Sheet Music

Sheet music and its importance cannot be explained in mere words. When you are a beginner at playing the piano or the guitar, you may dream about becoming one of the best players that your town or country has known. With time, you will realize the gravity of your dream. In your frustration to perform well in the art of music that takes you through a long journey requiring immense patience, you may also get lost along the way.

Have you heard of some people who play music instruments by the ear? When it comes to playing by the ear, there are two ways to get about it. The first and the most appropriate way is that you master music theory and then along the way, with accumulated experience in the field, you will develop an ability to play music just by listening to it, without having to refer to sheet music. This act is a super form of imitation that some experts in the field can do so well due to their expertise with the instrument. The second and the quite inappropriate way of playing by the ear are to surpass the struggle, the long journey and the time it takes to learn to read sheet music. Individuals who play by the ear this way are people who have master the tones and notes through the ear. If you place sheet music in front of them, they will not know how to read the notation. But if you tell them to play heaven by Brian Adams, they’d play it oh so perfectly well.

Now getting back to the importance of learning to read sheet music is that not all songs; no matter how competent an individual is, cannot be played by ear. This stands equally and especially true for new age songs like trance and techno. But if you were to play these songs using sheet music, you could be rest assured that you will be able to play.

Besides, when you play by the ear, you tend to forget the notations, chords etc. This happens mainly because you rely on your ability to recognize individual tones of the notes. So while you play a complex melody, it is likely that you will miss out on a lot of fine details of notations when you play by the ear. So here’s a piece of small advice that will take you a long way: Never become too lazy not to learn to read music sheets and learn to play. You may have the ability to play by the ear but if you cannot read music and cannot play absolutely any piece that is sitting on the note stand in front of you, you cannot really call yourself a pianist or a guitarist, now can you?