Figuring it out is the work

I’m currently teaching my middle school students how to read music and how to read music for a mallet instrument.

Very few of them can already read music. Most of them can’t.

When learning to read music, the work is figuring out how to do it. The work is going back and forth and trying to figure out what notes are written and how the rhythms are played. That’s the work.

Figuring out how it goes is the work. If it’s given to you and you don’t have to try, there’s no work being done.

But if you sit with it and spend some time figuring out the correct notes and correct rhythms you’ll be much better off next time you need to read music.

ISJ