Types of Printed Music

Of course listening to different songs and then playing by ear is one way to do this.

But if reading music is your forte or if you are not able to locate the CD for one of your favourite songs, you can go through the innumerous printed music available for music lovers.

Most of the musicians including Piano players normally have access to the following types of printed music -

Sheet music - If you want to play any particular song, say one of your favourites, then you need to check out sheet music.

A Sheet music is basically just one song printed on a few pages, stapled together and provided as a booklet. You can usually find sheet music for most of the popular songs.

Sheet music will usually display the bass as well as the treble cleff notes (for both your hands) and in some cases, may be an extra staff which shows the notes for the singer.

You may even find the lyrics for the song and the names of the chords to be played.

Folios - In simple terms, a folio is basically a collection of musical pieces sold in a book format.

So if you are not looking for just one song but a collection of songs based on some common theme, then go in for a folio.

Folios may contain a few pieces or several pieces and are usually grouped based on a certain theme, such as songs written by a specific artist or a band or any particular style or the best-selling songs from a particular year.

The layout of the songs in a folio use almost the same format as the pieces available in sheet music. If you do not have any particular song in mind, buying a folio makes sense as it is less expensive than buying separate songs as sheet music.

Lead sheets/Fake book - A lead sheet, AKA music chart, is basically for players who like to improvise.

This is because you can only find the outline or the melody of the musical piece, shown on a treble cleff with chords. You will not find the bass cleff.

This gives pianists a lot of freedom to improvise, since the chords can be played in various ways and can be substituted with other chords.

If you intend to play from a lead sheet, you need to be familiar with chords and should have the ability to improvise. Since only one cleff is printed, most songs in a lead sheet format fit on one page or less.

A lead sheet may or may not provide the lyrics for the song. Similar to folios, lead sheets are also grouped into collections based on some common theme such as style, artist or best-selling year and sold in a book format, called a fake book.

Conclusion - No matter what your skill level is or what sort of music you are looking for, you should be able to find printed music for your needs.

Most of the songs are arranged to suit different levels of skills; popular songs that were not written originally for the piano are taken and arranged so that it can be played on the piano. So you have access to a huge repertoire of songs.

Nowadays, CD-ROMs of written music are also available, which contain a huge collection of songs. Just print the pieces that you like or play it straight form your laptop; and irrespective of whether you are playing from a lead sheet or a sheet music, you can always improvise if you know how to do it.

So have fun with printed music!

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