Starstruck5 - thanks for the game idea - I tried it out last week to some success. I ran into a road block when she refused to close her eyes, though (I had her look aside instead). On the first lesson, did you ever have your student play combinations of notes?and Fleetfingers - yes I did learn this way! I learned with the exact same method books. To me, I liked the idea because I thought it would take out the inital complexity of counting the placement of a note within 5 separate lines.I'm having a truly difficult start with this girl! I definitely feel that I'm missing something that is not helping the situation, but she has a terrible reluctance to do anything I ask of her, and she has a bossy attitude about it. Sometimes she crawls all over the piano bench even if I've taken a half a minute break or so to stretch and won't sit down until I've asked her sternly more than once, and aie aie aie... There's a song as well that she refuses to practice because "it doesn't make sense" which I'm almost certain she means melodically - it doesn't sound like a song to her. It definitely frustrates me, but I think I'll move back in the book (since I did skip it initially, I caved!) and get her to play this week.I think slowing down my thinking and going slower with her would help, but the problem is that I'm afraid she'll be too arrogant and be "bored" with my teaching - she has said on many occasions Ï know thatalready!" when I'm explaining something, even if she fully doesn't.
Piano students tend to fall into the naturally visual or naturally aural categories. Sounds like you have one of the latter.
While I agree with almost everything you say, I think that true aural learners are few and far between. There's a big difference between copying visually observed movements and playing by ear. It's just a different style of visual learning.
That doesn't make sense to me. In my teaching and encountering people, I have met lots of aural learners. The thing is that the piano is highly visual, and it tends to be presented visually. Even intervals are taught as distances between keys instead of sounds. That is the first thing that struck me when I first visited piano forums - it was so very visual. It threw me for a loop.
My point is that outside student of situations where a student actually just listens, the overwhelming majority are not learning via aural means at all. If a student has to watch the teachers demonstration in order to play something, they are learning visually. Not a lot of rote learning is actually done aurally and neither does the most typical style of rote teaching do anything more to train the ear than reading music. Or at least, in most cases it's only the rhythm that is passed on aurally. If the notes are not found by ear, watching a demonstration and copying it no more trains the ear to recognize pitch than hearing yourself playing notes that you have read does.
I think your exactly right. I think there should always be a visual element in learning even if it is an aural art. Pianist who are blind like other pianist need to learn kinesthetically and aural although they probably rely on these senses a great deal more. Teaching by rote is not simply based on teaching aurally but teaching the technical aspects of playing the instrument also just without the aspects of reading notation getting in the way.
Not that I wish to disagree altogether with the points you make there- but my point was largely a precautionary one about dangers of overusing the visual in rote-teaching. If it's primarily by visual demonstrations, then it doesn't necessarily train the ear any more than reading from a musical score. In other words- it can end up creating a student who is very lazy about reading but who has no advantage over one who reads well, when it comes to their respective listening skills. Far from training aurally, it can mean training equally visually but in a way that simply fails to instill the all important and transferable skills of reading. This can result in a "lazy" student who has no patience for reading.As I say, I'm not looking to disagree altogether with what you say above. A balanced whole can include many things. However, I think it's important to be clear about the difference between true aural learning and a style of learning that is every bit as visual as reading- but which simply does not train any reading skills. Rote learning often trains neither the ear nor the reading skills.
I will say that rote learning is not intended to teach reading skills. Rather it helps reading skills because they student learns the technique of playing the instrument, the feel of playing it, and hears the results of it before the notation. That way when the notation is introduced the reading does not get in the way of the execution of the music.
I will say that rote learning is not intended to teach reading skills. Rather it helps reading skills because they student learns the technique of playing the instrument, the feel of playing it, and hears the results of it before the notation. That way when the notation is introduced the reading does not get in the way of the execution of the music. I think the purpose of rote teaching should be clear to the student and the teacher that it is not a replacement to reading music but mearly and aid to make reading easier and more logical.
If a student has to watch the teachers demonstration in order to play something, they are learning visually.
