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

I try to develop visual recognition (I find that devices like "every good boy..." just become a crutch). Starting with Middle C I ask the students to describe how it looks (middle c sits away from the stave and has it's own little line going through it). I ask the students to make sentences like this for visualising both the notes on the stave and the notes on the piano (eg. F is the white key at the start of the group of 3 black notes). I find this approach has the fastest route to instantaneous recognition. To help students remember how to read bass clef I get them to say "B is Backwards into Bass clef." The use of alliteration works well. I also teach students to look out for patterns in the music such as skips and steps and following the shape of the melody line (is it shaped like a hill (up then down) or a valley (down then up) etc.

When learning songs all beginner students will learn to read the notes and clap and count the rhythm before they play. After a while (as the length of pieces increases) I will only do this for some songs, or pick out sections that are likely to prove more difficult and have the student name notes and clap and count for just those sections.

But I think the most important thing is not moving students too quickly. As I said before, if they can't read the notes for a piece then they're not ready to play that piece. I feel like it's popular these days to push forward with playing skills even if reading isn't up to scratch, but I find this to be so detrimental as the student inevitably hits a wall when their expectations and their varying abilities are no longer compatible. By moving a bit more slowly to allow for the development of sound reading skills then that wall usually doesn't arise and in the long run the student makes better progress, is able to learn songs more quickly, and has better sight reading skills.

EDIT: Just to elaborate on the Backwards to B thing...I know it doesn't seem to fit with my visualisation method, however I find that a jumble between Treble D and Bass B inevitably arises in the first couple of lessons due to the middle C centric approach to the first few pieces in most beginner methods. This has been the best way I've found to resolve that jumble, even though usually I try to break away from the idea of working everything out from middle C.

Overall, my students learn note reading very smoothly and quickly. The majority of my beginner students are 5/6 and their age doesn't seem to cause any problems.

I am curious: you mean that they play from a score these three keys on the piano...



And that they can play the intervals from the landmarks ...



That they can play from a score ...



And that you don't yet ask them to name the notes, other than the landmark notes. Have I got it?

For the names of notes, do you use A-B-C ... ? Are the intervals named at this point?

They can name all keys on the piano.

They can identify, by letter name, the three landmarks, at sight.

They can play and name (and sing!), at sight, any interval up to the 5th, anywhere on the keyboard, but if they are on the grand staff, they can start from the landmark. The course I uses begins without clefs. They have just been introduced to clefs in the last several weeks.

Now that the clefs are in place, we are beginning the work of naming individual notes on the staff.

So yes, they read fluently for what they have been exposed to. They do not make errors in their interval reading and the note-naming process will actually move pretty quickly now.

I have moved a little slower with them than some other students because they were both young 6 year olds when we began. The one just turned 7 last month and the other will turn seven in June, so the cognitive process is speeding up.

This approach has been used successfully since Frances Clark introduced it in the 1950's and I have been using for 30 years with great success.

Do you literally mean songs, as in tunes with words that kids can sing which helps them because songs are familiar? Or do you mean pieces, but call them songs? In this context it makes a difference.

Yes, I teach intervallic reading. For instance, the moment I teach a simple C chord, C E G, I stress triple space in the bass clef (2nd, 3rd, 4th space). I stress that concept for all triads. For inversions, I show the shape. A 6th is slightly bigger than "hand-size", thus bigger than a 5th. For melodies, I put a huge emphasis on direction, on stepping and on skipping. A 5th is a "double skip", moving two lines or two spaces.

That just scratches the surface. But I do not talk much about the NAMES of intervals in the beginning.

No flash cards for note recognition. Flash cards have severe disadvantages, and what they cover can be explained in many other more efficient ways.

Middle C position? I stay away from it like the plague. If a student has even a HINT of problems with direction, up and down, left and right, the notation of this position mirrors the fingers and the position of the notes on the staff.

I never do "pre-reading". Many method books offer a dumbed-down reading approach that shows black notes and notes of some kind, no staff, no lines. And no grand staff. That system of teaching just gets in my way.

