While it may seem like a difficult task, reading music is actually not that hard. If you would like to learn how to read music, all it will take is some time and practice. If you have an understanding of music at all then learning to read will be much easier. There are three basic elements in music that are notated on written music, rhythm, melody and harmony. These are the traits that make music sound the way it does. You will need to spend a decent amount of time practicing reading music in order to be good at it. It is also important that you practice reading music along with other musicians.

Rhythm is the most fundamental concept of music. It is notated on sheet music by different notes. There are whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes and so on. The many kind of notes all look different and all indicate rhythm in music.

Melody, as opposed to rhythm, is all about pitch. Melody will be indicated by the vertical position of the notes on the staff (the five lines on top of each other that you see on standard music notation).

Harmony is a more complex concept in music. Harmony is what you get when more than one note is played at the same time. You can have simple harmonies that sound very consonant, or more complex harmonies that are known as dissonant. You can have harmony between two notes, which is also known as a chord. Most chords contain three or more notes, but technically to be a chord you only need to have two notes.

It is important that when you learn to read music that you practice it regularly. It is easy to loose progress on your music reading if you do not keep up with it regularly. Try to practice reading music just like you would practice playing an instrument.

It is also best to practice reading music in a setting with other musicians. Playing with other musicians will make it so you have to keep up and not loose track of the time or the pitch. If you do, then you will quickly notice that you are not in the same place as the other musicians.

If you would like to learn how to read music, then you may want to start with some online research. The internet is a great place to find information about music. You can also listen to music for free on the internet and watch helpful videos.

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Being able to read music is essential to speak the language, as it were.

Music is a language unto itself. Given that, how can you communicate if you cannot speak it?

Ensembles, bands, choirs, opera, jazz all operate on the written notes first. As soon as man could sing he wanted to pass on his songs to the next  generation, hence the need for written music.

Before learning to have a musical conversation one must learn the language basics.

Simply put, if you cannot read you will never be in any ensemble that requires it. We could really stop right there.

reading music is essential to understanding theory. All of the structure of chords, melody, harmony and so forth can only be understood completely through the written note. Music theory is the building blocks of harmony and melody and must be understood first. It may seem hard, but it is worth the effort.

You can learn music by only reading it like you would a book. When you follow music you can learn a song without an instrument in your hand. If you can read music you can go straight to the book and get all of the basic information on your own. Have you ever learned a song from someone else and not known if you got it right or got all of the information you need? This greatly speeds up the learning curve. You cannot learn from a book the particular way a band performs the song, but you can get the basis of the song and go from there.

You can learn exactly how the author of the song meant for it to sound. I have many times been very surprised to find out a song was written very differently than I have always heard it performed. In “Georgia On My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, for example, no ones plays the intro. Even if you have known a song all of your life you may not know the entire version or the way it was meant to sound. I know as a songwriter myself; if I wrote a song and no one ever included a large part of it I would want them to know they are doing it wrong!

When you can read music the discovery of new worlds awaits you. Imagine if you were in a library full of books and you could not read. How sad that would be. Learn to read music today and discover new worlds.

When you can read music the discovery of new worlds awaits you. It may seem a little hard at first, but so was riding a bicycle as I recall. In fact the first time my father let go from holding me on a bicycle I ran into a post and knocked it over! I rarely do that these days now that I have learned how. In fact there are days when I don’t knock anything over.

You will only become a better musician if you learn to read music.    Learn to read music and you can discover music you would never hear otherwise, be able to speak with authority 
about the intent of the author and you will have more fun, I guarantee it.