Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Why Johnny and Jill can't read ...[ahem}... music

Actually, isn't this the ultimate state for which we are striving, where the note on the paper BECOMES the sound (with color, and duration, and volume, and nuance), rather than "waiting" for the intermediate step of mental identification? Aren't we attempting to build a "no thinking", reflex reaction?

(I already have the No Thinking part mastered! Now if only I could apply it to music . . .)
Ed

As you mention, you have all the kids in private lessons. So when you talk of group teaching, it is what many teachers do which is have kids in private lessons and then supplement with group theory and performance (weekly or monthly for example).

There is a marked difference in what people are referring to as group lessons. The supplemental kind that you propose are not going to be a problem for kids. Group alone will be a problem.

Tim,

The point I was making has to do with finding notes vs remembering them. Imagine, for instance, that you start piano/keyboard with no prior experience in music, not on any instrument.

There is a C major chord in the bass clef, second, third and 4th lines. How do you get from that to playing the chord?

The logic has to do with lines and spaces. I can point to the three spaces in the music, then connect them to those same three spaces on my chart. I tell you to match them. You do it. Where do you get the names from? If this is the first day, you get the names from FINDING the pictures first, pressing the keys second, then reading the names on the chart. They are directly over the keys you are pressing.

If you have my kind of mind, and many of my students do, you will pick up the concept almost immediately and will begin moving triads all over the place. I will be able to teach you this, in one lesson:

C, F and G major. And I may be able to teach you D, E and A major. The big challenge will be getting your 3rd finger to work, because for most beginners 5 3 1 is not easy to coodinate.

I can then have you playing tunes in the treble, moving anywhere, one finger. You get the idea of movement, and how reading can be 100% INDEPENDENT of fingers. A lesson or two later I show you the logic of fingering. I give you five finger patterns, but written in score so that the starting note is random. You are forced to find the starting place, using either 5th or thumb, then you simply move up or down, logically. This is all intervalic.

But if, at the same time, you make yourself say the letters of each note in a melody and name the root of triads, in the LH, you are subconsciously beginning to associate what you find, using recognition, with the names (which EVENTUALLY have to be memorized).

And how would you remember the names? You take any page of music, hands separate, and fairly effortlessly play one line, looking at the chart. You say the names. Then you flip the chart down and repeat the same thing. You allow yourself to flip the chart up and down, for a line, for a page, for even one note if you go blank.

The advantage of this thinking is that you are always free to explore music that goes beyond your "memory comfort zone". You can move ahead to music that goes places that are not in your head, but you can find them. Since it is human nature to cut out all unnecessary steps, even when the chart is in place you will begin playing many notes correctly, pressing the correct keys, without looking at the visual aid. It is there, but it is an intermediate step, so whenever you are moving from the page to the keys, or you are looking at a score and are not looking down, you have it.

It seldom takes me more than a year to complete this process with people who have learning disabilities. But it can go REALLY quickly.

I have a girl who just turned seven last week. She has counted and played almost every little song we have done, chart down. I insist on note names, and I insist on "together", so C together (with chord) means a chord in the LH, RH plays C.

Each week, she says, "Do I have to say the letters?" My answer: "The other kids do, but you don't. You are THAT good at this! You know them, you have the chart down, just play and count."

She learned and played Happy Birthday, both hands, and played it. It took one week. She learned it BY HERSELF, with only a couple hints from me. She knows four chords for reading: C E G, C F A, B F G, D F G. She knows her C, D, E, F, G and A major triads. She can find any note, in either clef, by matching it to the right key. She learns new music by herself, because each week we run out of time and I put extra music in, to explore. She ASKS for it.

I have another student who just turned six, and I had to teach him mostly alone because his father, unlike the son, did not pick up the logic. He has problems matching notes. It may be linked to problems in math. But in a few months the boy is going to be where the other seven year-old is now.

So that's what I was talking about with recognition vs. memory.

Yes. You are correct.

Thinking letter names while playing is about as useful and successful as either of us spelling out each letter of each word that we are reading.

