Student who can't/won't read music...

[xjix82]

I have a student who has been playing piano for about 2 years (i started teaching her a couple of months ago)...she can't read music very well, she never/rarely looks up at her music when playing piano -- she has good ears....so i tried to teach her by ear - but that didn't work since she didn't remember it "perfectly" so she would always end up guessing the notes instead of actually playing the pieces.  About a month ago, we started using the Schuam's primer level (she was almost done with Faber & Faber Level 1)....so i can teach her the  basics.  At first, she couldn't even play the very first piece nor read the notes correctly......

She's still working on Schuam's primer level - she definitely got better with reading the notes - but when i ask her to play it on the piano, she keeps on playing the wrong notes...

This student always gives me an attitude, NEVER practices, and I'm not quite sure whether she's "pretending" to not be able to read the notes or if she really doens't know it.....
I'm wondering if she's completely hopeless, or if I'm doing something wrong as a teacher...

[hyrst]

Two years of learning and only just finished level one?  The poor thing!  She must be bored out of her mind and probably feeling very frustrated.  No wonder you get attitude from her!

How old is she? 

I wouldn't give up on her - either she or a parent are really hoping that things will come together for her.  To have learnt for 2 years and still be playing this elementary level means there is committment from someone. 

Do you know anything about her previous teacher and their approaches?  Was she always resistant to practicing?  (If you can't speak to the teacher, maybe the parents can give some more information about this.)

How can you reward and motivate and structure practice?  Maybe start with one specific thing to be achieved each week (like playing a bar from memory, or playing a piece with attention to volume, or filling in the letter names of a short piece) and let it snow ball.  Provide reward beyond the satisfaction of learning, because that satisfaction is going to take a little while to catch up.

Don't only take her back to the simpler material - with my students I have taken on who have been like this, I give them easier books that I call sight-reading and expect them to read one piece a week and have it right.  I specifically tell them that I think they are much better than this book asks them to play, but that reading is an important skill, so we will work on playing easy stuff while learning the music they are capable of.  But, this is only one aspect of the learning / practice content.  If they see this as only one activity, they seem very satisfied about playing something easy well - if it is the only thing, they get very disheartened.

I have one 12 year old student, now taught for about 3 months, who recently told me her previous transfer teacher was going to take her back to the primer level because she couldn't read.  I put her on the accelerated Adventure book for 'sight-reading', but gave her lots of support to play more interesting music - like the theme from Titanic.  I taught her about patterns and helped her regain her confidence.  She recently has made a lot of progress, has played Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata, and now has begun Rondo Alla Turca and Le Cygne (Saint-Sean).  Her reading has progressed so fast you would never know she had a problem, and her mother says she never has to be asked to pratice these days. I have written in very few letters for the Alla Turca.  So - don't give up!!!!!!

Besides this, I find pieces they really want to learn and are willing to work at because they really like them - and then I teach these by patterns (even if as simple as steps and skips) to encourage reading, and add letter names and memorisation of passages - whatever works.  But, they have to feel like they are playing something - not going over old ground again and again with no progress. 

Put yourself in that position.  How often would you stick with something that you feel you have made no progress in for two years?  Wouldn't you start to feel like you were useless?  There is no way you would keep on trying unless you really valued the end goal - and maybe 'playing music' is too general a goal, especially for a child.  Have you tried telling her how much you respect that she has kept trying and that you think things are going to get better for her?  It sounds like she needs somebody on her 'side'.

Until she can combine all the skills, work out different approaches that focus in isloation on the differnet skills and don't demand too much of the others - memorisation, note patterns and sequences, finger dexterity and technical skills, reading, aural skills - and use her strengths to compensate for her troubles (as you did with trying to use memorisation, but vary the activities so you don't neglect developing other skills).

Someone suggested to me a while ago, when I had a student not looking at the music, to cover her hands.  This could be a fun game - to find notes by feel - but be careful. 

I had a student with this problem, but I found out that she had recently had a failure at school in reciting a literary reading and that really affected her confidence.  She is still working on it, but she is trying - and I am trying to be very patient.  Things are improving now.  There are times I help her out and times when I encourage her to check things slowly (depending on what both of us can cope with in the minute) - but I did find that teaching her by memory meant she wasn't learning very much and she wasn't getting past her 'fear' of reading.

Also, go through a score thoroughly, one bit at a time, before trying to play.  Get the student to use coloured pencils to highlight whatever you want them to take notice of - dynamics, counting patterns, change in hand melody, hands together timings, highest and lowest notes in a melody, etc.  Use lots of colour to help make sense of all the marks on the page.

Don't give up!!

[jepoy]

Here are some suggestions:

-Try talking to your student about her musical interests (likes/dislikes), her reasons for taking lessons, her expectations, etc. The more you know her, the better you can address her musical needs.

-Instead of just going at it at the piano every time you meet, try holding a music appreciation session--the two of you listening to the music that she likes, music that you like or teach, or even watch a video of a piano recital by some famous pianist. Alternatively, you could invite her to one of your sessions with an advanced student. It may inspire her to take her lessons seriously.

-Instead of assigning her simple (sometimes downright innane) beginner pieces from method books, agree on a piece/song that she would like to learn and find/make an easy arrangement of the piece. Because she has heard the song/piece before, the notes would make much more sense to her. Devise finger exercises that support this piece, e.g., one to two octave scale of they key the piece is in (HS and then HT), chord progression (block chords, broken chords), etc. to develop her touch, dexterity, and speed. Once she's sufficiently capable of playing the piece (it doesn't have to be perfect at this stage), agree on another piece, so forth and so on. This way your lessons are always suited/tailored to your student and won't waste your time and their time with music that they won't bother playing for others, let alone for themselves.

As you long as you keep your student excited about music, everything will fall into place sooner or later. It would take a lot of patience and creativity on your part and for what it's worth, will make you a better teacher.

[lenkaolenka]

I have a student who has been playing piano for about 2 years (i started teaching her a couple of months ago)...she can't read music very well, she never/rarely looks up at her music when playing piano -- she has good ears....so i tried to teach her by ear - but that didn't work since she didn't remember it "perfectly" so she would always end up guessing the notes instead of actually playing the pieces.  About a month ago, we started using the Schuam's primer level (she was almost done with Faber & Faber Level 1)....so i can teach her the  basics.  At first, she couldn't even play the very first piece nor read the notes correctly......

She's still working on Schuam's primer level - she definitely got better with reading the notes - but when i ask her to play it on the piano, she keeps on playing the wrong notes...

This student always gives me an attitude, NEVER practices, and I'm not quite sure whether she's "pretending" to not be able to read the notes or if she really doens't know it.....
I'm wondering if she's completely hopeless, or if I'm doing something wrong as a teacher...

Many piano teachers truly believe that in order to teach music successfully all what it takes is – to pick a good method book, use the 'right explanation' and  have dedicated students.
Unfortunately, there are things in music reading, which NO TEACHER, no book and no dedication can control.
Reading require involvement of eye-sight ( vision), which has certain physiological limitations. To keep in focus 10 black+ and 11 white+ tracks of notation, shift it along all this lines and spaces and divide it between music sheet and multiple piano keys are the tasks, that ought to be trained gradually.
We are losing millions of students by being ignorant of many tings of physiological and psychological nature, that's all.

[counterpoint]

An other point, which already is named in the thread title:

can't or won't ?

Many students do, when they begin to learn piano (or another instrument) look and hear, what the teacher does, when he is playing the piece. In this state, it's much easier to just copy, what the teacher does than reading the music from the sheet. Because the students think, they don't need reading the music for playing the instrument, they really don't learn music reading. They could do it - but they don't. That's the root of the problem in my opinion.

[lenkaolenka]

An other point, which already is named in the thread title:

can't or won't ?

Many students do, when they begin to learn piano (or another instrument) look and hear, what the teacher does, when he is playing the piece. In this state, it's much easier to just copy, what the teacher does than reading the music from the sheet. Because the students think, they don't need reading the music for playing the instrument, they really don't learn music reading. They could do it - but they don't. That's the root of the problem in my opinion.

You are absolutely right! This is what I call "The Rule of the Stationary Bicycle"

"Learning a complex set of skills requires that all the components be developed together from the very start to build a strong, unified network. Losing any of the separate parts of the network, even for a short time, complicates the learning process for many students, except perhaps the most structured players."

https://www.emusicguides.com/info/Music-Education/Why-can-t-Jenny-play-the-piano--Part-5.html

[cjp_piano]

What everyone said is good, but if your student

has a BAD ATTITUDE and NEVER PRACTICES

Then, that is the real issue isn't it?  It doesn't really matter if you are teaching the correct way or not.  The reason she's still at such an early level is because she doesn't practice and doesn't want to.

I would address this first.