This week I decided to do a bit of theory. As I began moving towards harder songs, the notes I needed to play were WAY too low and WAY too high on the staff. Even when I tried to count upwards using the handy dandy mnemonic. Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (E, G, B, D, F) I couldn’t seem to get the song to sound right. I got really frustrated with myself I thought to myself “What the heck Meghan! You’ve been reading the notes that are on the staff with no problem, why is this so different?” Then it hit me! Cue the flashback memory music…

When I was in high school I played the trumpet. I liked to think that I was really good but I don’t think this was necessarily the case. I was a second trumpet, for those of you who are unaware in my school we had a band with first trumpets, second trumpets, and third trumpets. The first trumpet players most commonly played the more difficult higher notes, and the second trumpet players played music that was less difficult than the first trumpet players, so their goal is to help the first trumpets. The third trumpet’s music was less difficult than the second trumpet player’s. For more information on trumpet, sections click here.

Other than the subtle brag that I was an average trumpet player I realized that I never really had to learn the notes very high above the staff or far below the staff. This was my chance!

My first step was to understand why my fingers wouldn’t work when I was counting up the scale. Then I came across this photo

Image retrieved from https://socratic.org/questions/how-do-you-read-the-music-notes-above-below-the-staff-in-piano-sheet-music

I thought that the scale was based on the staff. I figured that E, G, B, D, F, and F, A, C, E, was

Image retrieved from: https://socratic.org/    questions/how-do-you-read-the-music-notes-above-below-the-staff-in-piano-sheet-music

the pattern that all the notes would go in, this is not the case. After the last note on the 5 lined staff (an F), I assumed that we would then go up again starting with E then G, B, D F. But in reality the notes go on from F to G then to A, B, C, D before they get back to E. After learning this it was time to get started on learning a new memorization tool. I saw a memorization tool online that went Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always, I think that this saying would work in some situations but because I already learned a similar saying for the treble clef I decided to come up with my own saying! For the bass clef, I came up with the saying Gary Buys Divorce Frosting After. I think this saying will stick in my head much easier.

Also not to mention, I didn’t realize that the bass clef was just an extension of the treble clef. This is a zoomed-in version of the image above. This is something that messes me up! The B on the bass clef is the same as the B on the treble clef however, they are totally in totally different places on the staff.

I used a great website called MusicTheory.net after I figured out how the music staff worked. Linked here is the website. The website had a section called note identification, this section gave

This is a G flat

you a note on the staff and asked you to label the note’s letter. This section was very helpful, and even though I am going to have to practice more, I am feeling confident with my progress thus far.

So that was my week! Lots of thinking to finally figure out music theory (a little late but better than never).

Thanks for reading, you’re a gem ?