I Sing in Church, and I need to know the Singing Notes so I can go with the tune. When I look at my Hymn Book, naturally if it's a song i never learned, I dont know the tune, and I need to know it. How can I read the notes?
For Example: Oh, Late have I Loved You, Oh Late have I longed for You.
(Tunes go like:) Traditional Hymns: ABBOT'S LEIGH, MORNING SONG, DUKE STREET, ect. Help! You will need to learn how to read notes on a Treble and Bass Clef. Hymn books usually carry the melody in the top line of the treble clef.
It's really not hard to learn, but will take some practice. If you can get a basic piano theory book, or a basic music theory book which teaches you note names, clefs, key signatures, you will be able to read the notes in your book. The more you practice, you might find you can even sight read it without playing the melody. And YOU CAN look at a piece of music and be able to read it WITHOUT perfect pitch. This is what the sight reading is. Following rhythms and intervals doesn't involve perfect pitch, and the majority of good sight readers in music don't have perfect pitch.
You can hire a piano teacher to teach you this theory and can do it in a shorter period of time if you work with one. If you let the teacher know what your goal is, they will be more than happy to help you. And perhaps they will skip all the pianist lingo and get straight to the theory. You can probably google some info on note names, key signatures, just general music theory things. That is free. We all love free!!! But the piano teacher is your best bet. Have fun! There's no definite way to know the tune as you look at it. It's called perfect pitch, and it cannot be achieved, you either have it, or you don't. But there is something called sight reading. If you're not too good at reading music, just simply look at the first note on the song. Try and sing that along with the rest of your choir. Then, depending on whether the 2nd note goes up or down, sing higher, or lower. Keep continuing. Eventually, you'll get better. If you ARE good at reading music, sit down at a piano and practice reading various sheet music without accompaniment. Play your beginning note.
-READ THIS IF YOU ARE GOOD AT MUSIC THEORY-
Also, solfez is good to use if you are having trouble finding the notes. Find the major key signature of the piece. If the key is A, for example, DO is A. RE is B. MI is C. FA is D. SOL is E. LA is F. and TI is G. As you go up and down, read the notes and think about solfez. It helps alot, TRUST ME! :)
Hope I helped! I'm not clear on your question. Some hymnals have only the words to hymns, and then a specification of the hymn tune to which those words are to be sung (such as Duke Street, etc.). If that is your problem, you need to purchase either an edition of that hymnal that has the music, or another common hymnal (Lutheran or Episcopal would do fine) with the tunes in it.
If, however, your problem is that the notes are there, but you don't know how to read them, I have found that "Learn to Read Music" by Howard Shanet is an excellent resource. You can find it on Amazon for around $10. It is well worth the price. |