I've written a lot, so I won't write more here. I think you are looking for answers from other people.

I take students from 6 and up, and I take a broadly similar approach to you, Gary. By the end of the first lesson (30 mins) I have nearly always got them clapping and counting crotchets and minims, and naming and playing C, D and E in the right hand to the extent where they have sight-read an 8-bar melody with no finger numbers or note names written in.

Rhythms are taught by vocalisation "Tun, Tun, Tun, Rest" or "Half-note, Top Hat" etc for the youngest. Older students are taught to count.

I then reinforce these 3 notes for a couple of lessons, as well as introduce a few extra note lengths and rests. The next pieces introduce one new note at a time, and once they can play a couple of pieces just using C-G, I introduce LH.

Older students will often be playing hands together, from score, within their first lesson.

Since the last couple of years, the focus has been far more on intervallic reading, with "Steps", "Skips", "Double Skips" etc. and I take care to move the hands around the keyboard as soon as possible, to avoid the idea setting in that "C=thumb".

All my teaching material is based on my own, original material, with the odd classic thrown in for good measure.

Something I believe makes a huge difference is that I try very hard not to actually tell the students anything, if at all possible; instead, I ask them leading questions. For instance, I will tell them that the first note we find is called "C", but that's it. I show them how it is written on the stave, then once they've found it and played it with their thumb, I write D on the board. I then ask them to play it. They nearly always play the correct note without further explanation. Then I will ask them "So, if we call this one 'C', what do you think a good name for this one might be?"

And so on. It takes a little more coaxing with some students, but I strongly believe that by involving them in the logic process like this, they tend to have a better grasp and acceptance of what they learn.

What I'm finding particularly encouraging is how many of my recent beginners will happily try a brand new song I place before them with both hands, straight away, without my even suggesting that they do so.

After a while, I start them on Book 1 of A Dozen A Day. [My repertoire + Edna-Mae's exercises] is proving to be a very effective combination

Oh, and another thing I make sure to do, is to explain to the parents how I am teaching, and how they can help their child by not telling them all the answers to things they are stuck on, but to ask them leading questions.

I try to make sure to tell them at the start of the first lesson that they must resist any urge to prompt when the child takes a little while to answer one of my questions.

We differ in details, but in CONCEPT I think we are very close. Do you also find that the primary thing is to make sure that logical idea of linking "circle to key" is the number one thing? That one idea was a breakthrough idea for me, because when I went to that idea, I started seeing success with all sorts of LD kids, and I found out what I already suspected: when people's minds work in a different way, it is very easy to assume they are stupid, slow or untalented just because they do not process things in an average way. And that is something I have fought against my entire life. Average people assume that anyone who does not learn things THEIR way is stupid, or at least deficient. It is the foundation of the public school system. "One size fits all."

Older students will pick up middle C through G immediately, or even C through A, and they will do it in either clef, because I am linking the circle to the place, and they find it using logic, not memory. Then just having them say the letter names by checking what they are, on my chart, starts the letter-learning process, which is of secondary importance to me - at first.

I use numbers for all students, but I will also use nonsense syllables at times merely because that is how I do it, when I even vocalize time at all. The reason teaching numbers work for me, even with the little ones, is that I have them typed into every measure. I teach them how to count before I explain any of the logic behind it, so reading the counting numbers is an additional way to get their eyes absolutely glued to the page. Everything I do is in Finale. I have absolute control over my own teaching materials. I could not teach any other way.

Yes. Same thing here. They can't do this for me without the visual aid, but since I phase that out ASAP, it is not an impediment. Just the opposite...

It sounds as if you continually tweak what you do. No matter how well things work, I am always looking for something new to my "method", which is not a method in the ordinary sense.

My beginning and intermediate materials are the same, mine, but the moment students gain a large amount of "fluency", I allow them to branch out in different directions. For example, an unusual student may be in love with Bach and may want to go in that direction, while another might want to play Romantic music (Chopin and co.), and yet another may want to go towards pop/jazz. I try to get all students to at least TRY all styles of music, but many students are like I was, having strong preferences, and they start out very stubborn about wanting to go in a certain direction. I like to USE that strong direction, get them up and running in that direction, then "finesse" the situation by introducing other music that begins to "bend" in a slightly different direction.

