The Grand Staff

Playing by ear to me is so beautiful. Once you know the basic and the whys and the logic of the music, you can play almost any songs. You can play a new song almost instantly (with few exceptions) the minute you hear it without having to look for the music score. Playing without needing a musical sheet is so practical and impromptu.

Nevertheless, I find that it is always helpful to know how to read a note. As for me, I am still strugling with trying to read a musical note, and writing one. But it does help in some instances where you need ideas and new styles to learn from. Like trying to figure out how Richard Clayderman do the chorus on "Ballade pourAdeline". Ha ha . . .

If you're like me before, when a music score looks like Russian alphabets (no offense to the Russians, k), and sprouting bean sprouts, I'll include here a basic score writing chart that you can refer to as a beginner.

In a normal music score, there's a two set of lines called the Grand staff. The top is called the Treble clef, and the bottom is called the Base clef, as shown in the diagram below.

One of my favourite tips to read the notes are, for the Treble clef, try to memorize each lines as Every Good Boy Does Fine. Ie. E G B D F. In between lines, spell F A C E.

Base clef, for every lines, remember Great Big Dreams For America, ie. G B D F A and in between lines are All Cows Eat Grass => A C E G.

So what you need to do now is to take a piece of clean music sheet and fill out the lines as the above diagram. Then find one simple musical score, maybe from your kid's, and try to read and play the notes. (And maybe write on it...with a pencil, of course)

Hey, if you managed to try this, let's share, or anything else that I should include, just let me know ok. As I mentioned earlier, I am by no means an expert, but I'll share with you whatever I know here. Have a great lesson.