H I hi E D Ed, H O W how A R E are Y O U you D O I N G doing?

And this is the way most people try to read music - and why it fails...

I think this is an important point. Any ensemble is a group. Obviously playing in a band or orchestra is a "group" thing, and being a part of musical groups was a huge thing in my life through about age 22.

But people who excel in such groups normally have private lessons, and without those private lessons they flounder.

When my students end up in any "piano classes", for any reason, they report to me that all they do in these classes is help other students who are lost. To me that is a very different thing from sitting first chair in a violin or trumpet section, where you are OFFICIALLY the leader and it is your JOB to make sure that the other people in your section are carrying their weight.

This has been a very informative thread. I hope you don't mind a question from a non-teacher.

Gary, and others of course, I'm curious if you have taught adults (new to music, not returners). Do you (or would you) use the same approach to reading with a new adult student? What about for an adult that came to you as a transfer who could read, but not as well as you would like him to at his current playing level? How would you attempt to get him caught up? You can assume our hypothetical student is willing and able to follow whatever program of instruction you lay out.

Like many adult piano/music starters (for lack of a better term), I want to be a better reader. But, even with a teacher's help, it is not always clear how that goal is best accomplished.



Jim

You find your level, whatever that is. A good teacher should be able to help you do this. You mostly stay on that level, and you have to throw perfection out the window, to some extent at least. When you find something that you can play well enough so that it sounds like music, the first time, that is your level. You can try to play music even easier, more of it, to accelerate the proecess more, mix it up with music that is truly on your level, not too easy, not too hard, then ocassionally challenge yourself with something that makes you stumble a little.

You don't have to do ONLY this. But devote half your practice time to reading. You don't always have to sightread ("prima vista"), but you have to catch when your memory is taking over. Don't repeat anything too often, when reading. You can cycle, meaning that if you return to something months later and barely remember it BUT can read it faster and more smoothly, you are making progress.

How many years did it take you to become a fluent reader of English? Probably close to 10 years to get to really advanced literature. Music is the same. You just don't do it overnight.

Oh, method books: any method book is woefully lacking. There is not enough materal. But if you combine the materials in SEVERAL method books, they tend to blanket concepts and fill in holes that other methods miss.

Thanks, Gary, that is very helpful. Not too different from my current approach....just have to do more each day and keep at it for a long time.

Actually, in my situation, the group was the main lesson and the private lesson was supplementary.

I think it's safe to state this: There are effective group teachers and ineffective group teachers. Having actually observed (and taught) in group settings, I can also conclude that group lessons are far less effective than private, individual lessons.

Then I think it is a poor approach, although IF people can only afford a group lesson, then we are talking about something different.

I did it with German, starting from scratch at age 30. It's not the same, but there are parallels.

1) I found someone to check my pronunciation.
2) I used FOUR different high school textbooks, and I read everything in all of them.
3) I ordered book for very young German children from Germany. They were large print, full of pictures. They were HARD. Books written for native readers make the stuff in textbooks look simple, because there are no artificial vocabulary limitations, and you run into idioms, staccato phrases, regional usages.
4) I moved to books for "young adults", in Germany.
5) I got books that were translations of famous books here, then only referred to the original English language books when I got stuck.
6) Finally I moved on to adult literature.
7) Found an exchange student who was weak in spoken English, and we alternated between talking all in English (good for him) and all in German (good for me).

My experiences in foreign language totally changed the way I teach music reading.

Finally! And --- so far our discussion has really just focused upon printed note identification, either by translating the hieroglyphics to a particular key on the piano, or by translating it to a letter name. So, let’s go the extra distance and see what sort of mental gyrations are really involved before this stuff becomes reflex-like.