Concrete example: if teens are determined to play video-game music, it is not hard at all to move them in all sorts of directions, where the chord structure and "feel" is actually quite similar.

Yes. I like this idea. It's the opposite of spoon-feeding every answer. I do a lot of exploration with fingering. I will guide in choosing fingering, but if a student picks a reasonable solution, I will go with it. If I think I have a slightly better solution, I will show it, but I don't want students to blindly follow me. And when I'm teaching "non-classical" music, things that invite creative changes, I will OK anything that sounds good, because to me that is the beginning of the creative/compositional process...

THAT is the most important thing to me. At the end of each lesson, I ask all young students how many new pages or songs or pieces they want. I give them as much as they ask for, stick it all in the back of their binder (containing all the music I have done). I tell them not to worry about anything they can't figure out but to just try it all. After all, music can't be "broken" in one week.

Again, I do the same thing. I will never give a letter answer. I will simply say, where is that note, or if there is a finger number, I will say, where does that finger go? The parents want to jump in and give the answer, so they have to learn patience. The irony: soon they (the parents) get embarrassed, because they get lost, and their kids start giving THEM the answers.

Sorry...calling pieces songs is a terrible habit of mine! I know the distinction of course, but it just slips out without my noticing sometimes!. I mean pieces

I do the same thing.

I also say: "You are not 'hitting' the right notes." Some people really object to the word "hit" used insted of "play/press".

Now, where did the word "piece" come from for music, in English? I have a hunch that it comes from German (das Stück), which actually does mean "piece".

I can't think of anything named "Concert Piece", but the title "Konzertstück", literally "Concert Piece", is much the same as "Concertino".

It's an old church hymn.

Piece...........is flowing like a Ri..........iv..er.

Priceless! (Or is that "Pieceless"?)

They're also called pieces (morceaux) in French.

My question was only because in this case actual songs that one can sing to might have been chosen as a teaching device. If so, that would have been an important point.

That's plural, of course, so:

"Morceau de Concert"

Same idea!!!

I think that would actually be a hindrance in developing note reading skills as students would use the ear to check for accuracy more than their reading ability. One thing I find interesting is that even the very confident readers, upon reaching "ode to joy" in Hal Leonard Book 2, will always play the last bar of each line as a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver then a minim, rather than the two crotchets followed by a minim that are written. As soon as they recognise the tune their reading takes a back seat and they rely much more on memory and ear.

Gary (the OP) is trying to find a peg upon which to hang his hat ...
namely to apportion blame for transfer students whose sight-reading skill is the pits.

It’s a game we all try at some time ... trying to divert any spotlight from our own weak ability to promote sight-reading acquisition.

Sight-reading takes perhaps (millions of) years to be able to read a fresh piece of keyboard music without a stutter ... I’m going to bet my bottom dollar that the OP can’t read a new composition (like a Beethoven Sonata) off the cuff.

Sheer discombobulation!! (for translation please look up nearest Chambers)

If one person in this thread agrees with you, I'll respond to your trolling.

Unfortunately, I've seen way too many examples to support Gary's observations.

The way our state testing is set up, kids can literally fail sight reading every single year and still "pass" and get shoved along to the next level. So I routinely get transfer students who are sight reading 5 or 6 levels below their repertoire level. Routinely!

I've seen so many examples, I start to see patterns. Weak sight readers usually:

1) study with teachers who don't teach theory and don't teach sight reading at all;

2) transition out of method books way too early (or don't use method books at all!);

3) were assigned pieces way above their true level in order to impress the evaluators/judges;

4) don't practice very much;

5) started in group lessons where "copy me" is the predominant method of instruction;

6) started in a certain "method" that over-relies on developing the ears and overlooks the importance of note-reading;

7) took lessons at one of those "music schools" (a.k.a. student factories) where individual attention is seldom given to the needs of every student.

and on, and on, and on...