Rethinking Mnemonics for Notes Names
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
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Mnemonics are great for things that are related but don't have any pattern. Note names are not like that because they really follow a very simple pattern and mnemonics seem to cause as much confusion than understanding.
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0:00 - Problems with Mnemonics
1:29 - Good Mnemonics and Bad Mnemonics
2:34 - How Note Naming Actually Works
3:30 - Ledger Lines
4:29 - Other Weirdo Clefs
4:59 - A Failsafe for Treble and Bass Clef
6:02 - Storytime!
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FACE is the most defensible of the mnemonics because it is just the note names without attaching other silly labels on them. It also helps with the cyclical nature of the notes too. If it helps you could treat it as as an F major 7th arpeggio, even.
Coincidentally, hats the only one I use 😅
I say face in the space and that’s it.
@@coolboyfire5279 My old teacher when I was in primary school used to say "dirty faces in the spaces", which helps you remember that the note below E is D.
@@coolboyfire5279What?!?
"There's a good chance you'll never encounter these clefs"
**stares in "picked viola as my first instrument"**
Somebody had to play it. Thank you for your service.
@@BradHarrison …and there you have another Viola joke. 🤦
Right there with ya! Love the viola!
Another fellow violist here! Started on violin, age 11, went to viola after college & woodshedded until I could read the clef. Perhaps had an easy go, as I played bassoon in college & learned tenor clef. Now I read them all effortlessly.
@@darktimesatrockymountainhi4046 Yes!!!
I teach C as a reference, regardless of clef. Then all any student needs to know is that up a third from any C is always E, down a third is always A, and if you always know where all your C’s are, you always have an easy line or space to count up or down from for any pitch, and it’s always within a 4th - no need to count from the bottom of the treble staff to find out that the top line is F, just count up 4 from treble C. It’s also helpful for ledger lines, because on a grand staff the C’s are mirrored, so it’s easy to remember how many ledger lines you need for a C - 2 above treble, 2 below bass - and then you just count any ledger notes from that reference point. And in between the staves you have middle C, on one ledger line for either staff. Since C is also the first key most students learn, given the lack of accidentals or key signatures, it’s really the most helpful reference point.
TrebClef: I knew the ledger line below was C & when not present, reminded Myself that the "hanging on" note was D for drip. I just needed self reinforcement.
But that require them to understand intervals which is not taught right away, and is often confusing for people.
@@carr0760 I’m not suggesting they need to understand intervals, because you can still just count up or down from any C. It’s just that the number of lines and spaces you need to count to figure out any note if you use the C’s as a reference are fewer than if your only reference is the bottom line of each clef.
You can also use the clef names as reference the G clef has g circled the F clef has f in between the dots guess what the alto or c clef has c where the two humps come together from there it’s just counting up the alphabet
@@dumbdumb9143 You certainly can. As a music teacher, though, I find maintaining consistency regardless of clef is the most helpful thing - if C is always your reference point, then if a student ever has to actually use C-clefs they don’t feel as foreign as if they’re used to G and F as reference points for treble and bass clefs.
Those mnemonics kept me from mastering reading music for years. Finally, I decided to 1) learn them backwards and 2) focus on where my instrument lives (b flat) and navigate around it.
I feel the same way!
May I ask what you mean by learning them backwards?
@@engar_ GFEDCBA
@@maatsko ah… literally backwards 😩 ty! should try that
@@engar_ Sorry I never saw your comment which is weird because I check every day. But yes, what Maatsko said is exactly what I meant.
Agreed 100%. Great vid. I have students that get glassy-eyed when I show them the mnemonics. I show them how to count instead and they say, "oh cool. got it."
It's amazing how much 'little kid' tools are prevalent in music so much so that people assume that it's the best way to learn music.
As a piano teacher, I’m very glad I watched this. Thank you for sharing your reasoning! Some of my students do just fine with mnemonics, but for most it does slow them down and they often forget the simple pattern of the alphabet. This is helping me re-think my strategy!
Excellent! I use mnemonics as an after thought. Gotta make sure the pattern is understood. Students miss the simple things sometimes, I think because the mnemonics are so catchy.
Finally! Someone who points it out. I remember in 5th grade, when this is our lesson in Music and I was like: "No, just remember the first ledger line above bass clef is the first ledger line in the bottom of treble clef, and it's middle C"
That’s a pretty great reference too, especially for piano.
Real nice! As a trumpet player (kid) I never went out of treble clef so I memorized those, but every time I looked at bass clef I had no idea. But since you just showed me the "G" and the bottom staff line it's no problem! Thanks!
Nice! Glad I could be of service.
