This is a really good question and one that comes up quite often. You might think when you first start out that writing the letters of the notes above your music will help you because you won’t have to count through all the lines and spaces so you can easily identify what notes to play. What harm could possibly come from making your music a little bit easier to read?
You are shortchanging yourself if you do this. If you write the names of the notes in your music, you’ll never have to figure them out – and so you won’t learn to read them! You will be creating a crutch that will hinder your music reading development. Think how difficult sightreading would be if you depended upon having the names of the notes written in your music.
Sometimes you might have some notes that go far above the staff into ledger lines and you might be tempted to write the names of the notes in these circumstances. This creates the same problem. If you take the time to make yourself figure them out every single time you encounter them, you will eventually learn to recognize the notes and you will become fluent at reading them. If you depend upon writing the names of the notes in your score, you will come to rely on that as your solution and will not become a facile reader.
Now there might be occasions when you are missing notes – in this case it’s fine to circle them. Sometimes you might want to write lines in the music to know where the beats in the rhythm are as well. Making notes to help you understand your music is fine. But writing the notes in your music will hinder your progress. So, figure them out whenever you read and your facility with reading music will continue growing.
Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.