I wanted to start putting together some tutorials on my personal site, and thought it’d be nice to start from the beginning with how to actually read music and try to relate that, primarily, to whistle playing and trad music. I start out with teaching about the different kinds of notes, the 4/4 time signature, length of notes in a simple song. From there I branch out into what notes are what on the staff.
In the second part, I quickly touch on the difference between reels and jigs before introducing 6/8 time signature and how things are timed out there. After that’s all said and done, I try to relate back a bit by showing what notes on the whistle correspond to the staff and give a short description about whistle notation.
From here, I figure I’ll start to actually get into basic whistle technique and applying the first two lessons to actually trying to sight read some basic tunes, then branch off into the intermediate and more complex stuff.
I’d appreciate it if you folks could take a look and offer any constructive advice.
At such an early stage don’t talk about the value of rests. Pleanty of experienced trad players couldn’t tell you those values. They don’t crop up much in ITM, and when you do you can usually guess the value from what’s “left over”, if you know what I mean.
I had considered it, but by just letting them know that the value or length of a quarter note is the same as a quarter rest and so forth, I feel it’d be a lot easier in the long run and it’s just less ambiguity. I appreciate the feedback and do see where you’re coming from, though.
As a novice who is trying to teach myself to read music, I only know a little more than the person I think you are trying to target.
One thing to keep in mind is that rank beginners are likely to take everything literally. Your explanation of 6/8 time may have someone trying to tap their foot like a machine gun to get all 6 beats in a measure.
Of course, your meaning would be obvious if you were showing someone, but a written explanation can be misinterpreted. Might help to explain how each toe tap fits with the time signature. (Hope that makes sense.)
