Did YOU Learn to Read Music in High School?

I did. In fact, i learned to read music as early as sixth grade when I first began playing flute in the school band. In my school, everyone had to take either band or choir, and for the most part, I assumed that we both learned the same thing. Boy, was I wrong.

As soon as I stepped foot into our band room, my teacher was all business. It wasn’t long after learning each note (which is part of reading music) on my flute that we were instructed on how to read music. Why? Because it’s absolutely impossible for seventy children to play a song on ten different instruments if they can’t all properly read music.

I don’t really remember how I learned, but it came pretty easily. And part of playing an instrument is having quick reflexes and good hand-eye coordination. You do, after all, have to read with your eyes and translate to your fingers what note you’re supposed to produce within moments. It can be frustrating, but once you learn it, it never goes away. And what’s really amazing is to think that in only a few short weeks, seventy some kids were able to all play ten different parts of a song – and it actually sounded like that song. We couldn’t do that if we couldn’t read music.

Three short years later and I dropped band to join the choir. I had no intention of giving up one month of summer vacation to practice marching – no, really, that was my only reasoning. And I was completely shocked by what I found.

These students, who all had had three years of choir, could not read music. There were a few who really loved to sing or act that knew how to read music, but not the majority. I can remember being a senior and watching my teacher struggle to teach fellow seniors the difference between an A and an A flat on the scale. It was painful. And most of them never did learn how to read music.