Learn to Master Ledger Lines
WKMT Blog has prepared a post with which you would learn all about these famous lines on your music scores:
When it comes to reading ledger lines, all the piano students start to stress themselves out. Whenever the piano teachers choose the pieces for their student’s programmes, they know very well the sight-reading complications that lie upon the road of studying the pieces they select.
Why are ledger lines so hard to read?
It does not matter which instrument you play, really. Whenever you reach a certain level in music, you are bound to encounter the distressing ledger lines.
What are they, anyway?
As Laura Bevan explains in her article:
“A ledger line is essentially an extension of the stave. It represents an imaginary line offering a place for the notes above and below each staff.“
Is there any quick method to read ledger lines?
The answer is: definitively YES!
The first step is to count from the last note on the stave up/down until you meet the ledger line.
For all the pianists out there, we will start with the notes played by the right hand. The next step is to follow the same acronym we use to read the notes on the spaces (in the case of the treble clef) that spell F-A-C-E
starting on the upper line of the treble clef.
For the Bass clef (in the case of the piano, the left hand). The notes are the same as the treble clef but backwards, so the notes would be E-C-A F. The notes in-between in the spaces will be the filler. It may sound not very clear, but once you begin practising, it is easy to get the hang of it.
With time and practice there is nothing that we cannot achieve.
The ledger lines seem to appear impossible initially, but then you will see that you start remembering one, then another and then all of them!
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