Help the Illiterate

Irish Flute
1

Okay, I admit it - I can’t read :wink: , and now some evil person gave me some of this dastardly stuff called sheet music to figure out some tunes and had the gall to not include sound files for me to learn from. So what I desperately need to know is - WHERE’S the D??? I can’t find any TAB listings that show the corresponding staff notation and yeah, I know, I really really should know this by now…

Thanks
Dave

2

The low D (bottom of first octave) is the first space below the staff (the note below the bottom line). The middle D is the fourth line up the staff. The third-octave D is the third space above the staff, i. e., the note above the second line that’s added above the top line as necessary.

Hope that’s clear.

3

Yes, perfectly clear - Thanks, davem

4

Just for fun: I teach elementary school music. We use various phrases to remember the order of the five lines of the treble clef from the bottom up. The old standard is “Every Good Boy Does Fine” for EGBDF. My kids love to make up their own. This year’s favorite came from a third-grade boy: Every Gerbil Burps Deadly Fire.
:stuck_out_tongue:
The kids remember it easily, and even my first graders are identifying the lines of the staff using this phrase. (Spaces are easy: they spell FACE from the bottom space upwards.)

Of course, low D doesn’t fit into either scheme, so that just have to memorize that one.

Jeanie

5

Any properly malicious child will recognize the term D-Face. :smiling_imp:

djm

6

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

7

Hi Dave,

In case you would like to learn how to read musical notation, I am posting below two links to free online music instruction.

http://www.arts.ilstu.edu/~kwfansle/onlinemusicpage.htm

http://www.musictheory.halifax.ns.ca/lessons.html

Best wishes and happy fluting,
Doug Tipple

8

Darn! unfortunately Gerbils are illegal here as pets - do the wild ones work to?

Actually, I LOVE the EGBDF - even I can remember that one, although I have to admit to more in common with my 4year olds’ sense of humor than my wifes’.

Also, thanks or the more formal links - it’s funny, I can usually dope that part out, I just can’t figure where on the lines to start. Now if I can only get hold of a poster sized printer I can scan this stuff and print it out large enough that I can actually read it. Of course I am one of the fortunate few who can clearly see and appreciate the grain on my flutes’ head while playing it, so, personally, I don’t see my eyesight as the problem :slight_smile:.

Again - thanks all!
Dave