Reading a short melody

The first eight notes of "Frère Jacques" use only three pitches, C, D and E, and you can read them by shape before you name a single note.

Read the shape, then the names

Naming every note one by one is how everybody starts, but it is not how fluent readers read. They notice the shape of the line first: does it go up or down, does it move by step or jump? A note on the next line or space is a step, the next letter. A note that jumps from a line to the next line, or a space to the next space, is a skip of a third. Anything bigger is a leap. If you know the first note and the size of each move, you know the whole melody.

Try it with the traditional round "Frère Jacques". The first bar starts on C, steps up to D and E, then drops back to C. The second bar repeats it. The third bar starts on E and steps up through F to G. Even before you name anything, the picture shows a small zigzag, repeated, then a climb. Musicians call this rise and fall the contour of the melody.

Use the bar lines

Bar lines divide the music into small groups of beats called bars or measures. They help you in two ways. First, they break the melody into chunks your eye can take in at once, usually three to eight notes. Second, they reset accidentals, as you saw in the unit on sharps, flats and naturals. When you read a new piece, look at each bar as a unit and ask what it does: a step pattern, a repeated note, a jump to a high note. Repeated bars are common, and spotting them halves the work.

A second melody

"Mary Had a Little Lamb" starts on E, steps down to D and C, steps back up to D and E, and then plays E twice more, so E sounds three times in a row. On the staff that looks like a small valley followed by three notes in a straight row. Repeated notes sit on the same line or space, so you read them once and simply keep playing. The second phrase repeats D three times, then jumps from E up to G, the only skip in the opening. Read it through on the staff below before you play it.

Here is a routine that works for any short melody. First, point at each note and say only up, down or same. Second, hum the tune on a neutral syllable such as la while you point. Third, name the first note, find it on the keyboard and play. Splitting the job like this means your eyes deal with the shape while your hands deal with the keys. If the first note is not a landmark, name the nearest landmark and count from it.