How important is it to be able to read music? Do you really need to learn to read music? Or is it enough to play piano by ear or by rote?

The short answer is that if you wish to make the most of your ability, you do need to be able to read music. But once you grasp a couple of basic points, it’s actually much easier than you might think. In fact, reading music is far easier than playing by ear.

At the outset, it’s only fair to acknowledge that reading music is a significant obstacle for many learners. This is especially the case for piano learners since we need to read different clefs, coordinate both hands, and play so many notes and rhythms at once. Trust me, I get it: My childhood attempt to learn the piano was curtailed when the teacher literally fired me because I couldn’t read music. It wasn’t until my late teens that I started in earnest and discovered my love for classical music.

If you’re intimidated by reading music, you’re probably expecting way too much of yourself. You see, reading music is not the same thing as sight reading. Odds are you’re conflating the two. That’s likely what’s causing unrealistic expectations.

To grasp why this is the case, we need to understand what sheet music, also called a score, represents. Sheet music is really nothing more than a set of written instructions for which notes to play when. And to some extent how. That’s it.

There are two main aspects to a musical score: pitch and rhythm. Pitch is which note to play and rhythm is when to play it. That’s really the gist of it! True, there are other symbols too, such as for dynamics (loud and soft) and articulation (how long to hold a note relative to its written value), but these are secondary considerations.

When you read music, you’re decoding it. You’re recognizing the symbols and converting them into sound. There’s no obligation to do so in realtime. That would be sight reading. Sight reading involves recognizing all the symbols meant to be played at any given time simultaneously, playing them on your instrument, and keeping the rhythm. This is a very tall order. It requires fluency in all of the other aspects of reading music: recognizing notes and rhythms while also playing expressively.

To learn of piece of written music, you certainly don’t need to be able to sight read it. All you need to do is decode the score. You just need to understand the instructions. Take as much time as you need. The instructions will be something like:

“Start on the C above middle C. Play it with the right thumb. Hold it for two beats. Now play the E above it with the middle finger. Hold it for one beat, then play the G above that with the pinky and hold that for one beat.”

And so on.

In the beginning stages of learning, there’s no need to sight read. You certainly shouldn’t expect yourself to be able to do so before you’ve gotten a handle on all its component skills.

The solution is to work on each skill separately. Start with learning to recognize the note names on the different clefs. Piano music uses bass and treble clefs. Learn to recite notes on these staves, independently of rhythm and independently of an instrument. Strive to be able to recite them about as easily as you’re able to name the letters in a page of text.

Once you’re able to do that, only then does it make sense to consider playing notes on an instrument. On the piano, practice finding notes on the keyboard, again independently of rhythm.

Work on rhythm separately at first. Learn to count out loud and to tap or clap in time. Don’t worry about trying to do so at the piano while playing the right notes. That’s too much for the initial stages. Just focus on recognizing the note values and keeping musical time.

As you develop each skill individually, you can eventually try putting them together. Since you’ll already have experience reading notes and keeping musical time, it won’t be as overwhelming as it would be if you tried putting multiple skills together before developing any one of those skills.

If you become really skilled at reading music, the ultimate stage in developing this skill is playing prima vista. This is what famous musicians including Mozart and Franz Liszt were able to do. Prima vista means being able to realize a musical score with full expression at sight, even if you’ve never heard the music before.

But please don’t expect yourself to be able to do this! Instead, just focus on each skill one by one and little by little. Learn to decode a written piece of music so that you can encode it into your memory and fingers. Remember that sight reading is a different skill from reading music in that sight reading starts where reading music leaves off. You don’t need to be a virtuoso sight reader to be good enough at reading music to learn most any piece of sheet music! And whenever you’re ready, you can learn to sight read on your instrument by doing simple exercises and very gradually building your skill set.

Happy practicing!