Learning to read notes on a flute is the prerequisite for reading music sheets and playing beautiful melodies.
Since you are here, you must be sincere about learning the play flute properly. Also, you might be self-teaching yourself. Here, we have a thorough guide for reading flute notes.
In this guide, we will talk about all the essential ideas you should pay attention to while learning to read flute notes.
Go over the details below to unravel the new stage of flute learning.
Things You Need To Learn To Comprehend Flute Notes
Flute notes are comprised of various symbols, notes, and note values. To learn to read flute notes, you need to learn all the symbols and their placements. Let’s see what you need to know to read flute notes on a music sheet.
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Different Types Of Notes And Their Symbols
There are four kinds of notes and four different representations of the notes. We will describe what they look like. You have to look at them from a book, or some online resources. Match our descriptions of the notes with the images if necessary.
We talk about the two basic kinds of notes so you can begin easily. In the basic notes, we have long and short notes.
The symbol of long notes is not filled in black. In other words, you will this note containing a hole inside it. Unlike long notes, the short note symbol is filled in black.
These notes are also called black-and-white notes. But those names are rather for how they look. They have other names for their functions. You will find that in the following section.
Different Parts Of A Note And Values Of Notes
The round parts of the notes’ symbols are called heads—and the straight lines holding the heads are called stems.
We have already described in the preceding section, there is a hollow note and a filled note. The heads of the notes stay hollow or filled. These aspects of the formation of the notes add value to the notes. To understand the notion of value, go over the paragraph below.
The hollow ones are supposed to play for 2 seconds, or the time it takes you to say one and two. The filled ones are supposed to be played for 1 second, or the time it takes you to say one.
Now that you have learned about the functions of the notes, you have realized their formations. Depending on the function aspect, the white is called a half note, and the black note is called a quarter note.
Rest Between The Notes And Symbol
You will find an entirely black squiggly symbol in the music sheet between the notes. That is known as rest. The value of the rest is as same as the quarter notes. In other words, you take the rest for the same time it takes to count one.
The Staff
You will find several groups of lines on a music sheet. The groups contain five similar lines—the five-line together are known as the staff or stave.
The Notes are placed on the lines, also, sometimes between the spaces of the line. You will find a total of four space lines between the five lines. Also, the lines and spaces contain different alphabets for notes.
The Placement Of The Notes
The placements of the notes in the staff cause the inflection or changes in the notes. For instance, note B stays in the 3rd line of the staff. You could see a half note or a quarter note in the line you have for B.
Then again, under B, we have G and E. You will find the symbols on lines just like you find B in the middle of the staff. Next, you comprehend and play accordingly. As it came to playing the flute, you finger the flute, looking at the stave’s alphabets and symbols.
Techniques You Need To Practice To Read And Play Notes
Learning all the ideas for reading notes is not enough. You are supposed to read and play the note, right? There are a few things you need to pay attention to while reading the notes.
Hold Your Body Correctly
Initially, posture might not seem important in terms of playing the flute. Or, we instead say, playing and reading a note has nothing to do with posture. In fact, how you are holding your body while practicing flute is critical.
Your posture will not only help you to play the flute perfectly; it will also let you sit in a comfortable position to read the note. And, we all know why we have to learn to read flute notes. So, relax, and rest your body to read the note and, finally, play them.
Learning One Note At A Time
While you are trying to read the note, practice them one by one. Experts flutists always suggest taking time and going slow. It’s for the best if you learn to flute notes gradually, one after another.
Please don’t read all of them together and attempt to play them. That way, you might end up reading and playing many of them wrong. Hence, it could take longer to master them.
There is one more concern. Mistakes can be demotivating sometimes, but you might not make as many mistakes as you will make while trying to read and play many notes together if you go at a slower pace.
That’s why try to read notes with smaller tunes. Besides, you can accidentally make a habit of making mistakes or playing something wrong again and again.
That type of flaw is relatively more challenging to correct. Try reading smaller notes that create smaller tunes. Then, try to play them without making frequent mistakes.
Develop Your MO
Teachers encourage students to think of specific ideas while learning to read different notes. You can think of a note as something else to remember better.
Sometimes teachers’ developed techniques to get the notes right get passed on to their students as well. But you can always develop your very own technique.
Practice From The Fundamentals
In the beginning, teachers direct students to learn all the notes on one scale. We have suggested practicing one note at a time. Just like that, you play one scale at a time.
Also, it would help if you learned the fundamental scales first. Once you master those, you can move on to learning other higher notes. Speaking of starting from basic scales, you can start with a B-flat major.
On A Final Note
Reading notes could be overwhelming at the beginning. You can only become successful when you are patient and taking easy.
Try learning the music with the aspects we have mentioned regarding reading notes on a music sheet. Then play the note with the techniques we have suggested. Hopefully, you will find it in the productive path of flute practice.