Seriously? I can't even imagine what that is like. Surely if someone demonstrates a piece you are listening to it, and not looking what the hands are doing in what spot. It would be very hard to remember more than two or three movements before getting lost. But melodies and chords naturally go somewhere so they are easy to remember.
I wouldn't take Youtube "tutorials" as a sign of how people are usually taught or how they usually learn. How do you know for sure how people learn to play and whether they do it by closing of their ears and simply following hand movement?
I am mostly aural and tactile, but I would also have had problems if someone had told me to close my eyes. The reason is that the keys is where the sound lives (for me). But I also think that if piano is taught very visually without sound being brought into it, then that is not necessarily a good thing.
I think you misunderstand my point. My point is that "aural learning" is often precisely that- a rote way of teaching visually. While it fails to train the visual skills of reading, rote teaching often does nothing more to promote true aural learning than reading does.
I just can't see most teachers saying "Watch my hands and do what I do." Surely that is not how it is done?
Aside from rhythm, there is no true aural learning- unless the student is finding the pitches by listening to them alone.
99% of rote teaching involves the student WATCHING the teacher depress notes, not having to go on listening to find pitches. Aside from rhythm, there is no true aural learning- unless the student is finding the pitches by listening to them alone.
But you're right and so is keypeg because you both agree that we use BOTH visual an aural even though certain people may be more visual or more aural. That being said, it's good to vary things and stimulate different parts of the brain by having the student not look and only hear. On the flip side, you can mute a keyboard and only look without hearing! Obviously when you say teaching by rote is mostly by watching, they are still hearing and listening. It would be much more difficult if the teacher was playing on a silent keyboard and the student had to repeat what was played with ONLY visual.
So...along this same line of discussion. I have a student who seems to fall into this category of leaning more to the aural side of learning. He always wants to hear a piece played first and then will try to play it. I've been insisting he to do more true sight-reading to trust his reading skills, rather than relying on hearing it. He knows the notes pretty well, I think he struggles some with the rhythm, but not tremendously so. The last two lessons have been fraught with tears of frustration as I continue to insist on having him read.He is VERY good at memorizing pieces, but rushes to do that with all kinds of mistakes mingled in, which could be cured if he would just read the music, rather than watching his hands and trusting his memory....Any suggestions on alternative approaches or materials would be greatly appreciated.
One example is i was observing a brass class in where the teacher had the students who where learning to play three distinct basic notes, C, d, e . He didn't tell the students what he was playing, he just had the students listen to him model playing the note and match it. Then he played various patterns of the three notes. He walked around the room and although some students could not see his fingers but they recognized the pitches , how to create it on their instrument, and where able to produce the pattens without looking at the teacher.
He went from teaching by rote to a form of ear training. My point is the purpose of rote teaching should be building technique ( the ability to move and manipulate sounds on the instrument) and then if the teacher chooses be used to ear train and produce aural learning.
Having students play without sound can be very useful. I use it when teaching beginners all the time. Having students practice their fingering on the fallboard or having them finger a keyboard that is turned off can allow the student to play and concentrate on fingering, rhythm, and technique without getting wrapped up in getting everything right at once. I use it briefly in preparation of students learning a piece and I find it helps them a great deal when used correctly.
I don't play brass, but a brass player once explained it to me. As I understand it, a lot of the pitches are not produced by fingering, but by what you are doing with your lips and breath. The way it is produced is literally invisible.
He went from teaching by rote to a form of ear training. My point is the purpose of rote teaching should be building technique ( the ability to move and manipulate sounds on the instrument) and then if the teacher chooses be used to ear train and produce aural learning.Does that not by its very nature include sound, since we have to listen whether we are producing the right sound? On piano, however, I think that what we learnt to listen for above all is the quality of the sound.
That is pretty common for people with a large amount of musical experience.
I was 8 years old. We had no music in school other than singing the usual songs at Christmas. I had no lessons, no teacher, and no musicians in the family. That is about as inexperienced as you can get.