@@BradHarrison ❤
Im Bassschlüssel stehen die Noten und Vorzeichen immer eine Linie tiefer als beim Violinschlüssel. Für Frauenstimmen wird der Violinschlüssel und für Männerstimmen der Bassschlüssel verwendet. So läßt sich ein 4-stimmiger Chorsatz auch leicht mehrstimmig begleiten.
Trying to read something in an unfamiliar clef as a musician can really reveal how much the mnemonics pull you out of the act of pattern recognition/observation. This is why I always make sure to teach my students how to read the patterns (steps vs. skips to start, and then intervals larger than a third), and I have the mnemonics written down and only use them if the student has lost a starting point.
I've tried everything. Finally found that you have to learn them by rote, you see it you know it. Practicing four-part hymns will get you there pretty fast. And they are melodic, your ear will tell you if you're hitting the right notes. Best strategy.
I am self taught at violin, been playing for about 20 years. Learned to read music. I knew about the FACE and ACEG things, I eventually didn't need them, I just KNEW what notes are what and where they are on violin. Takes practice, but then you just know them
As someone coming to piano from guitar, knowing a decent amount of music theory, being able to read rhythm on music notation but not the actual music, this has just saved me an inordinate amount of pain, there are so many convoluted tutorials out there and all I needed was "Treble clefs start on an E, Bass clefs start on a G".
Thank you so much for this.
i dont want to be rude, but i find it hard to believe theres such a thing as a tutorial about how to read music that doesnt tell you that information, like are you really saying you saw things that said "here's a mnemonic" but didnt also say trebel clef starts on e? even then, what does "associate the first line with the word 'every'" actually mean without associating it with the letter e?
I think the mnemonics are a good reference point but they shouldn’t be the only thing that you use to figure out notes
It’s always good to give students options, you never know what will click. But I teach mnemonics last. I think it’s crucial they understand the patterns first. And really, the patterns are super simple.
Videos need to be content !
Same. For a while, I knew that the center of the treble clef was G, but it was also faster for me sometimes to go "Every good boy does fine" or "face" to figure out what note I was looking at because you "count" two notes at a time that way instead of one. If I played something and it didn't sound right, I'd count all the way up, one by one, from G, to make sure I'd counted correctly the first time
@@syberyah exactly this. It is much faster to figure out the F using every good boy deserves fudge versus starting at e and counting every single line and space all the way up. Also, kids will often lose their place when counting up every single line and space like that. They skip a line or double count one and then they end up completely off anyway
@@syberyah my counter to that is teaching intervals fairly early on and explaining that the space between notes vertically tells you how far away they are. You start with seconds and thirds and work your way all the way up to an octave and beyond. I also teach reference points from the physicality of the staff instead of mnemonically.
It's worked pretty well so far
Pretty sure mnemonics were one of a few barriers to entry to doing music in my childhood. I distinctly remember trying to remember them, and asking myself why, and never remembering them. It would have done me well to simply learn what the pattern was. Now that I'm almost 30, I truly appreciate this block of simple instruction and feel like I understand what I'm looking at better than I did before. Thanks
I agree completely. I will admit that I have taught the mnemonics, not because I thought it made sense, but because that is the way it was taught to me. I have taught for more years than I want to count and I often re-think how I approach things. It has become increasingly obvious to me that the mnemonic causes the students to think of lines and spaces and ledger lines as completely separate systems and they don't see the connection. The bass clef students learn the treble clef in their music class and are completely confused.
I have been teaching the alphabet sequence which seems to make SO much more sense and is much more logical. A couple things that I am doing- I have a sheet that shows the letter names around a circle so that the students can see the sequence and how it repeats. We practice saying it backwards and forward. To drill the point, I sing the alphabet song, but only using ABCDEFG and repeat that for the entire song. I made up flash cards of notes on the staff to drill the sequence and then over time will drill them out of sequence, adding ledger lines as we get more comfortable.
Thanks for the great post!
As one who began on violin & bass, and later learned bassoon & viola, I can now read every clef np. When I was a string orchestra teacher, I used mnemonics only when a student had a lot of trouble with their clef. My first lesson for them was the Grand Staff - with the ledger line C in the middle. I then showed them how each clef literally points out the name of the clef: The "cross in a circle" of the G clef, the "notch" of the C clef, and the "dots" of the F clef. They also realized that G & F are each a fifth away from C, so that they had these reference points immediately, and mnemonics were not much help afterward. In my later years as a teacher, I learned to introduce the staff as a kind of mathematics coordinate grid, with the x being time & the y being pitch. Integrated curriculum!
