Have you already spent a lot of time and money trying to learn how to read music?
Are you getting any better at it?
Maybe you have had years of education or lessons and you still feel like you’re lacking in your music reading abilities.
Or, it could be that you are just not smart enough, don’t have a very good memory, or you just simply weren’t born with natural talent in music to begin with.
Do these things sound familiar to you? They all seem like perfectly good explanations for why you are not the music reading extraordinaire yet.
The Challenge We all Face When Reading Music Notes…
Being good at something – reading music, playing an instrument, or writing your own music – is what all of us really want in our lives.
This inner sense of accomplishment is one of the deepest fulfillment’s we have as human beings.
The problem is that we find out it’s very hard, we encounter problems, get discouraged, and many times give up on the whole thing before we barely get started.
This is all very normal and even expected. What if you had some real knowledge about how to get past all of those negative things and finally reach a level of high success?
I bet you would be a little more motivated to keep going, to keep trying, and to keep on keeping on.
The first step in understanding how to inevitably become great in music is to identify what is holding you back.
The 4 Lies We Like to Believe
Lie #1 – I am not fantastic at reading music because I was not born with the natural ability to do so.
This is one of the biggest lies out there and maybe one you have believed for a very long time.
A number of researchers have found that “talent,” or the natural ability do something well inherently from birth, does not really exist and if it does exist, it may be completely irrelevant.
I hate to tell you this, but the talent gene does not exist. No one is born with a certain amount of “giftedness” to do something well.
Lie #2 – I can’t read music very well because I just haven’t had enough experience with it yet.
On some level, this could be true, especially if you are an absolute beginner.
However, many people who have been reading music for a lot of years are not necessarily really good at it.
In fact, they frequently don’t get any better from the time they first started.
It’s disturbing to know that you can work your entire life at something and still not get very far. You are probably getting along acceptable enough as it is, but it’s nowhere near anything spectacular.
If you really want to read music well, just putting in a few years isn’t going to be of much help.
Lie #3 – I don’t have a very good memory so that’s why I have trouble reading music.
No one is born with an exceptional memory. This is something we all have to learn and put into practice in order to improve our memory bank capacities.
We assume that some of our top musicians have staggering memories. Some may do, but most do not. Those that do have a great memory learned how to expand it over time.
Researchers have clearly discovered that our memory ability is acquired and not something we are born with naturally. In fact, it can easily be developed by anyone!
Lie #4 – I’m just not smart enough to be able to read music.
When researchers looked at top performers in various fields, they found that intelligence has nothing to do with their success.
It turns out that it takes more than our God-given brainpower to do well at anything. This means a high IQ is not needed in order to read music successfully.
What We Think…
We tend to think that we are forever banned from being able to read music exceptionally well because we believe in one or all four of the lies listed above.
These lies become so deep within in us that I truly feel it can blind us to reality.
Here’s the real truth: Anyone can read music at a very high level. You just need to learn how to practice more efficiently.
In the next article, I will share with you a little bit about my secret solution to solving all your music reading problems…focused practice.
