3 Common Mistakes People Make When Reading Musical Notes and Their Corresponding Piano Keys

Learning piano when you’re an adult is not as hard as you may imagine.

More often, it’s tough because you’re too busy but want to get results with the piano quickly.

However, hurrying to get results quickly will cost you more time to re-learn the basics in the future.

Reading musical notes and their corresponding keys are often neglected.

That’s why today our guest Neil from sublimelody.com brings us 3 common mistakes people make when it comes to reading piano notes and keys.

Let’s get started.

1. Relying heavily on mnemonic devices

You are probably very familiar with these mnemonic devices for names of lines and spaces in the treble clef:
Names of 5 lines from the bottom to the top:













E G B D F = Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Names of 4 spaces from the bottom to the top:

F A C E

And the bass clef:
Names of 5 lines from the bottom to the top:

G B D F A = Great Big Dog Fights Animals

Names of 4 spaces from the bottom to the top:

A C E G = All Cows Eat Grass

At the first glance, these acronyms are really interesting and easy to remember. However, they limit you to reading just 18 musical notes.

So, you’ll have no idea how to read musical notes when they lie on ledger lines.

Solution

Learn to read musical notes by the left-brained approach to reading sheet music (aka the landmark system). You can learn more at the original guide from sublimelody.com.

In this approach, you’ll remember specific positions of musical notes and the order of them.
It will help you be able to read every single note on a sheet music, no matter it lies on the major line, space, or ledger line.


2. Reading notes in the bass clef by reading it in the treble clef first

More often, we learn to read musical notes in the treble clef first.

By the time, we will be so familiar with the notes in the treble clef.

It makes us lazy when it comes to learning to read notes in the bass clef.
We’re just too busy and want to save our mind by remembering things as less as possible.


So, I see that many tutors satisfy your need to memorize less by teaching you:
To read a note on the bass clef, first, read that note in the treble clef, then add two upper notes, you will have the name of that note in the bass clef.

For example:

If it was the treble clef, the note above is C.
Now, we add 2 upper notes: C – D – E.
So, in the bass clef, the note above is E!

Bravo! What a brilliant method!

No! It just wastes your time!

Here’s why:
As you can see: You take 2 steps to read a note in the bass clef:
First, you need to read it in the treble clef
Second, you need to add 2 upper notes to identify that note in the bass clef.

At first, you will find it fast to read notes in the bass clef by that method.
However, it will cost you a lot of time reading them in the future.

Solution

Learning the musical notes in the bass clef right after you know how to read notes in the treble clef.
And learning them separately!

3. Playing the wrong corresponding piano key of a musical note
Now, let assume that you already know how to read musical notes on a sheet music.
The next part is to find where are their corresponding keys on the piano keyboard?

For example, the picture below is the G-note in the treble clef:

But where exactly its corresponding key on the keyboard?
(You can see the keyboard has many G-keys)
So, we’re often confused and pick a random G-key.

Solution

Here is the complete diagram of musical notes and their corresponding piano keys:

Summary:
- The middle C is C4. It lies on the 4th octave, aka the middle octave on the piano keyboard
- The G-line in the treble clef is G4. It also lies on the 4th octave
- The F-line in the bass clef is F3. It lies on the 3rd octave

Conclusion
These are just 3 common mistakes in reading musical notes and corresponding piano keys.
There will be thousands of mistakes if you just try to get results fast.

So, if you are serious in your piano learning and don’t want to waste time to re-learn these basics in the future, I recommend you to read this guide on how to read piano notes and keys by Neil from sublimelody.com.

It’s full of visuals and simple explanation on the topic.
You’ll find that reading musical notes and piano keys aren’t complicated.

guest post by Neil from sublimelody.com

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