I have always thought like this. Instead of trying to remember what phrase goes where, letter names are just easier, you know the order of letters regardless of all the extra baggage of the mnemonic devices, although I will admit F A C E and ACE G (just the letters, not learnt as a phrase) just sticks for me, it's like a snapshot and I can instantly go up or down one line.
huh isnt the baggage the point tho, it gives you more meaning with which to associate stuff. i just know "fine" is the last line on the treble clef cause thats just what every good boy does, rather than individually counting up from e. it doesnt feel like baggage, it feels like i dont have to start from scratch every time
With the G Clef I have always remembered that G is in the "crosshairs" and C is at the stem's end (the little Dot at the bottom.) With the F clef the f is the line between the two dots [[with the c clef the C is the line in the middle where the c clef points.!]
Observers see the middle c is shared.
Which doubles as the C at the "top" of the F or bass clef/stave
Repetition &
rote just like the alphabet they have a song for it
a b c d e f g still going to come down to memorization
When you are learning to read whether it's the ABCs Roman numerals or the clefs
This is very helpful. I've been playing bass clef instruments for many years now but just recently started learning an instrument that requires me to read treble clef. It's like trying to learn a second language.
Yeah, that can be tough. It takes a while to rewire your brain in that way. If possible, a bit of piano familiarity can help. I found it useful to visualize that I'm just lining up with a different region of the keyboard.
This is actually way better than mnemonics
I sure think so!
I played violin in middle school and I never committed the clef note phrases to memory. I memorized “A” on the treble clef and “C” on the bass clef because it was in the middle and learned to reference them to figure out notes.
I remember that when I first started learning the recorder in 4th grade our teacher made us remember some silly rhymes to remember the noted (here in Italy we use Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si not letter), but after I learned them I just completely forgot them and learned the noted just through memorisation. It’s not hard to just remember that the note on the 2nd row from the bottom is Sol or that the note just under the first line from the top is Mi, you just remember it and it’s easy to learn. The only problem is that I only use Treble clef so I definitely see myself struggle with Bass but I play clarinet so I shouldn’t need it
I think it's also helpful to note that the note that connects treble and bass clef, on the ledger line between those two is C
Excellent demonstration. I’m in this camp, for sure!
Thank you!
I play the violin, and I can name the notes pretty well. But I joined choir and I was put on the bass clef parts, so I've been wanting to learn the names, and this really helped me!!
Excellent! It takes some getting used to, and I highly recommend working stuff out on the piano, but it really does get easier with a bit of practice.
3:27 i appreciate that ryan george reference
also, I find the S MS A T Clefs are so weird. not even an alto sax use alto clef
Thanks!
Alto sax is funny because it does play in alto register, but it’s a transposing instrument so the notes it plays tend to fit better on the treble clef than the alto clef. Also, treble is just more common so that’s probably why it and so many other instrument use treble clef. Popular and successful things get more popular and successful.
my favorite is using the fact that the clefs mark the line that they are named after treble marks G, and bass clef marks F
I should have waiting until the end of the video XD
🤣
Haha. You bet!
I screenshot your illustrations, printed them, and now hanging on the wall next to my piano. Thank you.
Sounds great!
Glad I watched all the way through. I love this philosophy, but I definitely point out early-on, the Treble Clef is also "G clef" (similarly with Bass and Alto clefs). I grew tired of trying to memorize the mnemonics for those three clefs, and kinda discovered this as a "cheat". Great video Brad!
Thank you for this! I was laughing so hard at the conversation at 1:20 because it's SO TRUE! I have had this conversation so many times!! Lol, it's almost word-for-word. I teach piano and have never taught mnemonics. Most of my students are very good sight-readers. But I often get transfer students who can play beautifully, but can't sight read even simple tunes. Even with simple notes, they'll start saying mnemonics out loud to figure out what the note is. It's an uphill battle trying to get them to drop that habit!
It’s wild, isn’t it? The mnemonics are “easy” except when you mix them up somehow, and then they’re useless.
Crazy timing to find this. I just started transcribing and programming bass and piano a lot more for whatever reason and it’s required reading bass clef more than I ever have. It was daunting at first because I was using mnemonics but I’d have to contort my mind every time I had ledger lines. Below the staff, I have a hard time doing the alphabet in reverse 😅 and above the staff, my treble-centric mind kept on reading it wrong because honestly, even in treble clef I’m reading those notes on intuition and reaction lmao. Anyway, I started putting note names to the first few spaces and lines and from there, it’s easy just because I know where the octaves are already. The next step is to get used to key signatures in the “wrong spots” lol. It’s hard enough to deal with Pro Tools’ weird notation input quirks so it helped spur the progression at least. That was a totally irrelevant rant but it’s okay, right? 😊
I'm normally the same way with mnemonics. For instance, with guitar, I never bothered learning the open strings with "eddy ate dynamite, good bye eddy". My thought process was "It's six strings. Can I really not just take a few minutes to commit six pieces of information to memory without overcomplicating it?"
