Hello Expat! Greetings from London.
One of the best ways to learn to read music - and you may scoff - but it works - is to buy a particular secondhand recorder book:
The School Recorder Book 1 - by Priestley and Fowler. You can pick them up on eBay for about £3.50 with free postage!
If you are still with me - don’t go! Hear me out please!
The School Recorder Book 1 takes you through a progressive learning curve very very quickly - you’d be amazed.
So if your reaction at this point is “I don’t want to learn the “#£_”–:‘’ recorder Charlie!” Then you’ve not yet fully understood - because I’ve not fully explained!
I just want you to keep reading me until you understand fully…
If you work through the aforementioned book - all you have to do is, for example, write in the appropriate hole of your harp/harmonica - and play each page.
As you learn to match each hole to the indicated note - you then play the simple tunes which feature that note - and you end up reading music! And playing quite a large selection of tunes - even off by heart!
Reading music is just a ‘code’ - many people are in awe of people who can read music. But it’s really really a doddle.
As you build up your sight-reading from each page - and muscle memory, by the time you get to the last page you’ll have an amazing foundation of sight reading and theory and easily remembered tunes - vicariously learned and almost without realising it.
Whilst I’m a good sight-reading musician, I have to learn a piece of music off by heart before I can make it ‘mine’. And my head is full of hundreds of tunes just from building up this strategy.
It saved me during my early music exams - because it contains a lovely tune called ‘Old King Cole’. As part of my Music GCE we had to harmonise an eight-bar tune. In harmonizing you have to apply different rules depending on whether it’s a major or minor key. (Apologies if you already know this.) The examiners chose it as it was in A minor - the relative minor of C major - both without any key signature. I immediately recognised it as 'my favourite recorder tune and harmonised it in the minor key because I had played it so often in P&F! On emerging from the exam I asked colleagues if they realised it was in a minor key. Not one of them had. I was the only pupil who passed Music GCE in my year!
So how do I know this works? Because after I had used my version of the book at nine years old (self taught) for the recorder - I went on to learn the fiddle. And again you just mark in the finger position from the fiddle fingerboard on each page and play those familiar tunes again!
I then went on to play the ‘D’ tin whistle - marking it again with the fingerings for it.
And then the D/G Melodeon…(At 40!)
And then the Alto Sax…which allows you to play the Tenor sax of course! (At 50!)
Your Priestley & Fowler Book 1 gathers quite a few extraneous notes on every page - but it’s a database of knowledge for each instrument - for life!
Because this method builds on stuff you’ve already learnt with other instruments, it really does fast-track you to playing a great number of instruments.
I have yet to open my new Yamaha Clarinet (I’m now 72!) - but when the time comes - I will be initially working through Priestley & Fowler!
It really does take you speedily to a quite competent level of musicianship and musicality to provide a foundation for much higher things.
I’ve always purchased second-hand copies of this simple book and given them away to prospective musicians - because you don’t need a tutor, just follow the book!
I’d be honoured to send you a copy with my compliments if you like - as I’ve done for many others!
And it changes into a ‘record’ of your musical journey - with lots of different fingerings jotted around each page.
I know several friends who are making progress with the books I’ve handed out.
Good luck! I hope you read this far - but I understand if you didn’t!
But just get a copy and try it! At £3:50 you’ve not much to lose! (I purchased mine mainly years ago for 2 quid!) - and you can plaster it with all your different instruments! That’s fun in itself!