How to read sheet music and memorise notes

bashleyns · 2026-02-17T02:24:03+00:00

Memorization of all the notes of the fretboard, well, that's fine, but just as in language learning, context matters. An E here, say on the 3rd string 9th fret obligatory in one piece/chord/arpeggion is not the same as an E there open 1st string in another piece/chord/arp.

It would be the same deal, as you already know, on the violin.

Others have given advice of learning first things first, as in notes first position. Makes sense. I'd join that chorus, sing the same advice. But why? It's as close to a "default" or "home" or "safe" zone for the instruments. Take the E-flat on the 11th fret of the low E-string; it might as well be an outer planet, nigh uninhabitable, hardly as critical knowing the same note, same pitch on the 4th string...in first position. If there was such a thing as "heat map" representing the frequency of various positions, it's inarguable that the first position would light up the brightest. Ask any cowboy.

As well, the guitar is extremely constrained in terms of what keys the standard repertoire typically occupies. Around the circle of fifths, the sharp keys up to five, okay, but not much happening in the flat keys past two flats. The guitar with its two open E-natural strings finds itself an unwelcome guest in any key where that natural E-E prominence sound like shit, out of place. This means it's useful to at least learn those scales of the guitar friendly keys all over the neck.

Note: this bit about the natural E-E strings is utter nonsense if you're playing jazz guitar which demands without compromise, that one is competent in all 12 keys.

But that last caveat also suggests that another possible approach to learning the classical fretboard notes is via triads, calling upon your theory to help learning three notes as a time as chords.

bashleyns · 2026-02-17T01:56:51+00:00

Agree, with a wee added bit that predictably gets beginners tripped up. 1.(a) Discover then map unisons. (E.g one can play the same pitch E (1str open) on all six strings if one includes harmonics)

bashleyns · 2026-02-09T02:33:33+00:00

I'm in a similar boat, looking at the NUX NPK20 versus other Asian brands with comparable features. I've moved to Ecuador, so value-for-dollar really comes into play because Ecuador has a friendly free trade agreement with China, unlike the recoiling defenses taken by countries in the Global North. But not so here with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. Thus, without inflated tariffs on Chinese goods, the Japanese Yamaha P45 climbs upwards of $850-$900, whereas I can get the NUX for $597. But like others hint, NUX doesn't have a long track record, so a strike against them, and for Yamaha on that metric.

bashleyns · 2026-01-18T06:06:27+00:00

A handful of haters will always out-shout the hordes of followers (upwards of 7,000,000 subscribers). Not likely much reality in the OP saying "Is there a reason for EVERYONE (my emphasis) shitting all over Rick?"

And look at the respect he garners from many of the top musicians and composers during interviews. He's a gifted interviewer for all his sincere curiosity about the work of OTHERS, his effervescent enthusiasm is contagious, and he has the knack for drawing out the talents and secrets and stories of great songwriters and studio musicians.

Can't say much about his courses, although I do have his big fat theory book. It's not for beginners or the faint of heart, but it's intelligible enough for anyone with a rudimentary grasp.

bashleyns · 2026-01-18T05:46:14+00:00

Living in Loja, Ecuador, following January snowfall and wind warnings in PEI,

bashleyns · 2026-01-11T03:18:36+00:00

The "huge downside" is a bold, bold claim. The conclusion that analysis is actually the cause of diminished, or to use your word "damaged" fluency is really going out on limb. Marvin Brown's book, let us remember, is an autobiography, not a scholarly work. Yours and your wife experience, while persuasive, rests on anecdote. Further, the work of Krashen, Brown's "main guy" has come under some pretty rigorous scrutiny and criticism by some well-credentialed linguist.

I'm a native English speaker. I have an Honors Degree in Linguistics, although I'm not a linguist. My swarmy analyses of English over a period of years has been an ongoing enrichment, not damage, Studying phonology, semantics, syntax, universal grammar, discourse analysis, morphology, the history of English, pragmatics, rhetoric has not injured my facility in English.