Sheet music has always been the one exception where I've always used mnemonics, but I can tell you it's only because I've been too lazy to sit down and learn it proper. That, and I don't actually sight read when I play, I just know how to identify the notes on a staff sheet.
The point is, you don't need mnemonics to remember things.
Very helpful!! Thank you for posting!!
I was always taught: “every good boy does fine” and “face”
Welcome back. Missed your tutorials! 🗣
I did not know that about the G and F-clef! Very cool. Cute Pitch Meeting reference 😉
This is amazing! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for your help I’ve been confused for months really helped
I took piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade, and stopped playing any instruments until middle school, where I did flute. I forgot all my mnemonics except FACE, and because I was learning mostly from my fellow flautists and didn't want to embarrass myself, I didn't ask for more mnemonics, so I just refered alphabetically with FACE.
Brad, *thank you*! Just found you and subbed, governor!
I think the people who use mnemonic just want a short cut to master the notes. However, they sometimes take an even longer time to read. If you are willing to be patient and come over the challenge to memorize, you can read and play faster, the notes in front of you are just diagrams in the mind.
Totally agree. And the mnemonics work and can definitely be useful, but if the person misses the underlying pattern(shockingly, it seems to happen all the time), the mnemonics do a great disservice.
i guess i get you, but this feels similar to like, question: whats 8+8+8. kid 1 just starts on 8 and counts up. kid 2 has to go through and remember their multiplication tables for 8 and it takes them more time and you go "whyd you waste your time remembering 8x2, 3, 4 etc? everyone knows how to just count up from 8" when in the long term, remembering the table eventually becomes faster, and knowing multiples of 8 is also a legitimate pattern to recognize like knowing the lines of treble clef are egbdf
@user-zr9hu3tf1y Sure! That kind of memorization is great and useful and becomes unconscious after a while. But think of the cases I described earlier in the video. Imagine if you knew 8*8 is 64, but not remembering what 8*9 is, and being stuck and unable to continue because you’re just trying to remember, all the while forgetting that you can just count up from 64 until you’ve added 8 and end up on 72. This is what happens with note naming when students don’t understand/remember the underlying pattern. You might take it for granted but it happens with new musicians.
@@BradHarrison i guess i disagree with some of your characterizations of things in this video, but i can mostly agree with what youre saying. video was still thoughtful and high quality like all the work ive seen of yours has been so far. these comments seem filled with people who sound validated and empowered by your perspective in this video, so clearly your making it has helped people. props for that, and thank you for the response. not that i didnt already know this, but ive definitely got a lot more to learn from your channel. peace ps. also you sound so much like notjustbikes lol. i wonder how much being canadian affects that
@user-zr9hu3tf1y Yeah, the video is inspired by my own work with confused students. But as said in the video, there’s more than one way to learn note names and everyone should do whatever works for them. Thanks for the comment and glad you’re enjoying the channel!
Sing it!!!!! Mnemonics confused the hell out of me in music.
Seriously, THANK YOU!
Interesting video. I stopped playing and listening to music about 20 years ago but I've always had an interest in pedagogy.
I can never every figure it out when playing fast, it just slows me down to have to think the mnemonics.
I haven't finshed watching it yet, but OP should say how the clefs are stylized letters, starting on the line they are. Treble = G, Bass = F The other one = C. Oh, now I have taken so long to type this, OP has got around to explaining this. OP is top drawer.
Haha. I was getting there!
Great presentation!
You have a most valuable channel. Thank you for your work.
My pleasure! So glad you’re enjoying!
Another helpful note: in Treble, the bottom swirl is on the first Leger line below the staff, and is C.
I agree with everything you say here. But one thing I don’t understand is why it’s not consistently mentioned that Middle C is directly in the middle between these 2 staffs. I am not a professional musician, and have very little music theory training. Is there a practical reason for this, and the use of ledger lines? I assume that on an instrument like piano, it plays a role in keeping left and right hand notes separated to a degree? Am I wrong that there are only 3 notes between the F and G staffs; B, Middle C and D?
You’re correct. I’m not sure the history of how those two clefs came to be the default for piano. But I can tell you that you sometimes see two treble clefs or two bass clefs if you’re playing very high or very low for a long time. There’s no reason piano must be treble and bass clef, it’s just the most common. I guess it just makes sense and evolved into the default because you can show a large range across the middle of the piano before resorting to ledger lines.
