Dear Mr. Seaton,

I was wondering if there was (among music educators) a preferred method of teaching a student how to read music. A 1000 years ago when I was in high school I seemed to recall that some teachers I had used certain ‘counting’ to help student with the rhythm of certain patterns.

There are probably as many ways to teach reading as there are teachers to teach it. Counting is a long standing tradition. A big part of reading is recognizing visually sounds that we know just like recognizing an object and being able to name it. When looking at music, being able to recognize scale and arpeggio fragments, chromaticism, and accidentals outside of the key signature is very helpful.
One way for musicians that can play a little (or a lot) but don't read well is to record a short rhythmic phrase with a metronome after counting yourself off. Transcribe that onto paper and have someone check your work.

Thanks for your reply. I guess my question was more focused on rhythm rather than notes. I have a vague recollection of some acronyms that were used to help memorize the notes on the page but as I said I also recalled similar things for understanding triplets, dotted notes, etc.

One way for musicians that can play a little (or a lot) but don't read well is to record a short rhythmic phrase with a metronome after counting yourself off. Transcribe that onto paper and have someone check your work.

The only problem I see with this is that it requires having access to someone else who is willing to listen to my ham-fisted playing and who knows how to read music. LOL!!

Hopefully the day will come soon when I have enough time (and money) to get some lessons.

People often use a memory trick by assigning words beginning with the note name. In bass clef, the lines from low to high are: G ood B oys D o F ine A lways. The spaces are: A ll C ows E at G rass .
Syllables that sound like rhythms work well. Indian classical musicians train a long time making vocal sounds of rhythms. For triplets try: tri-uh-let or Jackie Gleasons line hum-in-uh. tac-uh-tah is another. Words with the correct number of syllables work too: Hoppity, Bopitty, etc. Though hard to find, many years ago the great Clark Terry wrote of book of vocal sounds to illustrate how to phrase jazz passages.

People often use a memory trick by assigning words beginning with the note name. In bass clef, the lines from low to high are: G ood B oys D o F ine A lways. The spaces are: A ll C ows E at G rass .
Syllables that sound like rhythms work well. Indian classical musicians train a long time making vocal sounds of rhythms. For triplets try: tri-uh-let or Jackie Gleasons line hum-in-uh. tac-uh-tah is another. Words with the correct number of syllables work too: Hoppity, Bopitty, etc. Though hard to find, many years ago the great Clark Terry wrote of book of vocal sounds to illustrate how to phrase jazz passages.

Thanks that's exactly the kind of stuff I remembered. Are those kinds of methods still used?

if it is the rythym that is the problem. or u can listen to the music on a CD first(this help a lot)

if it is the rythym that is the problem. or u can listen to the music on a CD first(this help a lot)

Let me make it clear that its all a problem as that I can't read music at all at this point. But when I was a kid I had started to learn and recalled that the kind crutches that Mr. Seaton mentioned above were used to help us learn the rhythm of certain patterns and was curious whether that method was still being employed but music educators.