seriously and everyone could read music well. What a glorious sound.


The church I was attending did all their 4-part-harmony hymn singing a cappella, and I had been used to the Lutherans with their typical organ blasting at high volume, which made it impossible to not carry the single melody line. Ah well, I should have tried harder in elementary school when I had music class, but at that time the last thing I wanted to do was sing.


----------



## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Fluently.

With the exception of virtuoso art music, I can pick up any vocal selections and usually play it just fine sight reading it.

I've accompanied choirs for the last three years, so my sight singing has improved quite a bit, but I can sight sing almost flawlessly if I'm also playing what I'm singing.


----------



## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Treble and bass clef, yes, having played piano off and on for 50 years or more.
I am aware that if I concentrate hard I can hear a piece that I haven't heard before, by looking at the score - but that requires concentration.
I can well understand that people who spent their lives focused on music (or who are just gifted that way) would just be able to look at a sheet and hear it without effort. Still not the same thing as actually hearing it though!


----------



## EnescuCvartet (Dec 16, 2016)

I cannot. I'm a musician but it's not as big of a hindrance as one might think.


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Its, mostly, terra incognita 4 me..


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Yes.

Instruments I've played:

*Bass Metalophone *when I was ages 6-12, very elemental stuff, one mallet per hand but not even played intervals iirc.

*Guitar*: a few months and then decided it wasn't for me, age 11.

*Soprano recorder*: for half a year at age 11.

*Piano*: a few classes at age 11. A few months two years ago, plus a few months last year. Planning on getting back to it casually.

*Tenor recorder*: since last year.

*Alto recorder*: since a month ago. (I'm 25)

*Clarinet*: whenever the Covid situation is resolved.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

SixFootScowl said:


> The Lutheran church always ran the soprano line for melody which kills me as a baritone, but was good in that everybody sang the same melody line.


I grew up attending Welsh Methodist chapels, where choral singing was a big deal. My parents' and grandparents' generation were fluent in Sol-Fa, having had it drilled into them at Sunday School, and our hymns were printed in both Sol-Fa and standard musical notation... for the minority who understood the latter. Minims, crotchets etc were referred to as "Hen Nodiant" (old notation), presumably to contrast it with the new-fangled Sol-Fa system 

Years later, when I was doing the rounds as soloist with local amateur operatic companies, it was common to find older members of the company chorus whose standard vocal scores had been annotated with the equivalent in solfège. At one company, the conductor would transcribe all the parts into Sol-Fa in advance, and hand out copies at the first rehearsal to anyone who wanted them. That's what I call dedication!


----------



## thejewk (Sep 13, 2020)

Yes, but with a limited capacity on anything but the treble clef. I will be learning to read the bass clef shortly.


----------



## BobBrines (Jun 14, 2018)

Yes I read. I started playing flute in grade school, so treble clef is now automatic. Later, I picked up recorder. Interesting group of instruments. All recorders are written non-transposing even though they alternate C/F. So I can transpose up a fifth or down a fourth automatically. Also, I was the only one in my consort that was interested in playing bass recorder, so now I read bass clef fluently. I sing the bass part in church music.

Never got comfortable with C clefs. The only one I have actually used is French violin clef -- C on the bottom line. Some alto recorder music is written in French violin clef, particularly Telemann.


----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

In the most rudimentary way, yes. I took an intro music theory class in college where I learned how to read it. I can't say I always know what everything I come across in a score means but I know enough to be able to follow along with the score when I'm seeing it in a YouTube video or something.


----------



## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Yes, but not quickly, which means it takes me longer than it should to learn new pieces on the piano as I have to pick my way carefully through the score. The silver lining is that, once I *have* learned a piece, it's well established in my memory and will stay there as long as I keep practising and playing it.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Can you read sheet music?*

I generally have less trouble with the title and credits above and below the staves, unless they're in Hungarian or some other confounding language like Finnish or Arabic!

As for what is on the staves, as long as a C is a C things are okay. But when those infernal viola-ists and alto singers muck up the C by changing it to a B with their dang clef, let alone B-flat and F Trumpets, B-flat and A Clarinets, French Horns and all those other infernal transposing instruments (and please, don't get me started on Saxophones!) I might as well be back in the Hungarian section of the universe -- which is perfectly okay if I'm with my stereo rig (which knobs are all marked in English) and my pile of Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, and Ernő Dohnányi records. (And what is it anyway with Hungarians putting apostrophes over so many of their vowels, and sometimes two commas! Do they put commas over the musical notes A and E as well? No wonder I'm so confounded by Hungarian.)

One of my least memorable experiences was when I was a high schooler and the Chorus director placed me in the tenor section between two fellows who could not carry a tune unless it was a monotonic flat/sharp-micro-tone of their own invention. It wasn't so much that I had to read the sheet music while standing between these two as it was that all I had to do was sing any note other than what they were harping and the director of the chorus was pleased. (The director did once tell me that I read [music] "like a fish". To date, some five decades later, I still don't know what he meant. Maybe that I was all wet? Or maybe I drowned out everyone else? Or maybe that I was always in water too deep for me? Alas .... I did have opportunities to work with this director in both my high school chorus and in local Church choirs where I got opportunities to sing in Latin, Russian, Old Church Slovanic, and Polish, as well as in English. No matter the language, my sheet music's C was always a C. I evaded opportunities to sing in the local Hungarian Catholic church. I knew not if their C was a C, but I was certain their words were not my words. Foolish youth!)

