This six-hour workshop will meet in two Thursday evening sessions. Part 1 on July 7th and Part 2 on July 14th. Both sessions will be from 7:00 to 10:00 pm.
When you sing with your community choir or musical theatre company, do you learn your music by listening to a recording over and over and memorizing what you hear? When you look at the sheet music given to you by your director, are you only following the lyrics and paying little to no attention to the notes above and below? When your accompanist corrects you by saying "it's a dotted eighth sixteenth note, not two eighth notes," do you stare back at them wondering what they actually want you to sing differently? If so, keep reading...
You're already a musician, performing and inspiring those who hear you sing, but you have the potential to learn new music much faster and to understand and appreciate the rhythms, melodies, and harmonies of the songs you perform. You just need to learn to read music!
Unfortunately, too many methods on how to read music begin something like this: "This is a music staff. It has five lines. The notes on the lines are EGBDF. A handy way to remember these notes is... [you know the story]." But humans were making music hundreds of thousands of years before any of them ever thought to write it down, so learning to read music should begin by understanding how sounds are organized into rhythms, melodies, and harmonies, then learning what music notation is used to represent them!
Once you can recognize the notes, you will be able to look at the sheet music for a new song and already know how the rhythms should feel and the melodies should sound. In short, you'll be reading music!
Reduced registration costs are available if needed. Please click the "Email Us" link at the bottom of this page to inquire.
Sara Wunsch has a master of music in music education from The Boston Conservatory. She is currently singing with the Lyric Theatre Singers and writing a musical.