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Topic: I teached myself how to read sheet music but I'm having a big trouble here...  (Read 5027 times)

Offline dasphillipbrau

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I simply read the notes too slow, so I cant play anything fluidly, and besides I feel as if there is something seriously wrong with the notes, as if I'm not playing the right ones (even though I AM playing the indicated notes, since my keyboard has a sheet display) because it sounds nothing like the song i'm trying to play.

Right now, I'm trying to play this song




I dont know what these symbols mean


And as soon as I reach the part in red...the song just stops sounding like it should, so I suppose it must be something very important.

Offline ranniks

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I simply read the notes too slow, so I cant play anything fluidly, and besides I feel as if there is something seriously wrong with the notes, as if I'm not playing the right ones (even though I AM playing the indicated notes, since my keyboard has a sheet display) because it sounds nothing like the song i'm trying to play.

Right now, I'm trying to play this song




I dont know what these symbols mean


And as soon as I reach the part in red...the song just stops sounding like it should, so I suppose it must be something very important.


The first thing you marked is a 'pause' symbol. It means the right hand takes a break worth of 1/8th. See that 4/4 time signature? The entire meassure should contain 4 normal 1/4th notes, but instead in your version (like many other pieces) it is divided in 8 1/8ths notes. One of those 1/8th notes has been left out and become a 'pause'.

The second thing you marked is a, how do you say this: basically you don't play the entire chord right away, you play the lowest note, then second, third and fourth really quickly behind each other. And with quick I mean quick. You just play the chord but you don't hit each note at the same time.

The third thing you marked is a 'legato bow', which basically means that you keep holding the note that has the legato bow. So in your piece you just hold the chord until the end of the meassure.

Sometimes the legato bow expands in other meassures. In your piece it does not.

Offline indianajo

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A lot of time on pop sheet music, what they sell on sheet music is not what is on the record/movie/CD/track.  This may not be your problem.   Pros use fake books, which violate copywrite but mostly have more correct version.  You can't buy these in stores, only at musician's union parking lots  out of the trunks of cars of the bootlegger.  
If you could find a teacher, he/she might keep you from injuring yourself with incorrect posture.  Also, he or she could help you with this.  Ask around a church or elementary school.  There are music store pros, but the teachers that work out of their house are usually cheaper and often are better.  
The kind of questions you are asking are part of "music theory" if you want to buy a book on it.  
As far as going slowly, that is what you do until your lower brain has memorized the movements.  You don't do music with your frontal cortex, that is what you learn with, but is not what you play the songs with.  You go slowly enough that you make no mistakes, then when that goal is achieved, you can speed up. 

Offline dasphillipbrau

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Thanks for the help so far guys!

Could I get more insight on those symbols (names and such) so that I could study them further?

I did as you guys said and the song now sounds as it should  ;D still doing it a bit slow though :P


I took classes with a church teacher for about 1 and a half year...he was a great pianist, however he wasn't a great teacher (and I wasn't a great student either), he never teached me anything about sheet music, he didn't used sheets, instead he just gave me some things called "ciphers" which were basically the lyrics of the song with the note above the words (in letters, no pentagram), they were also poorly made, notes placed in the wrong word, and A LOT of things left ambiguous, I could never reproduce a song he teached me because even he didn't played it like in the "ciphers", he basically expected me to improvise the entire song while I barely knew a thing.

I'm currently looking for another teacher...but I just can't afford one, so I'm just waiting for some spaces to open in a government-run academy which I've gotten great references about.

Offline chechig

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Hi
This is a basic explanation of musical symbols, it may be useful for you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_symbols

1 Pause
2 Legatto-tie
3 Arpegiatto
You have a small explanation of each in the above page.
I hope it's useful!!

Offline dasphillipbrau

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That helped a lot, thanks!
For more information about this topic, click search below!

Piano Street Magazine:
New Piano Piece by Chopin Discovered – Free Piano Score

A previously unknown manuscript by Frédéric Chopin has been discovered at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum. The handwritten score is titled “Valse” and consists of 24 bars of music in the key of A minor and is considered a major discovery in the wold of classical piano music. Read more
 

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