Music & Pop Culture
How to prepare a music score?
It can be a little hard to prepare a music score, and sometimes you don't know where to start. Here comes some steps and advice to help you!! We are going to use a very simple score, but it works with any score.
Step 1: Rhythm
On the first step, we focus our attention only on the rhythmical pattern of the recorder piece. It doesn't matter if the note is a B or a C, only the duration of the note. If you need, you can write the duration of each note over itself. In case one of the notes is a rest, we can put the number inside a square, just to remember that note is mute. Finish this step reading out loud the rhythm.
Step 2: Melody
On the second step, we can read the note's names. It's not completely necessary but it's a helpful tip. Just put the note's name under the note. You can use different colors to make a difference between notes and rhythm. Notice that rest notes has no name. Finish this step reading the note's names.
Step 3: Put them together
Now it's the moment to read out loud the rhythm with the note's name. In this example, we will start doing a SI note for four beats, then a LA note for four beats, a SI note for two beats and go on. We didn't play the instrument yet, but we are creating an image of how this music sound.
Step 4: Recorder technique
At this point, we can start using our instrument. As we are focused on the recorder, we will see how to play on this instrument, but any instrument is welcome on this step. Just think how many different notes you have in your score (only two on the example) and how to play it. It's a very good idea finish this step reading again the rhythm with the note's names and at the same time fingering the recorder with each note.
Step 5: Play it!
At last, we just read the rhythm, the notes, remember the technique to play the instrument... now we focus on the blow and play slowly the score. if the score is too long, we can just study a section or a few notes.