@@BradHarrison thanks Brad, as a guitar player, it was decades before I put 2 & 2 together and figured out were Middle C was and how the staffs fit together. My first music lessons were in Nashville and I was force fed from a book of guitar chords and taught the Nashville number system. Then along came tablature! Not that these are bad systems/tools, but some ‘classical’ theory would have changed everything. I’m still in recovery.
Love it and thank you!
I learned the mnemonics before I learned the notes and I didnt realize that they went in order on the staff
thank you so much i’ve been having trouble memorizing the bass clef notes
Great video thanks!🙏
I hate the mnemonics because I spend all my time trying to remember them as well as trying to figure out which letter each word starts with. I learned how notes work on the guitar and piano (at least the very basics) and I never looked back, but reading music still trips me up for 2 reasons, I cannot get anyone to teach me like you just did and second my eye does not read which line the note is on. At least for guitar it does not matter because letters are actually easier and more efficient seeing as I learned to read when I was a very little child and have been reading ever since. When it comes to other instruments, I would still love to be able to read music, but my eye keeps trying to count the lines and work out which letter is on it. I am hoping that at some point I will be able to read, but mnemonics are ridiculous! Basic music theory is easier than people think and if you just teach it well, almost anyone can understand it if they can play simple songs because otherwise they would not be able to play these songs (you have to know which notes to play and what measure even if you do not know the technical names and so you can experience them as opposed to learn them just like you can use the alphabet rather than trying to memorize a bunch of words that do not make any sense). Thank you for finally standing up for us ("us" who hate pneumonic) and finally giving everyone a simple and clear (and quite frankly the correct) way to learn music, by simply reading the actual notes themselves 🤣, who would have thought 🤔?! Your example is so funny and cool, I was laughing my head off because I so desperately need a teacher like you who simply reads what is there and teaches you what you really need to know (I love that you actually have to sing the alphabet, just gave me a great reason to laugh)! Thanks for the clear lesson and laugh and finally making a simple video.
I actually didn't like Mnemonics, so i used the same rule that you did: the middle of the 'G' part of the treble clef was 'G', for the alto clef, the middle of it was 'C', for the Bass clef, I would draw a line in between the 2 dots all the way across the clef, and it looked like an 'F'! For the the natural clef, the middle is the tom-tom (i dont play percussion so i dont know what that is.)
I was mad at you even before the mnemonics. Haha - Great Video! and yes, so much about music is so much easier than one at first thinks. People (me) have always overcomplicated things instead of letting it be easy.🎼5:30 - omg, hahaha Brilliant!
Loved the Ryan George reference, excellent video!
Thanks so much!
I learned bassoon ( I come from sax) and the bass clef was so confusing and I started counting just like this and now only a couple of months later I feel like I’m fluent in bass clef great vid
Thank you. Just what i need!!!
I think this is a result of a hyper-focus on mnemonics in the anglophone world. (Sure, some other linguistic spheres may have similar issues, not sure how e.g. the francosphere or lusosphere deal with them.) It seems to me - as a native Swedish speaker - that you anglophones have mnemonics for things that there really is no need for mnemonics for. I learned maybe two mnemonics in school, my anglophone friends seem to have learned a thousand each. Oftentimes, it seems like they just add a layer of wasteful indirection to learning. As you mention, sometimes there's a reason for mnemonics, but whenever that reason is absent, they are best left unused. (Then again, we learned the G and F clef names and method.)
I tell you one that was used for me, but I was only playing single notes on a saxophone, then a bassoon, gets extremely complicated when you are playing piano and there are several notes to read at once. When I was a senior in HS I was asked if I would do the band conductor a favor and play the bassoon for concert season. I said I would but the only problem is that I don't read the F cleft (bass cleft). The conductor said to figure out the notes simply imagine the note on the line or space up depending on if it was on a line or space respectively. I made it through the concert season and did okay (thank God I didn't have any solos to play!). I am a person who does not memorize well (multiplication tables were the bain of my existence and I thought I was doomed to never learn multiplication). So just learning them by rote was not an option. Have played in the treble cleft for 6 years, and it was not an easy task. I still have problems trying not to use this method when playing, but does help when I need to figure a note out that I don't recognize. I have taken piano lessons over the years but still, have trouble with reading the bass cleft, because I have learned chording and the scales that go with them. I can play most things I need/want to (mostly hymns and folk-type songs) except classical, which I still am working on. I do wish I had been able to take piano lessons when I was a child when my mind was more pliable and adept at learning. The bottom line is that the method I used I would not use it again, as unlearning it has been next to impossible.
