Hi everyone! My name is Syd, and I’m the Front End Manager here at the Kitchener Academy of Music. Even though I work at a music school, I’ve actually never taken music lessons before- can you believe that? So I figured now is as good a time as any to
get started! Join me as I take music lessons with some of our amazing teachers. So far I’ve taken Violin, Guitar, Vocal, and Drum lessons! You can read all about them HERE!
Since we’ve had to move to fully online lessons over the last few weeks, I figured this would be a great time to try out some Zoom lessons while I’m working from home! Originally, I had planned to take a flute lesson with Chris (our fantastic flute teacher!) but as I don’t have a flute at home, we decided to adapt and use this time to learn more about the basics of reading music. I’ve never really learned how to read sheet music, so Chris started off by walking me through the basics! I learned about the staff, which is a set of 5 horizontal lines and 4 spaces in between the lines, where notes are written. We focused on learning the notes in the Treble Clef. I learned that in the spaces of the lines, the notes are F,
A, C and E; an easy way to remember this is the word “FACE”. The lines of the staff are the notes E, G, B, D, F, and you can remember that by saying Every Good Boy Does Fine, or Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. It might sound funny, but that’s a great way to remember what notes go on which lines! Chris quizzed me about which notes were on which parts of the staff, and I got them all right (with some help from the FACE and EGBDF acronyms!).
After this, we moved on to note values! Different notes get played for different amounts of time, depending on their note value. Some notes, like whole notes, last for 4 counts. Half notes last for half of the amount of time of a whole note, so they last for 2 counts. Quarter notes only last for one count, because they are ¼ of the length of a whole note. The same logic applies to eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Each of these notes looks a little bit different, so that you can tell them all apart when you’re reading sheet music!
We finished off our lesson by doing a bit of ‘composition’- Chris had me write some of my own music using the notes and the values that I learned, and then he played the music back for me! I have to say, I don’t see myself becoming a composer anytime soon, but it was really fun! All in all, my first Zoom lesson was AWESOME! It was great to be able to learn music from home (and in my pyjamas!) and I learned so much!
If you’re interested in taking Theory lessons, or any music lessons, contact us today! Right now you can sign up for Music Lessons at The Kitchener Academy of Music for by emailing us at tkaminfo@gmail.com, or giving us a call at (519) 893-2121. We can’t wait to hear from you!
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