I remember that note - it’s “on” the third ledger line - actually not “sitting (up)on” the third ledger line, but with the line passing through the note-head. That makes it an E. But wait, there are a couple of flats in the key signature, so that makes our note an E-flat. Got it! Let’s see, “sfz” - I recall it stands for one of those troublesome Italian words with too many consonants - sforzando – meaning loud and almost “forced”. O.K. – got it! Oh, and look at that cute little house-roof, or caret over the top of the note-head. From memory, that means to play it sort of detached from the surrounding notes. Got it! Now, a double-dotted quarter note -- I’ve seen this before -- the “first dot” makes the note one-and-one-half times as long as normal, so 1½ beats. But that “second dot” - does it make the whole thing longer, or just make the “first dot” longer? I remember now, it makes the “first dot” one-and-one-half times as long. So, 1 + ½ + ¼ beats = 1¾ beats. Now I have it! But hold on - we are in 2/2 meter, so 1¾ beats divided by 2 equals . . . . . Now, remember to blend with the other players . . .

When it comes right down to it, I do not understand how any of us actually DO read music!
Ed

There you go, judging something that you haven't experienced. Our program was (and still is) very successful. The key is having both the group and the private lesson and having taken the time to group the children properly. The groups are re-evaluated periodically to account for differences in development.

Keep your mind narrow, if you wish.

For YEARS I have been all but screaming: "line notes are NOT on a line. SPACE notes are on a line or BETWEEN TWO lines." I correct every parent who is learning to teach at home. Say "line note. SHOW how the line cuts the circle in half. SHOW how the line disappears as it goes through "black notes". I usually have to repeat this about 10 times to the parents. The students get it instantly.

There is no flat. What is a flat? It's a little "b". Why is it called flat? What does flat mean? What way does it go, again? Oh, why don't we say "flat E", since that's what the MUSIC says.

Worse. Student sees F# in key signature. All Fs have # signs written above and below Fs, in parentheses, to introduce concept. Student still sharps G at the beginning of the line, bass clef. Teacher reminds that it is a G, the only Fs are sharped. Next week, student sharps G again. No wait: THIS week s/he is FLATTING it? What direction was that funny number sign again?

That's easy. Don't worry about funny abbreviations until you can play the notes. Teaching Hispanics is easier, forte=fuerte, crescendo=cresciendo, poco=poco, mezzo=medio.

What does that little line over the note mean? (tenuto mark) Doesn't that change middle C into E?

Better: why are there all these 32nd and 64ths in the Mozart SLOW movement when there were mostly only 8ths in the FAST movement?

Chopin wrote 30 little notes, all connected with one beam, over four even 8ths in the LH. What comes with what?

Tempo rubato. What is "robbed" from "what"?

I don't understand how any of us DOES (note tense) learn to read English. I did not finally START to spell most words correctly until computer programs developed spill-chuck. Even that does not ensure/insure that my spilling will always be positively affected/effected, because there/their/they're our/are/hour always SNAFUS.

I'll keep my narrow mind while you live in your ivory tower, where everything is perfect.

As you said, we live in different worlds. Look at my sig. It says piano teacher. I never talk about credentials, degrees, letters. I don't regularly post one line answers.

I'll let other people here decide which of us is condescending ans smug.

(Eye, Aye, I), (to, two, too), agree. Now we are getting somewhere!

I never said everything was perfect. But you seem to want to dismiss the possibility that group instruction as the main mode of instruction can be effective.

I worked hard for my credentials, yes, but I also have 30 years of teaching experience in which I learned as much and more. Thank you for being so dismissive.

Great discussion here everyone!

Gary, I'm really interested in finding out more about your approach for teaching reading. I am also a teacher, and while I'm an accomplished player, I have always been a comparitively poor reader. I learned the wrong way... memorizing note names. I have recently come to understand the importance of reading by intervals but I'm still trying to figure out how to best teach this, since I'm not particularly good at it. Right now I use the Music Tree series with young students, with landmarks and intervals. It's definitely better than the methods that use the middle C positions and such (what I learned with), but I still think there is something missing here. I agree with you that many students I get from other teachers can't read. I like to think that students who leave me are doing alright, but I'm sure they could do better. You mentioned a chart that you use. If I'm understanding correctly, students can start reading music, matching the notes to the keys, without knowing the names of the keys or notes? I'd like to see how this works.

What about the strong kids. Are they able to work at their potential and up to their natural level of interest?