You have great humor! This is very helpful for me, an adult piano student who still struggle with sight reading after 5 years of piano. The school I attended for 5 years never enforced reading notes. We were allowed to write in all the note cheat names, so you can imagine how cluttered the sheet music looked. They were more focused on having students memorize pieces for performance 🤯
Yeah, I’m not a fan of that. It’s fine to write in a few letter names if you’re making errors, or dealing with a bunch of unfamiliar ledger lines, but you’ve got to learn to actually read the notes.
I got my hands on some old French sheet music by France Gall.
The chords were called:
Mib - Dom - Lab - Sib ...
What was I supposed to play?
I had to learn the system.
Do - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La - Si - Do
= C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
That was a lot of fun.
Some examples:
Mi = E
Mib = Eb
Do = C
Dom = Cm
La = A
Lab = Ab
Si = B
Sib = Bb
Sibm = Bbm
Sibm7 = Bbm7
Once I understood the rule, it was quite easy.
Of course, I need more time to read the notes.
Kind regards!
The notes are written that way because is following the solfège system, you can get more information on Wikipedia about it. In my country we use the fixed Do solfège as our primary way of naming the notes
I 100 percent agree with this as when I first started taking piano lessons I relied very heavily on FACE and Every Boy Deserves Fudge ( or whatever was taught I forgot lol) but overtime as I became a significantly better sight reader I completely stopped the use of mnemonics and I was able to name a note just by looking at it. The use of Mnemonics only slows u down in your sight reading progress and while they can be helpful in the short term, in the long term it’s only a hindrance and will hurt you from developing and making progress
i learned piano using mnemonics, and now 12 years later, the treble and bass clefs come naturally to me. but i recently had to learn alto and tenor clefs for theory and those are a whole other story.
mnemonics are okay if you are just temporarily using them to memorize, I don't say "every good boy.." because I now have EGBDF memorized, understanding the linearity of note naming should be understood before that though
So I’m a piano and singing teacher and there’s a couple of problems both with the mnemonic system you use as the example of what to avoid, as well as the reference note system. On the first point, generally it’s favoured now to use something like Grizzly Bears Don’t Fear Anything rather than Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always which is so obviously confusable with Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. In defence of a mnemonic method, they are only as useful as the mnemonics themselves. If the sentence can only make grammatical sense when the words are in the intended order, it’s stronger than when the words are interchangeable.
As for the reference note system, many students end up missing out a line or a space when trying to find the name of a note far away from the reference note, which I find makes it of limited use. If you know treble E on the bottom line that’s fine for the F and G a bit higher, but F on the top line? Many students make errors before they get there. And if you want to go down to D, many students sit there scratching their heads because while the alphabet forwards is easy and intuitive, backwards it is isn’t, so you either have to teach them the alphabet backwards or let them count up from A to try to figure out what comes before the reference note.
I don’t think either system really works, which is why primers that introduce one note at a time are so useful. You don’t have a system to learn that the shape ‘A’ is A. You just have to learn it.
Of course. When you’re learning music, you generally learn two or three notes at a time, so it really shouldn’t be overwhelming. But a lot of people learn by ear regardless of the fact that sheet music is in front of them. They ignore the sheet music until the music is too complicated to learn by rote/ear and then freak out at all the times. There’s nothing wrong with mnemonics per se, if you don’t mess them up. But you need to understand the underlying system and mnemonics can really obscure that. If people are counting wrong, there’s not much to do other than go slower and pay attention and don’t play music that’s way beyond your abilities. A little challenge is good but too much can cause problems, like taking shortcuts that cause confusion, or simply quitting because the music is too hard.
As a violist, thank you for this information, as I have no idea how to read bass clef.
Mnemonics are really only useful for things like string names I find, since that's easier than remembering how many semitones up each string is from the next.
Also, Viola players may be a bit grumpy at you for calling their clef weird. The alto clef fits in between the treble and bass!
Excellent! Makes sense.
Thank you for this. I'm a general music teacher and I try to help them with the mnemonics and show them the pattern as well but I have one third grade class that mnemonics has NOT helped at all. Here's to hoping they'll get it finally!
Nice! Mnemonics are fine if they work, but when people forget there’s a simple underlying pattern, things can go awry.
As someone who is just starting to try teaching myself how to read music, my frustration isn't with the note names themselves, but the way the notes are written on the staff. The fact that each note looks identical, save for the number of lines above or below it that we need to count, makes it hard for me to internalize. It's like if we learned numbers not by arabic numerals, but tally marks. Imagine trying to read ||||||| at a glance and just know that it's supposed to be the number 7, and that's a different number from ||||||||, which is the number 8.