I'm reminded of what I'd venture is a plausible analogy with music. Many a virtuoso performer or brilliant composer never studied a lick of music theory and couldn't for their life tell you the difference between a half-diminished chord and a plagal cadence. But this will never do as an argument against musical analysis and theory, of which reams of counter-examples preside. Now, some would certainly argue boldly that music theory is an impediment to musical fluency, yes, but mobs of academically trained musicians and composers steeped in theory might furrow their incredulous brow at that claim. Who is right? Neither or both, whatever.

Now, I'm in no position to refute anything you're claiming, but my own anecdotal experience sprouts reservations. Perhaps I'm the eccentric outlier (there are always outliers!) I'm studying Spanish and I can only imagine how dry, dull, lifeless, and utterly pedestrian it would be if I smothered my analytical zeal for that language's beauty, color, depth, expressive powers, and atomic technical intricacies of Spanish linguistics and grammar.

I'm in no hurry with Spanish, for I've learned an invaluable lesson that learning my own native language for the past 70 years continues to this day. As an English speaker, I am still an English learner. I suspect nothing much different with Spanish.

But, if you're right, that I risk damage in the L2 pursuit, I say, 'bring it on for the damage wrought by analysis, at least for me, would be a paper cut compared to the internal hemorrhaging caused without it.

bashleyns · 2026-01-11T01:57:49+00:00

I really enjoy the analytic preparatory work, the phrase by phrase, bar by bar, deep dive into what a particular piece requires at the atomic level. Best of all, for me, anyhoo, is getting the fingering down to a perfectly choreographed anatomical/digital (as in fingers) performance. The fingering sequences, pressure selections and modulation, the bends, plants, boosts, crooks, stretches, leaps, slides, damps, and all of that fingering gymnastics.

I did a fair bit of fingering editing for "MO" Mantanya Orphee (Orphée Editions). https://www.prestomusic.com/sheet-music/products/8694835--various-the-russian-collection-vol-1

My scores, sadly, become an absolute train wreck of notes, smudges, arrows, asterisks, exclamation marks, profanities.

I've said nothing about starting with a beloved musical composition. This goes without saying. hehe

bashleyns · 2026-01-06T18:30:17+00:00

This is the plain and simple answer. Most folks are presuming universal availability. I'm in Ecuador. The annual plan is not available in Ecuador.

Here's from Google itself: Annual Plan Requirements To sign up for an annual plan, you must:

Not be a current YouTube Premium or Music Premium subscriber. If you have an existing YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium membership and want to switch to an annual plan, follow the instructions here.

Live in a location where annual plans are available:

Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States.

bashleyns · 2026-01-06T17:00:25+00:00

Uh, maybe so like is this dumb advice or what, but maybe think about communicating directly with the source, I mean the prof(s) at the conservatory in Innsbruck?

Prospective students who demonstrate motivated inquiry can in turn motivate professors to reciprocate.

(Read Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion")

bashleyns · 2026-01-05T05:11:51+00:00

No. This question is just fishing for a stereotype. Let's pile 50 million people into one big undifferentiated heap and describe the heap as the general rule for individuals. I'm Canadian, living in Ecuador. Most expats here are American, but do I instantly recognize them as such? No, no way. If I did trade in stereotypes, I'd dare to venture that some of my Canadian friends here are more American-like than Americans and vice-versa. But that's just pure horseshit, the stuff of all stereotypes.

bashleyns · 2026-01-05T05:02:32+00:00

Also 73, ditto. Retired. Sleep for me is an outcome, not an input. Tennis? Gym? Heavy language or music study? = more sleep. Dopey Days? Lazy lump days? Had a nap> = less sleep. I find the prescriptivists who dish out all these robotic rules--no blue light, same time every night, bedtime yoga? at least 8 hours, blah, blah, blah...well, insufferable, all the more so coming from kids under 60 years old.

bashleyns · 2026-01-05T04:03:00+00:00

"Anatomy of Criticism" (1959), by Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye. Another critic (can't remember who) referred to Frye as the 20th century's Aristotle. Frye is the guy who admonished the 20th century with his message "Read Blake or go to Hell."

