Sight Reading in the Treble and Bass Clef

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we're taking our site reading skills another step further by adding clefs. 'See?' 'The Cliffs of Insanity!' No, no, no, not cliffs, clefs. See? The Clefs of Insanity! Ahahahahaha! Okay, I have no idea what just got into me there. So, where was I? Oh yeah: clefs. Let's come to the Clefs of Insanity to get started. So as you can see for sight reading today, we have a treble clef, and recall that any time we have a treble clef what that's telling us is any note on this line that goes right through the middle of the treble clef swirl This line is the G line. So any note on that line would be G. My middle C is this yellow, which makes my treble G right here with the blue. So anytime you see a note on the treble G line, this is the note you'll play. Now some of these notes are on the line, some are below it, some are above it. Can you point to all the notes that are actually on the G line? Let's find them all. Can you point with me? We've got one here, here. This one's below than the line, so it's not a G. We've got a G here, and another G here. With this, this, and this being a step above the line. Now, let's go through one note at a time, and can you say with me the steps, skips, and repeats? So we'll say start for the first note. Ready? Start, repeat, step down, step up, step up, repeat, step down, step up. Great. Now let's do it one more time and this time say the letter names. Since we know any note on this line is G, we can say G, G, now we're gonna go a step below G which would be what? Can you tell me? If you said F you're correct. Then it steps back up to G. Now we're going above G which is what? That's right it's an A. A G A Now let's try to play down on the piano. So when you sight read you'll often see over certain notes a number which tells you which finger should be playing that note. So you can see that over that first treble G you'll see a finger 2. So, take your right hand finger 2, place it on treble G, and then we'll try and play these notes. What I'd like you to do is say out loud how the notes are moving as you play. Like this: We'll go start, repeat, step down, step up, step up, repeat, step down, step up. Now, press pause and you try to sight read this on your own with finger 2 starting on G, and then say out loud how the notes are moving as you play. Remember, keep your eyes on the notes not on your hands. Press play when you're ready to go on. For this next example, I've placed the treble clef on a more traditional five line staff which is what you're going to be generally seeing whenever you play a song written in sheet music. Now when you're on a five line staff the treble clef line is always going to be this line number two from the bottom. I'm going to color it blue just to kind of remind us where the G line is always going to be line number two because that's where the swirl is positioned. Now, if you look at this carefully you'll notice these are the same notes we just played. It just looks a little different now because we're on the five line staff. Since we just played these notes, I don't think we need to play it again. So let's look at the next example. Here's our next example. I'm going to go and color the G line which you can also do in your music as you're getting used to finding that G line, eventually you'll just recognize where it is, but let's point and say how the notes are moving whether they're stepping up, stepping down, or repeating. Say start for the first note with me and try and stay together. Start, step up, repeat, step down, step down, step up, step up, step down. Great, now let's try to say the letter names. Can you say it with me? We've got G, then it steps up to what? A, A, then steps down to what? G, now we're on the G line again, then F G A G Great, now let's try to play it on the piano. Okay, once again it's asking us to place finger 2 on G, and since we're in the treble clef we'll usually use our right hand, so let's place right hand finger 2 on treble G. And then now say with me out loud how the notes are moving. We have start, step up, repeat, step down, step down, step up, step up, step down. Now on your own press pause, and try playing and sing out loud how each note is moving, then press play when you're ready to go on. Alright, here's our next example. I'll go ahead and color the G line. Kind of highlight line number two so we know we're treble G is. Now, what do you notice this time? Our first note actually starts a step below the G line. Can you tell me the letter name of this note? If you said F you're correct. Let's go through it and say the steps, skips, repeats, first. Can you try it by yourself this time? Say start for the first note, and go. The correct answer is start, step up, step up, repeat, step down, repeat, step down, repeat. Good, now can you tell me the letter names? We've already said the first note is F, and can you say the rest of them? Try it. F, now you go. The correct answer is F G A A G G F F Great, let's try to play it on the piano. This time it's asking for a finger 1 on the note a step below treble G which is F. So I've got finger 1 on F. Now, this time instead of playing it for you first, I'm going to have you try it ...