You have a point McDiddy, and one I have often thought about. However, I don't know to which degree my abilities are due to early training. When I was in a primary grade, one teacher spent that year heavily pushing movable Do solfege with the old fashioned board (early 1960's - nothing fancy out there yet). My first training was heavily oral and along the framework of major and natural minor scales. The exercises and the way we sang them with degrees 3&4, 7&8 closer than a semitone, also gave a feel for functions. That is to say, we sang particular sequences which I now recognize in my music theory work.
Nice. Sounds like you where able to a get a strong grounding in aural training.I think having a foundation like that will help in further musical development, especially with minor scales which I think are over looked generally in the lower grades
and Fleetfingers - yes I did learn this way! I learned with the exact same method books. To me, I liked the idea because I thought it would take out the inital complexity of counting the placement of a note within 5 separate lines.
I figured that was the reason to do it that way, but I just wonder about creating a habit for the student to look at finger numbers instead of where the note is. I've had a few students come to me who were reading finger numbers, and they had to ask me where to place their hands at the start. It's such a bad habit, I seriously don't know how to fix it. One girl who did that moved away after 2 months, and I was so relieved, because I didn't know how to get her away from that kind of thinking.To stay away from complexity, I introduce one or two notes at a time and keep the student sight reading things with only the notes they've learned and mastered. If they have to think too long about what note it is, it's too complex. They should be able to find it rather quickly. If that means they play songs with middle C and D only, so be it. As long as it's easy for them to know what note it is and play it with the correct time value.
I am curious about the interval part. Do you simply teach it a pianistic way in the beginning, such as "skip a note" (as in CE) - "two adjacent lines = a skip" (G and B in the treble clef), the "go up 3, down 2" kind of thing?The one time that I taught theory rudiments, we went into what an interval actually is as opposed to what it is called. CE, which could also be CFb or CDx can be *called* major third, diminished fourth, or augmented second. In the score we would see respectively: note heads in 2 spaces (treble clef, C5 E5), in a space and on a line showing a fourth (CFb), or in a space and a line looking like a second (CDx). This is the naming part. ------- However, we will always see a white key with a skipped white key and another white key, and the same number of half steps. We will always hear the same type of happy car-horn sound of what we commonly call "major third". This second is what an interval *is* as opposed to what it is called.Whatever you set up in the beginning when music is simple will work, but if we get the concept wrong, will there be confusion later on? The idea of what an interval is became important when I taught it. Right now in my own lessons I'm being given a lot of romantic era music to look at, and we get tons of diminished chords where often a minor third looks like a second or a fourth (like Cdx and CFb).(Just something that popped into my head).
Well this is teaching the very young basics of intervalic reading, not necessarily labeling the type of intervals. This teaching is for the basic introduction of note reading where there is nothing larger than the skip of a third. So the reading is either step motion or it is a skip. Once they get comfortable with seeing thing then they can be introduced to larger leaps. I would avoid labeling it a third or second so it would not contradict the more advance labeling of augmented, minor, major thirds, counting half-steps etc.
Were ALL the finger numbers written in? I understand the first finger number given, and then they read intervals. But if they didn't even know where the first note was on the piano, this is bad!
What you tried having your students say the note names out loud with you before they play. I find it is usually simply because they are insecure with reading note names. Also you could try teaching them to read intervals. If there is a piece that starts on C you could teach them as long as they ready the intervals correctly you can play the same piece in G or in a minor and disguise it as a lesson in transposition. I think they most powerful thing you can do is after they had some experience playing the piece, you can erase or white out all the fingering of what they learned and have them go back and play it. If they ask you to place their hands on where to start, just show them the steps you take to figure it out: know the note name, located the note on the keyboard, each finger gets a key etc... You may have to go back and re-teach and review constantly but you can certainly change students ability to read if you teach them to think for themselves.
I would avoid labeling it a third or second so it would not contradict the more advance labeling of augmented, minor, major thirds, counting half-steps etc.
I think this is somewhat over-cautious. The distance between letters (prior to accidentals) is specifically what defines the numerical part of an interval.
I see no reason why it would mislead.
Topic: New teacher, new student, difficulty teaching to read 