Good in Music Literacy

Are you into music? If yes, be a musical literate!
To understand the theoretical principles of music and to communicate between one another as a musician, we need precisely such a form of notation. Similar to our ordinary everyday writing, music is also a language. Some people have to get by with speech alone and don't use the written word. These people are illiterate (in music).

Though you don't have to be able to read to speak. And it is exactly the same with music you don't have to be able to read notes to play music. But just as with writing, many things are much easier if you can also read and write music.

At its very simplest, music is a language just like you’d read aloud from a book. The symbols you’ll see on pages of sheet music have been used for hundreds of years. And they represent the pitch, speed and rhythm of the song they convey, as well as expression and techniques used by a musician to play or sing the piece. Think of the notes as the letters, the measures as the words, the phrases as the sentences and so forth. Learning to read music really does open up a whole new world to explore!


So, anyone that looks into the topic of music in more detail and want to grab the real meaning to any musical sound in the air, or who wants to play in bands/orchestra, where notes are required (e.g. in big band music), sooner or later will have to get to grips with musical notation and become a literate in music.

Musical literacy is the ability to identify musical ingredients, follow their progress and make sense of them within the context of a composition. It is more than a simple appreciation of music. It requires the ability to understand how a song will be played and what it will sound like without actually playing it. While not everyone has the skill or determination to become an accomplished musician, there are a number of skills that serve to define a musically literate individual and one of them is the ability to interpret music on paper.

To start with, you have to have the basics knowledge of reading notes on a staff, identifying pitches and understanding rhythms, so that you can take these principles and apply them to the instrument or music of your choice. Also, you have to build the foundational understanding of the structure of music through the study of scales, key signatures, intervals and chords.

Scholar states that a person with music literacy is able to understand and engage with music in a number of different ways, including the creative, responsive and performative artistic processes. He or she is able to perform music in a manner that illustrates careful preparation and reflects an understanding and interpretation of the selection.

Musical literacy involves developing an understanding of music and exploring how it can connect to various audiences and purposes. From there, musicians need to be able to consider what they’ve created and make revisions before they present it to the audience.

Creativity is the one faculty that exemplifies humanity’s distinctive potential. Creativity in music is one branch of that potential.  But it needs an education to flourish –that is the essence of musical literacy.

The questions are....
Are you into music?
Are you a literate?

The good is that if the first answer is YES, the second must also be YES. 

No comments: