Transfer student who can't read music

[keyofc]

Hello,
I would appreciate any insightful help I can get here.  I have a new transfer student who has been taking the piano for three years.  Unfortunately, at the interview I did not
give her any sheet music.  She played for me, and I did ask a lot of questions.  I had assumed when she played a memorized piece that she had originally learned it by reading it.

She is very proud of her piano playing and she does have a great ear.  She can play a version of Pachobel Canon by ear and by watching her former piano teacher's hands.
I found this out later as to how she learned it.

I started her on a book 2 method book that I believe will help her sightreading come up closer to her ear.  I did this because I'm teaching two of her younger siblings or I would have gotten her the first book.

At our first lesson when I gave her a piece from a book one method book - and asked her to identify any notes she could, all she could identify was middle C.  I was shocked since I had heard her play the Canon....

Any ideas on how to help her?  I want to help her develop her ear while helping her read music as well.  I have had her bring some CDs and see how she plays with them.  I think she likes trying this - but it is obvious it does not come easy.  I have no idea how long she listened to the Canon before she learned it...
please help if you can,
thanks

[pianolady4]

Are you sure she wants to read music? A fellow teacher makes a point of telling her new students that playing by ear is wonderful, and reading music is wonderful, but doing only one creates half a musician, and as a teacher she wants to help them become whole musicians.  sounds like your student doesn't need help with the ear part right now.

If she can be shown the value of reading, she might be willing to make that her primary goal for the next 4-6 months--while still doing her own thing with the ear stuff.

If she doesn't see the value of reading, it's an uphill battle and you have to decide if it's worth your time and hers.

If she want to go ahead, how about lending her as many books as you can come up with (a couple at a time, all at a near beginning level, teach her a few notes, and have her go through them at her own pace--when one is finished, replace with another at the same level till she's reading well at that level, then move her to the next level and do the same.

[dmk]

If she can be shown the value of reading, she might be willing to make that her primary goal for the next 4-6 months--while still doing her own thing with the ear stuff.

If she doesn't see the value of reading, it's an uphill battle and you have to decide if it's worth your time and hers.

Too true!

This is so hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lend her books, definately.  The other thing I have done, is gotten recordings of some of the pieces a student can already play and work on following the score through and see if they can follow it.  It sometimes helps to use something a student can already play and gives them more confidence.

To develop note reading, I usually use technical exercises, something as boring as a Dozen-A-Day or anything really and work through those. 

It is easier if you start with pieces a little below their current playing level (but that still sound hard so they don't get disheartened) and that are easier to read. 

If they are at a particularly high level of playing I try and keep them up with learning new pieces @ their level and teach it concurrently with note read and with aural training.

Basically I try to keep their motivation up by working on new pieces at about their level rather than abandoning their aural method wholesale.  Its like quitting smoking, sometimes people need a nicotine patch to take the edge of the craving until they can finally quit. 

Wean her off purely aural learning, but don't abandon it....aural skills are so important so if she has already developed reasonably good aural skills you might as well continue to nurture and foster them.

good luck

dmk

[tocca]

I'm teaching a friends childs, three of them. Two of them couldn't read music at all when we started (last winter). I struggled with them, especially one of them, trying to get them to learn to read. They both have a good ear and learn things fast by ear.

So, i made a card-deck!    Took a bit of work, i used a paintprogram, and got images of all notes through four octaves. Then i printed and cut them.

Now we play a game of cards every once in a while, there's a lot of different cardgames that can be played since it's "built" in the same way as a normal deck. 4 C's, 4 C#'s and so on.
We also have a "competition" at the Piano where i draw one card and the first who plays it correctly gets the card.
They have a lot of fun and are learning at the same time, it has worked wonders for them.

That said, it's a special situation since they're my friends child and i visit a couple of times a week aside from the Pianolessons. Don't know if i would take time away from a normal lesson to play cards.
Maybe it can give you an idea to do something else, something that makes it fun. In my view, if you're having a lot of fun while doing something you'll learn it much much faster.

[bernhard]

If she hasn’t the faintest idea about reading music, then I would give the same advice I gave on this thread:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,12583.msg135991.html#msg135991

1.   I would start from the very beginning by tackling the several individual components of the very complex process of reading music, and while doing so I would not relate it to music in any way. This involves mastering separately each of the following:

a.   Being able to name and identify the keys on the piano by touch (can she do that? Does she know which key is C, which is G? and most importantly, can she do it by reference to the black notes – e.g. C is the key to the left of the group of two black notes – instead of the most inefficient way of following the alphabet?) Once she can identify and locate the keys by reference to the black notes, she will be ready to find them by touch, rather than by looking at the keyboard. Make the acquisition of this skill a priority and an end in itself. Don’t tell her what you are aiming at, or what your secret plan is. This has the huge advantage of making success very near. She is not aiming at some distant future goal for which playing by touch is but a step. Playing by touch becomes the goal, and it is easy to succeed if the goal is simple enough and near enough. Success is the greatest motivator and we should make success available to students all the time. Have a look here for more details:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2577.msg22247.html#msg22247
(Keyboard topography – how to find notes by touch)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3205.msg28255.html#msg28255
(how not to look at the keys – Richmann’s reviews)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4461.msg41580.html#msg41580
(Looking at the keys: Good or bad? exercises to help finding notes by touch. Good contributions by Chang).


b.   Being able to name all the lines and spaces of both clefs. You can read about this in more detail here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2406.msg20820.html#msg20820
(the grand staff)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2713.msg23282.html#msg23282
(Teaching bass clef – the full explanation for the grand staff)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3334.msg29381.html#msg29381
(Reading both staffs as a single grand staff - Reasons for working on scales - Detailed discussion of Richmann’s book)

c.   Once she can find the keys by touch and once she can name all the lines of both staves, you can start to put together both skills – again do not use music at this stage, but rather randomly placed notes on the score. This is the moment to introduce the most revolutionary idea in reading music for the piano, an idea that most piano students and piano teachers are not conversant with. Read about it here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5090.msg48850.html#msg48850
(the score is tabs for piano)

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,6704.msg66349.html#msg66349
(graphic illustration of how the grand staff relates to the piano keys)

d.   Up to now you have dealt with pitch by itself. Now deal with rhythm by itself. At this stage you do not even need a piano – it can all be done tapping on a table top or clapping. The two important concepts to be understood here are the relative values of the notes, and the concept of pulse (as opposed to rhythm – most beginners confuse both and clap rhythm rather than pulse).

e.   Next you are going to put together rhythm and pitch. I advise you to use the simplest possible pieces at this level irrelevant of the level she may have acquired in her playing. I personally recommend Edna Mae-Burnan’s “A Dozen a day” for this purpose (I don’t use them as exercises, only as sight reading material.

f.   Once she has mastered all the skills above, she is ready to start applying all of it to proper music. Have a look here for some suggestions:


https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,9786.msg99290.html#msg99290
(collections of repertory for sight-reading practice)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2763.msg25148.html#msg25148
(music to develop sight reading from scratch)

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[sarahlein]

Sorry to barge in like this but I was wondering about what Bernhard said:

Up to now you have dealt with pitch by itself. Now deal with rhythm by itself. At this stage you do not even need a piano – it can all be done tapping on a table top or clapping. The two important concepts to be understood here are the relative values of the notes, and the concept of pulse (as opposed to rhythm – most beginners confuse both and clap rhythm rather than pulse).

I guess what is being said here is that clapping pulse is better than clapping rhythm.
Why? And how is this done exactly? By imitation? ( I clap, then the student claps?)
Is clapping rhythm even needed then?

And what is meant by "relative note values"?
Is it to show how the notes can carry a different value by compairing for ex.  3/4 to 3/8 time?
By the way how does one explain this in a most simple way?

[bernhard]

I guess what is being said here is that clapping pulse is better than clapping rhythm.
Why? And how is this done exactly? By imitation? ( I clap, then the student claps?)
Is clapping rhythm even needed then?

Of course, you need both: pulse and rhythm. But typically a lot of beginners if you put a CD on and ask them to clap the pulse (regular, metronomic beat) will clap the rhythm (irregular and across the pulse). In piano playing we actually play the rhythm, but we must have a sense of inner pulse to anchor the rhythm. Some pieces (e.g. waltzes, ragtime) will have the pulse in the left hand accompaniment while the right hand plays the rhythm. Some total beginners have an excellent natural sense of pulse and it is better not to meedle with those!

Good indicators of a lack of inner pulse: wild variations of tempo that the student does not seem to notice (ultra fast in certain sections of the piece, ultra slow in others) and great difficulty in playing together with a metronome.

In my experience three approaches are very good for correcting this problem:

1. Clapping - put a CD on and clap with the student. Show the difference between rhythm and pulse by clapping them alternately.

2. Similar to clapping - this time you march to the music.

3. Metronome - I am not a big advocate of the metronome, but this is one circumstance where it does work wonders.

Once a student has developed the sense of pulse, the next step (and far more difficult) is to develo an ear for metrics - that is where are the strong beats, and what is the distribution of strong/weak beats. A student should be able at the minimum to identify 2/4 and 3/4 (that is, binary and ternary rhythms). This is a difficult skill to acquire, and the best way is to listen to lots of CDs (perhaps sneaking a view to the time signature just in case)

And what is meant by "relative note values"?

The appearance of a note indicates its time duration, but this time duration is not absolute: it is relative to the other notes time values and to the overall tempo. Some students are convinced that a crochet corresponds to one beat and nothing can move them from such conviction. This is one instance where note-values are made absolute. Of course a crochet can be associated with any number of beats, as long as the other note values adapt accordingly. This is what I mean by relative note values. Another way in which students make note values absolute is by the belief that a piece filled with demisemiquavers is to be played faster then a piece with quavers. It may be the other way around: it will depend of the tempo of each piece.

By the way how does one explain this in a most simple way?

I am afraid there is no simple way (the subject is complex after all). Older children who are familiar with fractions will grasp it readily. The little ones (below 6 - 7 years) may be best served by rote teaching, and a full understanding of rhythm notation may have to wait until their school amths catches up. On the other hand, you may teach them fractions and freak the maths teacher into thinking she has a whole bunch of little Einsteisn in her hands

To do that I use a big bar of chocolate, which is already conveniently divide into squares. The whole bar is the semibreve, half bar a minim, and a quarter bar a quaver, and so on. At the end of the lesson we eat the chocolate

Incidentally, I find the american system (whole-note, half-note, quarter-note) far superior to the British system (crochets, quavers, etc.). Unfortunately if one is preparing for exams one has to learn the bad system.

I suggest you investigate Candida's Tobin wonderful system (the catch is that it is a very complete system, so you have to learn the whole thing, but it is arguabley thebest systme for teaching music ever devised - she has 7 year old composing music - and writing it down - of a level comparable to GCSE students).

https://www.tobinmusic.co.uk/

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[sarahlein]

 As always,
Thanks Bernhard