I appreciate how systematic the patterns are, but when trying to learn how to read notes at a glance, it's frustrating to have to go, "Okay, I know that one ledger line below the staff is C. Okay, so starting from there, this note is... let's see.... onetwothreefour... five notes above C. That means this note is... *singing in my head while counting on fingers* ABCD(1)E(2)F(3)G(4)...H(5), wait it goes back to A. Aha, it's an A!" Sure, after the first note I can reference every other note to the note before, but it's still a process of "*squints* is that note two or three lines below the previous A?" and it's back to this counting game again. FACE helps a bit because it gives me more reference points to start counting from, but my "note dyslexia" of miscounting the lines is still present.
I understand that I will learn to recognize it by sight with time and practice, just like how I don't need to count on my fingers to read numbers anymore, but at this early stage as an adult beginner with no prior experience and little free time, it is a frustrating roadblock.
Reading music is hard. But so is reading language! Remember how many years it took to learn to read, learning what sound each letter makes, the fact that they make different sounds in different contexts, silent letters, inconsistent spelling rules, sounding out hard words..... it was so hard! But now you read like it's no big deal. Music is similar. We want to be amazing endplay fun music now, but it takes a lot of time to build that intuition and play without thinking. Keep at it! Stay steady! Learn scales and technique as well as repertoire. It really helps with reading and pattern recognition. Work on things that are 10% outside your comfort zone - not too hard but not too easy. Good luck!
Counting up or down was always enough for me. I taught myself the top and bottom line of each cleff and could work the rest out from that.
Years of studying music and my instincts is finally validated in a concise YT video😂🔥
This is really helpful,thank you! Could you do a video on rhythms and possibly how to play with a lead sheet only? (With left hand freestyle)
Rhythms have been a long time coming, but they're definitely on the way! What are you looking for regarding lead sheets? Explaining the concept generally? Or interpreting chords? Something else?
That pitch meeting reference struck me
Thanks for taking the mystery out of this structure. Back to working out Route 66!
You're not the only one I heard say this on CZcams. Very helpful thank you. Unfortunately, I'm about to go to my 4th lesson this morning and she uses F A C E and every good bird does fly but i believe on my own i will learn them all pretty quick. I'm using my own little landlocks.
pretty solid, tysm !
Honestly all I did was remember the highest and lowest line and the note of the middle of the clef, mnemonics are trash like am I supposed to be like, "Oh whats note on the 5th line? Every Good Bird Does Fly. Oh it's F.".
I'm dyslexic so the mnemonics just made it harder for me, I finally learnt via an app that just allowed me to practice naming the notes as I see them. And I found naturally I'm thinking ah that's two notes above the c that I know, so it's e, and beginning to just inherently understand essentially addition or subtracting notes
I personally chose high E, middle B and G on the staff for treble clef as reference points and usually count from one of them
It's "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour". The Moody Blues even named an LP after this phrase, which - of course - every schoolboy knows.
I agree with you. That just made everything you had to remember, some back and forth checkin thing with an extra irrelevant nursery rhyme that I could never relate to since I was out of kindy by the time reading music came along for me. I didnt go forward with music over those childish rhymes my teacher loved, but turned me right off it and I dropped it.
I wasn’t taught well in school. I played violin and I literally wrote D2 meaning D string 2 fingers 😅. I finally know the scale and I’m so embarrassed I didn’t know before.
I never gave up on playing music, but I've given up on reading it from a sheet many times. Here's one reason I hate looking at sheet music:
Every piano student ever learns one particular note first. It's the universal reference point on a piano keyboard, called middle C.
On the treble clef, middle C is on the first ledger line below the five lines where good boys are supposedly doing just fine.
That important note IS NOT on the treble clef. It's in the basement of the treble clef.
Of course, a piano student also has the learn the bass clef, where--to reaffirm that if I were actually a good boy, I would always do fine--the relation between notes and lines on the page follows exactly the same pattern, but the lines are shifted.
That's just cruelty.
Oh, and our best buddy, our guide to the piano, middle C? It's not on the bass clef either. It's in the bass clef's attic.
No music teacher in the history of obfuscation has ever said "the first ledger line above the bass clef is the same as the first ledger line below the treble clef. They're both middle C."
Why? Why don't music teachers say this? Not saying it is like putting a big map in front of a lost person without a big red X to say "you are here."
Music teachers *could* help new students not be lost, but they choose not to help.
Are they all still mad because they had mean teachers and they pass that along to every generation of new students, so the cycle of intellectual abuse can continue?
Anyway, I learn by ear. The stupid marks on the stupid paper are not music. Music likes people. Marks on paper only want to be mean to people.
I’m sorry you were so underserved by your music teachers! This is definitely something I cover with my students. And if you’re reading sheet music and playing piano, I cant imagine how it didn’t come up. Presumably you played middle C shown on the bass clef and on the treble clef? Anyway, reading music is hard. Really hard. There so much information and notations!. It sounds like you’re doing okay without it, but if you decide to come back to traditional notation, I’d recommend playing really easy stuff, probably well below your ability(think nursery rhymes), and slowly build up your reading ability.
