Marking up the sheet music helps a pianist, organist or other keyboard player to read and play the music more easily, smoothly and fluently. Without marking up the music, the musician may find his fingers left out on a limb on the staff, glance down at the keyboard and lose his place on the page.
Here are two lines of music from a marked up copy of Brahm's Lullaby.
Notice the little crosses. The first one says to begin playing in the D position. The next cross tells where to move to the G position. The cross on the second line says to move back to the D position.
Other signs on this sheet music say: The notes are played an octave, 8, higher than they are shown on the treble clef staff; The music is in 3/4 time; No chord, NC, is played for the first measure; The first chord is C; The first three notes belong to chord C; So the music is in the key of C; the next chord is G; and Many notes are staccarto as they have dots under them.
Photocopy the sheets of music you want to mark. You need a pencil and a rubber eraser. Look at notes on the pages to see which lines of the staff the highest and lowest notes are on. Look at how the notes rise and fall.
Chose which close fingering position to start with, G position or D position. If you start with G position, mark a tiny cross at the beginning of the staff where a G note would go. If you start in D position, mark the cross where a D note would go. That cross tells you in which position to start playing.
See how many notes you will play in the first position. It depends on how the notes rises and fall on the staff. Decide whether to play from the first note up to the fifth or to cross over to the other position midway If you start in D position, for example, you may decide it is easier to cross the thumb over to note G rather than play note A or Bflat with the little finger. Most music needs only one cross mark about every three to five measures.
You may choose to change a few notes or a chord here or there to make the music easier to play, or to avoid too many crossovers. Mark the changes on the sheet music. Draw a pencil line through any note or chord you do not want and write the note or chord you want. If a note is too high or low to reach in one hand position, you may choose to repeat the note before it instead of changing to another position. You can choose to play either a major chord or a major seven, which ever leads more easily to the next chord. You may choose to play Bflat instead of B or Bm, or Em7cut instead of EM. Mark each choice above the staff. Such changes to the sheet music are rarely needed.
When you finish marking the sheet music, erase or white out any signs you do note need. Then make a clean photocopy to read and play from.
