HELP WITH READING MUSIC
I’d like to sing with you but can’t read music
By Dan Hooper (Tenor)
I’m sure that you will be reading this article because you believe that you cannot take part in choral singing with Wellington Choral Society as you can’t read music.
Undoubtedly you will talk to many people who can name every note with ease, who can sing the right note just by looking at it, or who can play an instrument with just a cursory look at the score. HOWEVER these people only make up a small number of our membership, with many people developing their own techniques to get by.
I’ve been singing with Welly Choral for about 10 years, and I joined because I wanted to sing good music with a large number of people despite not being able to name a single note.
Opening the Music Score
At the start of each term we are given the new score, and I open it with trepidation. The whole document looks like a foreign language with a jumble of black notes that jump all over the page. Laurence gets us start to learning some of the easy sections as well as harder sections so we can see are making progress.
The first thing to remember when faced with a score, is that you have all the words you need in the right order. Things look more complicated because there are four voice parts: soprano (very high), Alto (high) generally sung by female members. Tenor (a bit lower) and Bass (definitely low) generally sung by men. A few women sing Tenor and a few men sing alto.
Each voice part has its own line of words and music. The lines of music are arranged in staves for each part, with Soprano singing the top stave, then Alto, then Tenor with Bass singing the bottom stave of notes.
Making sense of the musical score
The notes themselves are formed of hollow or black dots, some with tails on and often many joined together through their tails. Each note type is a different length:
Each piece also has a time signature which may look like 4/4 or 2/2 – the top number is the number of beats in a bar.
The notes are arranged on the staves and are named alphabetically A to G. As I said, I still cannot name these easily however the rule is the higher the note on the stave, the higher you sing, in tune of course!
At the beginning of each term Laurence provides a set of rehearsal notes recommending recordings to listen to as well as choral aids to help learn your part. At the end of each rehearsal he outlines the sections which he would like you to familiarise yourself with for the following week. Many of the aids allow you to slow the music down to a note at a time which means it is much easier to follow what is happening. I use these aids extensively to help me work out more difficult phrasing and I also listen to the whole piece over and over again so that I’m really comfortable with the rhythm and the repeating musical themes that tend to run through a piece.
Please don’t be put off by singing with a score, it is fun, it can be challenging but the feeling after the concert is phenomenal. Just knowing that we have worked together to learn a new piece and have taken it through to a public performance in about 10 weeks is wonderful. I hold on to the comments early in the term when Laurence asks us to sing something from scratch and it sounds awful, even to us. He will break into a huge smile and say ‘well, you’ll never sing that as badly again!’
The Open University has a free introductory course if you wish to further your knowledge:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/music/an-introduction-music-theory/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab
By Dan Hooper (Tenor)
I’m sure that you will be reading this article because you believe that you cannot take part in choral singing with Wellington Choral Society as you can’t read music.
Undoubtedly you will talk to many people who can name every note with ease, who can sing the right note just by looking at it, or who can play an instrument with just a cursory look at the score. HOWEVER these people only make up a small number of our membership, with many people developing their own techniques to get by.
I’ve been singing with Welly Choral for about 10 years, and I joined because I wanted to sing good music with a large number of people despite not being able to name a single note.
Opening the Music Score
At the start of each term we are given the new score, and I open it with trepidation. The whole document looks like a foreign language with a jumble of black notes that jump all over the page. Laurence gets us start to learning some of the easy sections as well as harder sections so we can see are making progress.
The first thing to remember when faced with a score, is that you have all the words you need in the right order. Things look more complicated because there are four voice parts: soprano (very high), Alto (high) generally sung by female members. Tenor (a bit lower) and Bass (definitely low) generally sung by men. A few women sing Tenor and a few men sing alto.
Each voice part has its own line of words and music. The lines of music are arranged in staves for each part, with Soprano singing the top stave, then Alto, then Tenor with Bass singing the bottom stave of notes.
Making sense of the musical score
The notes themselves are formed of hollow or black dots, some with tails on and often many joined together through their tails. Each note type is a different length:
- a semibreve is a hollow dot worth 4 beats
- a minim is a hollow dot with a tail for 2 notes
- a crotchet is a 1 beat solid dot with a tail
- a quaver is a black dot with a tail with a little flag on it and is half a beat
- quavers are divided into semi quavers and demi semi quavers but you will get to know them better once you start singing.
Each piece also has a time signature which may look like 4/4 or 2/2 – the top number is the number of beats in a bar.
The notes are arranged on the staves and are named alphabetically A to G. As I said, I still cannot name these easily however the rule is the higher the note on the stave, the higher you sing, in tune of course!
At the beginning of each term Laurence provides a set of rehearsal notes recommending recordings to listen to as well as choral aids to help learn your part. At the end of each rehearsal he outlines the sections which he would like you to familiarise yourself with for the following week. Many of the aids allow you to slow the music down to a note at a time which means it is much easier to follow what is happening. I use these aids extensively to help me work out more difficult phrasing and I also listen to the whole piece over and over again so that I’m really comfortable with the rhythm and the repeating musical themes that tend to run through a piece.
Please don’t be put off by singing with a score, it is fun, it can be challenging but the feeling after the concert is phenomenal. Just knowing that we have worked together to learn a new piece and have taken it through to a public performance in about 10 weeks is wonderful. I hold on to the comments early in the term when Laurence asks us to sing something from scratch and it sounds awful, even to us. He will break into a huge smile and say ‘well, you’ll never sing that as badly again!’
The Open University has a free introductory course if you wish to further your knowledge:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/music/an-introduction-music-theory/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab