Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum AMEB Exams - too many pieces? and admin too slow?

Actually the way she is right now she'll spent 1-2 weeks leanring the notes of any piece (including a gr3 piece she's started learning this week and has committed half to memory sucessfully) and then from that point onwards adds nuance and fluidity. Her sight reading is terrible, so it will take her 2 weeks before she can play a piece - but then the printed music is completely redundant as she's commited it to memory.

I guess - thinking about it she does learn pieces at around 1 every 2 weeks as she's on her 7th new piece this year having started the year in mid-February and taking a month off at easter. Every one of those pieces can be played from memory - but after a week of non-playing will start to be forgotten again. This results in it being hard to retain a repertoire of more than 3 pieces without practice being simply a playthrough. No doubt improving reading skills would dramatically improve this.

In terms of time - daughter practices well and constructively for about 30 minutes at a time 5 or 6 days a week, but will sit and the piano and play 'unconstructivey' for a while too.

At her age I think suggesting a practice time of more than 30 minutes is unreasonable (I struggled to practice for more than 30 minutes at a time when I was 10 years older than her) - so I guess she's spending less than 3 hours a week seriously practicing.

She's SIX YEARS OLD!!!! 30 minutes is amazing, and doing it 5 or 6 days a week even more impressive.

So if she's learnt 7 pieces already this year why is there any trouble entering her for the Grade 2 exam?

She started the year learning a couple more Grade 1 pieces (despite having already done that exam) before moving on because she liked them and wanted to play them, and then abandonned a Grade 2 piece as it was effectively unplayable (required some fast smooth alternating octave spans that her little hands simply cant do). So in the end shes only got up to 5 Gr2+ pieces this week with the adidtion of a Gr3 piece - The problem is retaining 5 at a playable standard for the 3 months before an exam occurs. I guess its not that important - she just wont sit this exam.

I certainly agree 30 minutes of real concentration from her is amazing - it blows me away watching her work!

I don't think it's important at the age of 6 to do the exam, btw. I think it's much more important to work on a variety of pieces that open the imagination as well as building skills.

What's the G3 piece that she's working on?

Series 16 - B4: "Adagio", Carl Reinecke Op. 183 #2

heres a painfully robotic performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mVlVCZh644

DadAgain
Sounds like she is good at practising and has a good memory and she must have good ears to learn a grade 3 piece quickly without being able to use the score.

Very young kids do seem to forget pieces quite quickly (compared to adults) if not played at all although they seem to come back quickly. So you can let a piece go altogether and then revive it leading up to the exam. This is always a difficult thing to judge and not easy to get the timing right with out making it tedious for little kids.

What she needs is more familiarity with reading, and the ability to refer to and follow the score. Like your daughter I make sure that my student ears and memory are developing really well before I get them to be able to read well. If the timing is right they can take to it like ducks to water ( the well developed ears and memory, and wide experience of pieces really helps at this point). I am not a read-first kind of teacher, although I teach (physical) rhythm reading from first lesson

Around the level of grade 3 pieces is a perfect time to give them a book with CD where they learn pieces all by themselves. This teaches them the joys and value of reading, even if not the sight reading technique that you need for an ameb exam.

I've had great success recently giving students Getting to Preliminary the New Mix with CD. The CD is the key. I ask them to listen to CD, choose a piece, learn it and show me next lesson. I also say "doesn't have to be perfect" (and it won't be of course). Soon they are addicted to this, it is fun not work and I often find they have taught a sibling something from the book too - and if this is not musical success I don't know what is! Choose level of book she can manage, and music She likes

They get used to looking at the score and really using it, with the CD as a very big help. Perhaps this is a good example of learning a piece where perfection is not the goal. After they play it for me I make sure I really enjoy it "Play it again and I'll play tambourine - or should I use marraccas?" "Play marraccas" they say - they are the boss of this piece not me. I will show them where in the score they have deviated, if and when this is valuable, as points of interest not corrections. They are free to play it how they choose.

PS Eye of the Tiger is so good I often suggest it first. But there is a piece in the book which is banned... If I hear one more student play those first few bars grrr (gales of laughter then some wicked teasing chords).

Gosh I didn't mean to rave so much! well I hope this may be of use to someone at least.

I had a bit of a rumage around and found a "Classics to Moderns" book (http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/0435/details.html) from waay back. I put it in front of daughter yesterday and asked her to sight read the first piece (no assistance from me). After 5 slightly painful minutes she was just about ok with the first couple of lines.

What I'm going to have ago at is trying to see if she can do a different couple of lines every day. With a bit of luck by the end of the book (about 100 days time?) - Her sight reading should have improved dramatically and perhaps her improved reading will help the rest of her playing. (She'll also have 'worked on' another 50 pieces :-p )

Thanks to everyone here re-stating the case for playing lots. On reflection perhaps indulging her quest for absorbing 'great and thrilling performances' has meant missing some vital skills along the way?

Which book in the Classic to Modern series is she using?

the first one (see link in previous post)

DadAgain, just a quick point: what you are doing is (effectively) 5-10 minutes of sight reading a day. That's fine and will be a great addition to your daughter's routine, but it's not the same thing as 'working on' a piece.

5-10 minutes of painfull sight reading a day is taking its toll... At this rate she'll refuse to touch a piano at all before this winter is over.

What to do? Persist and kill her natural love for the piano, or ignore her inability to read music and wait for her to reach the inevitable limit of her memory-based playing?....

If only there were a way to make sight-reading fun. She LOVES learning new pieces - but the dots on the page seem to be a hinderance to that process not a help.

Teacher still remains completely unphased by her inability read. He reckons for a 6yr old shes pretty good...Having said that he also openly admits he's never seen a 6yr old be able to play like she can, and his own sight reading is terrible (when he wanted to demonstrate how useful sight-reading was he got me to play something suggesting that his reading wasnt nearly as god as mine).


Has this topic derailed sufficiently that it justifies a new one? Its seems to have moved way beyond discussing anything to do with AMEB requirements!

Just to pick up on one little point - if the sight reading is "painful" I'd say the pieces you're choosing for her to read are too difficult. Start with something she can read easily!

+1
And further - the suggestion was the absolute reverse of spending 5-10 minutes a day doing 'sightreading'!!!! That would kill anybody's enthusiasm!!!

The idea is that you LEARN (not sight read) a new piece every single week. So you find the level at which your daughter can manage a new piece every week. And then it all flows - and it's FUN!!! The fun lies in having a piece of music under your fingers and in your ear, not in plodding through new and unfamiliar notation every day.

And there's no reason why she shouldn't hear the pieces she is learning prior to working from notation.

It's funny, I remember this from a few weeks ago, and at the time I thought about replying, then decided that we had drowned you in enough advice! It was the word "painful" that worried me, but she worked it out without help - so that's pretty good!

I would emphasise again awakening her to the pleasures and excitement of the written score - that's quite a different thing than practising sight reading in the way it is required for ameb exams. There are many ways to involve a child in written notation, my previous post describes a possible approach but it is by no means the only one I'd use, even for the one child. It's hard to recommend specific activities from a distance... but I can if interested (or youre welcome to PM).

SR technique can be worked on specifically later once she is a better at using, seeing, hearing and writing notation a bit better. Yes and learning lots and lots of pieces does help with this (as others have recommended).

How about a game where the child reads music without having to play a note? It's Musical Chairs with a twist. YOu play a piece... suddenly stop in the middle, and then she has to point out the last note you played. Keep points score (you get the point if she is wrong). Begin with easy music, stopping at obvious points... then gradually make it harder. I haven't met anyone who doesn't enjoy this. Enjoy.

I'm wondering about he book you said she was using for sight reading (classics to modern 1) - are you sure that is easy enough for her sight reading level? It would certainly frustrate me immensely if it was too difficult for my current reading level?

Maybe get her some sight-reading series like the Bastiens' "A Line a Day" or the Marlais/Olson "Sight Reading & Rhythm Every Day." If you are having her sight read real music, that could be too difficult.

But seriously, don't worry about the sight reading. The teacher is right to be unconcerned about this. No one gets a musical education from practicing sight reading exercises.

Canonie - dont worry aout drowning me in advice, I'm happy to have a mountain of it thrown my way so that *some* of it might stick (I'm pretty thick skinned so can take any abuse or criticism anyone cares to point in my direction) - Any new previously uncnsidered ideas are welcome, even if I end up considering them as not quite right for this specific circumstance.

I recognise that everyone here is making good and constructive suggestions (thank you) - but ultimately you're basing that on what limited information I can give you about my daughters abilities, moods and desires, so not all suggestions will suit us.

As far as the sight reading is going - there may have been a corner turned last night. I think daughter had a lightbulb moment and a little 'determined attitude' (as oposed to the previously observed 'defeatist attitude') surfaced. Shes still reading VERY slowly (think crotchet=10bpm) - but the challenge seems to be getting easier and she's 'up for it'. It might still be too dificult for her, but I'm limited in material of lesser complexity to give her.


We've done this and she's amazingly good at it - she can follow Chopin Nocturnes, Debussy Preludes and basically anything that I'm capable of playing these days! I've yet to try putting her in front of a full orchestral score to see if she can follow that, but clearly that part of her 'reading brain' is perfectly in order (freakishly so - perhaps?).

I guess its this disparity in abilities that confuses me - she can play well, she can follow very well, she has a musical ear and memory as good as anyone I've ever met - but yet translating from dots-keys is tricky.


If she hears it first she WONT use the notation - she'll guess what to play (quite accurately) and self-correct (very quickly) - by the time she's on a second playthrough its memorised and music is used only as a guide to overall structure of a piece not as an indicator of specific notes. I've tried deliberately NOT playing pieces to her so that theres a slightly longer period of her looking at the dots - but even then printed music is soon relegated once she's worked out how the piece 'goes'.

Interestingly its as if her brain works like this:
DOTS->EAR->FINGERS

whereas its more common for us (as beginners at least) to be:
DOTS->FINGERS->EAR

yes that's freakishly good!
One way to make SR much easier is to read one hand each, duet style - has this been suggested/tried?. It keeps both parties moving and is social. Style as "games" rather than "education" if that helps.

"Interestingly its as if her brain works like this:
DOTS->EAR->FINGERS".
Hey this is a good thing and it's how I train my students. I believe it helps with musical playing; student audiates the score in an ideal sort of way, then copies these sound shapes with piano. Don't be sad about this!!! And I really don't like the sort of beginner playing that goes dots->fingers

Another thing I've found sooo helpful is to bring their rhythm reading ahead of what they play at piano. My best way to do this is to step/dance the pulse with the legs and at the same time sing the rhythm. You can sing it all on da da de Daaaah as you feel it, while others (including me) use some sort of rhythmic solfege. Get good at the legs first, lots of fun and laughs and variations possible. If she is reading very very slowly in your opinion, it could be that this is helpful in driving the music forward. This is not just a game. If I couldn't do this I would probably stop teaching! It is fundamental to the kind of playing I wish to draw out from students.

And again, like Elissa, I wouldn't push SR too hard where she is not keen, but think of ways to connect her with notation. It sounds like she is going really really well in the areas that matter, and on what we know I would thoroughly enjoy working with a girl like this. Love smart kids. So enjoy your journey together, she is lucky to have you

Even though everyone is saying not to worry about sightreading, I'll give you a few ideas that you can spend 30 seconds a day on that I find really help:

Note flashcards, introduced very, very slowly. I introduce them 3 at a time and don't add any more until the current cards are down pat, and 3 is a doable, unscary task.

Interval flashcards. You can make these yourself, and avoid using a clef so the concentration is purely on being able to recognise 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths etc and what they look like on the piano. I have a 5 year old who can sightread a whole level one (second lesson book) piano adventures piece through, both hands doing different things, and it sounds near polished on the first playthrough, even though the only note he can name instantly is middle C, because he has such good recognition of intervals. I can't emphasise enough how much interval recognition helps with sightreading.

Third idea is to check out the popular repertoire books of the Piano Adventures series. From what you've said she does a lot of classical at the moment, which is GREAT, but she might enjoy a bit of variety, and playing tunes she's familiar with or that are more modern might add a sweetener to sightreading (or you could just do them together, rote learning them for fun!). They're about $8 australian on sheetmusicplus.com plus postage.