"Super Easy, Barely An Inconvenience". Haha, not sure if other folks caught that Pitch Meeting reference
IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO USE EVERYTHING.
My teacher taught me the Dutch version Eet Groente Bij De Friet and Groente Bij De Friet Alstublieft
Eat Vegetables With The [French fries] and Vegetables With The [French fries] Please
(The fact that these two phrases are so stupid but perfectly normal Dutch makes them very easy to remember in Dutch)
Next to the tricks you mention in this videos, I'm still using these mnemonics without even thinking about it after playing piano for 9 years!
I think in the beginning, beginners shuold try everything, and stick with what sticks/works
Thank you for the lesson sir.
You are very welcome!
I never understood the mnemonics. What are they good for? At school we learned the names of the notes just like you taught them and then for some reason also the do -re - mi names. You have the names, the clefs and the lines to help you find the way. Everything else is just confusing.
Great video, concise and to the point. Will check out your other ones because I don't really remember much more then the note names from school.
I still use a mnemonic to remember the order of increasing sharps in a key signature. Of course, I only need to remember that it starts with F sharp and ascends by perfect fifths.
Absolutely! But that’s a much more complicated pattern than note names on the staff. I teach mnemonics for the order of sharps and flats too.
LIking this video was super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Liking videos is tight!
As a fan of the the people's key - Yes learning the spaces and lines separately is silly and it really sets people back. This is so great. But you missed/overlooked an important part ... C is the middle, start at Middle C do the alpha forwards = Treble clef. Do it Backwards = Bass clef... Place the Bass and Treble clefs nearer to each other... than you can see the over lap - teach them as not different clefts but as one super-clef with a line missing in the middle for C ... starting in the middle, teach outward from there - Try it - It might blow your mind how simple it is - there are other comments like this but trying to say it the way I C it
Your videos are superb.
Thanks so much!
For me, landmark notes worked best. Remember where the G is on the G clef (on the centre point of the clef, and just above the top ledger line), and on the F clef (on the centre point of the clef, and just below the bottom ledger line), and the C's (in the middle of the clefs, the third space up on the G clef, and the third space down on the F clef).
Granted, after a while you don't need these crutches and you instinctively know what every line/space corresponds to. But that's what I found got me there the quickest.
I totally agree the mnemonics take longer in the long run. I had a student that played classical guitar and only read the treble clef. He’d been playing for several years and his reading was still really slow. When he came to me learn harp, I wouldn’t let him use mnemonics to learn the bass clef. Within a month he was reading the bass clef well, but still struggling with the treble clef. I will never let my students use mnemonics.
Nice! Thanks for the story.
As a beginner I can tell you what has been most helpful to me in opening up the clefs.
The first and most mind blowing one was where middle C is. With that one piece of information not only did I realize how the treble and bass clefs relate to each other but they also went from an incomprehensible cypher to actual notes on a piano. Maybe that's not as useful if you're not leaning piano, but it was to me.
The other is FACE (ACE in the bass clef). That's not really a mnemonic, it's just what the letters happen to spell, but with FACE I don't have to 'count up' from E.
Yes, I’m a big fan of the piano. It makes visualizing things so much easier. Things can be very mysterious with wind and string instruments. In many universities, they make you learn piano to a certain level, even if that’s not your main instrument. Basic piano skills are massively useful.
Very much agree. The only thing that you under-emphasize a bit is that we ultimately want note recognition to be automatic and instantaneous, and part of this is to gradually learn more and more instantaneously recognized reference points. You mention learning bottom-line E. A good next reference might be middle-line B. That way, when they want to figure out the D above it, all they have to do is count up from B , rather than all the way from E. As a student becomes more proficient, more and more of the lines and spaces become instantly recognizable.
But mnemonics are useless for instant recognizability as well as for underlying structure. I completely agree with you that they are a last choice.
I get it. But I didn’t want to overcomplicate things either, and I would hope that most people would find more references naturally related to their instrument and the notes they play more often. And most people learn 2-3 notes at a time on their instruments in the simple first songs they learn, so it’s a bit self limiting in that way anyway. But you’re not wrong!
At least for me, I still need to learn how to read bass clef. Honestly didn’t know how I could do it but this just made me realize how dumb it is. Yeah when I’m reading treble clef I’ll forget a bit and use the system, but whenever I go above or below I do use this system. I think whenever you are not playing like a labeled instrument like bells or piano it’s hard recognize the pattern of notes, but playing those instruments has really helped me with that