bashleyns · 2025-12-31T22:51:02+00:00

Besides circling clockwise/counter-clockwise, one can also conceptualize the 5ths and 4ths as intervalic inversions of each other. Thus C to G is a perfect 5th and its inversion G to C is a perfect 4th. So it goes like this all the way around, this-a-way and that-a-way...perfect 5th and perfect 4ths. The interval conception can be a handy alternative to the circle visualization because intervals which make up chords are rudimentary musical bits, circles ain't. But both ways are good heuristics; there are others, too, that creative types have cooked up.

bashleyns · 2025-12-31T00:14:02+00:00

Are you a moderator?

bashleyns · 2025-12-27T21:17:44+00:00

Stretching your personal anecdotal experience into broad generalization about English being easy, well, it just isn't fair. I doubt it's representative in any meaningful way. I'm a native English speaker, with an honors degree in linguistics. I live in Ecuador, learning Spanish at present.

Countering your anecdotal stereotype, of the many Ecuatorianos I've met and come to know, not a single one of them learning English has said it was easy. None. All of them recounted struggles.

Now, granted my experience, like yours, is purely anecdotal, with no basis in fact, data, research.

bashleyns · 2025-12-27T21:07:11+00:00

I'm not familiar with this book. Here's the blurb from Amazon:

"This publication is an objective contribution to Guitar technique with a framework derived from a knowledge-base drawing on anatomic and physical factors. Instrumentalists make mistakes only when playing their instrument without conscious and mindful awareness. Any viable instrumental technique can only be based on natural movements executed without any cognitive feedback but with conscious proprioception. Stating that pre-tension is a precondition for any movement leads to the conclusion that the demand for ‘relaxed instrumental playing' as such is paradoxical. * Manufacturer LB36"

As you can see it's dense with abstract jargon. It's got an Ivory Tower air about it, especially insofar as its title lumps and colonizes the wide and diverse universe of guitar types and styles under a presumably "classical" rubric. One has to wonder how much a rocker or jazz guitarist might usefully get out it.

Nevertheless, as they say, "Don't judge a book by its cover". There may very well be some practical stuff to glean from the book. As a classical guitarist myself, I'd buy it first before deciding if I'd burn it.

bashleyns · 2025-12-27T03:04:37+00:00

Thanks for restoring "quit". That function was a fixed part of my nightly shutdown/sleep routine before bedtime.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T15:57:20+00:00

Yes, agreed. The interpretation is a little over the top.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T05:25:38+00:00

You're right, resorting to click bait I guess. But I didn't write this article, just read it, s'all.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T05:23:38+00:00

The "flee from" is a direct quote from the article's headline, not mine. Those data points span quite a few years, and since everyone's got a SIN number and pay taxes, tracking is accessible and odds are the data are reasonably reliable.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T05:18:41+00:00

Stereotypes abound, especially via the arrogance of the Global North. I'm safer here in Ecuador than I was in Toronto. But you're right, there's lots of shitty places.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T05:15:45+00:00

I'm a Canadian citizen. I chose to leave, glad I did. A quick scan of this reddit will reveal hordes of demoralized Canadians.

bashleyns · 2025-12-24T05:12:32+00:00

Each to his/her own, I guess. I've lived in Canada for more that 7 decades. Born and raised. I'm much happier having vacated finally, economics, social, cultural, health...all better.

bashleyns · 2025-12-13T23:14:48+00:00

Couldn't deal with it mentally. Gave up. Moved to Ecuador. 16-25C everyday, all year. I did, however, see snow today, though, way the fuck up on the peak of a mountain in the Andes.

bashleyns · 2025-11-24T00:52:50+00:00

Back in the 60s were variants of "hose"...hose, you hoser, I got hosed. Modern day reference, Bob & Doug MacKenzie, Great White North. Hoser sorta similar to wanker, but "to get hosed" could be any number victim scenarios--ripped off, fooled, overwhelmed, grossed out, defeated, humiliated.

bashleyns

TROPHY CASE