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How to Read Music Notes and Practice Music Without Your Instrument
The foundation of our musical training is the practice time we spend with our chosen instrument. Musical study away from our instrument, however, develops our level of sophistication and understanding of the music we are playing. Many activities that we already participate in can be opportunities for developing our musical knowledge. We will explore some these activities, and how to integrate them into the learning process.
We probably cultivated our interest in music through listening to recordings and live performances. As musicians we want to engage ourselves in listening to music in the same way we would read a book or watch a movie. We can accomplish this by following along recordings with the score in hand. If you haven’t attempted this before, it may take a while to be able to perform this kind of active listening, but is well worth the effort. You may wish to start by just keeping track of the measures as they go by rather than focusing directly on the pitches. With time your overall reading skills will improve.
Tags: active listening, concert experience, how to read music notes, musical knowledge, new insights, new interpretations, practice music, practice session, practice time, style periods