A second experience worth forgetting, also from high school, involved my writing a short march piece for the school's band. The director of that organization was kind enough to have the band play the piece for me, but I had written all transposing instruments in regular C nomenclature and the trumpets and horns and danged saxophones played what was on the pages I wrote, never transposing their parts. Alas ... a learning experience that taught me I would never be a composer. (Though the director, perhaps tongue in cheek, pointed out that I had a knack for Milhaudian-styled polytonality. Which may explain why I'm not a big fan of modern French music, either.)


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I could easily read sheet music when I was playing piano and clarinet as a youngster, but I have not played for decades. So, I'm not a yes or no but a sort-of.


----------



## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

BobBrines said:


> Yes I read. I started playing flute in grade school, so treble clef is now automatic. Later, I picked up recorder. Interesting group of instruments. All recorders are written non-transposing even though they alternate C/F. So I can transpose up a fifth or down a fourth automatically. Also, I was the only one in my consort that was interested in playing bass recorder, so now I read bass clef fluently. I sing the bass part in church music.
> 
> *Never got comfortable with C clefs. The only one I have actually used is French violin clef -- C on the bottom line. Some alto recorder music is written in French violin clef, particularly Telemann*.


My reading weakness as well. I CAN read it, but it's halting and jerky.

I had to write out an arrangement for a short cello solo for a show I MDd, and it was a "learning experience" getting familiar with cello clef protocol.

I showed it to our 14-year-old soloist to make sure it even made sense. She took a quick look at it and said it looked fine. Whew.


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

BobBrines said:


> Yes I read. I started playing flute in grade school, so treble clef is now automatic. Later, I picked up recorder. Interesting group of instruments. All recorders are written non-transposing even though they alternate C/F. So I can transpose up a fifth or down a fourth automatically. Also, I was the only one in my consort that was interested in playing bass recorder, so now I read bass clef fluently. I sing the bass part in church music.
> 
> Never got comfortable with C clefs. The only one I have actually used is French violin clef -- C on the bottom line. Some alto recorder music is written in French violin clef, particularly Telemann.


Bear in mind, a wind instrument can only play 1 note at a time. With the possible exception of some saxophonists, who can play both an alto and tenor sax simultaneously. A typical wind transcription consists of a single line of notes on a single stave. A violin family instrument can only bow 2 adjacent strings simultaneously. The only time more than 2 notes can be played at a time is plucking staccato notes. Either with the right hand alone, or with free fingers on the left hand, while simultaneously bowing with the right hand. A typical violin family score consists of a single line of notes, with the occasional double stop thrown in.

Since the average human has 10 fingers, it's possible to play up to 10 notes at a time on a keyboard instrument. If both thumbs are holding down 2 adjacent keys, that brings the total up to 12. If an organist is holding down notes with both heals and both toes, the total is now 16. Keyboard transcriptions can and often do look like mass cluster bombs. It's considerably more difficult to learn sight reading on a keyboard than most other instruments.

Full disclosure: I'm quoting "Piano Guy" Scott Houston, who hosted a show on PBS.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I can read "sheet music." Easy. It is just two words.


----------



## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

I learned piano when I was a child. So for reading piano sheet music, generally no problem. For orchestral works, I cant read transposing instruments very quickly, other than that generally OK.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I was better at it in my teens and 20s when I was playing more guitar. I did the Carcassi, and Aaron Shearer method books. And I went through the entire Al Di Meola songbook (no tab) and learned several tunes. Never had any experience with orchestral scores.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Dan Ante said:


> I am with you on that Phil unless you are a LvB or Wamy.


Nah, you just need to be a strong sightreader, solid instrumentalist, and have perfect pitch.

That's like 1/10000 people but still much higher odds than being Beethoven or Mozart.


----------



## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I can read music. I am not a music teacher, but I've had music teachers.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

^Indeed! And I immediately knew that was the finale of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, which I still haven’t mastered two years after learning the first two movements - a good reminder to get back at it.

Yes, I read musical notation fluently, though I don’t have perfect pitch (and just barely have relative pitch) and listening with a score is a bit more difficult. I can only read bass and treble clefs.


----------



## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Having just voted no i am surprised by how much of a minority i am in here within this poll. My strong assumption in that those who can read sheet music have been drawn to click on the poll whereas those who cannot have not generally opened the thread. But i may be wrong


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I have been a singer since grade school but never had any professional instruction. For years I sang in choirs and followed scores like a road map.

After 60 years I can read sheet music as a singer -- both tenor and bass -- on both the treble and bass clef. However, I cannot read (don't know) key signatures so I either have to hear the first note or have it played on a pitch pipe to get started.

We practice in C so sometimes I can read up or down from that to get my pitch. If I'm practicing at home I can use a cheat sheet of key sigs, then play the note on my pitch pipe to get started.

Being self-taught I only in recent years learned to read natural markings against the key signature. I'm sure I will learn more as time progresses.

Sometimes navigating key changes in the midst of a song, or at the coda, are a challenge for me.


----------

