teaching young kids to read music

[kaff]

Several teachers have posted descriptions of how they make sure young beginners start off by learning to play fun pieces by rote.  I think this is a wonderful idea, as it keeps the child interested from the start.  But I haven't seen any descriptions of how they go about teaching these beginners to read music (which of course is a separate skill to actually playing). 

The methods I know of for teaching notation are:
a) positional method, where the child effectively plays only a very limited number of notes for quite some time, and learns to associate the written notes with the notes played by repetition of only that limited series of notes.  Lots of the commercially available beginner books use this method - Alfred's is the one I'm most familiar with. With this method, the separate skills of playing the piano and learning to read, aren't divorced from each other.

b) staff method, where the child learns all the notes on the stave, usually by some sort of mnemonic (Every Good Boy Deserves Fun).

What method do you use, and how do you incorporate it with the idea of ensuring the child is learning to play fun and interesting pieces by rote at the same time?   I should have thought the longer you go on teaching the child fun stuff by rote, the more resistant they will be to the slog of learning to read notes. 

I ask because I'm trying to teach my five year old son to play.  He's  interested in the piano, and asked me to teach him.  He likes picking out tunes he knows by ear, and I've taught him some songs by rote which he also likes playing.  I've also been working our way through Alfred's beginner book but he's not inspired by the pieces, and I can't say I blame him.  Part of the problem I suppose is that the mother-child relationship is different from the teacher-student relationship.  Sometimes it's an advantage - it means I can sneak in short, frequent lessons which are more effective than a longer, once a week lesson.  But it also means it's more difficult to have a captive audience for the less interesting bits.  any advice?

Kathryn

[galonia]

Hi,

My first teacher uses Alfred, and because the aim is to get the child reading by intervals rather than learning letternames, it means they can actually play anywhere on the keyboard.  So as soon as the student learns what an octave is, the teacher gets the child to play the pieces high and low, and then as she also teachers things like keys and scales in addition to the Alfred, she gets the students to transpose the pieces.

When I started learning about 20 years ago, my teacher didn't use Alfred, but she used the same principles - I was transposing my pieces around after a few lessons.  I'm still very bad at letternames, but I can sight read heaps well!

[Daniel_piano]

The methods I know of for teaching notation are:
a) positional method, where the child effectively plays only a very limited number of notes for quite some time, and learns to associate the written notes with the notes played by repetition of only that limited series of notes.  Lots of the commercially available beginner books use this method - Alfred's is the one I'm most familiar with. With this method, the separate skills of playing the piano and learning to read, aren't divorced from each other.

b) staff method, where the child learns all the notes on the stave, usually by some sort of mnemonic (Every Good Boy Deserves Fun)

I'm not a teacher but a student
All I can say according to my experiences is that both methods are terrible and not effective

With the first one the kid gets so used to the limited series of notes that every other notes outside of this series if perceived as extraneous and there will always be a dangerous esitation when working on notes outside of the series

With the second method the kid gets used to mnemonics that lead to a sequence of thoughts, where we first have to remember the mnemonic before remembering the note names, that make the whole process highly distractful and slow, so that it becomes a real problem with fast speed pieces

The problem also is that what you learn a method at the begin is not easy to forget it later in favour of another method
So even though you son will grow on these methods as he approaches more advantaged pieces, the weakness of these methods will still be hunting him making the whole piano learning process harder than necessary

There's another method instead, more instinctive and meaningful, that I consider the best one
You just have to teach the kid how the "grand staff" is a visual rapresentation of the keyboard
In fact the lower the position of the notes on the grand staff, the lower the position of the notes in the keayboard and the higher
the position of the notes on the grand staff, the higher the position of the notes in the keayboard

I've created this image to illustrate what I mean:
(you have to scroll or to save it on your computer to see the image in its whole length)




In this way within few weeks the kid will have learned how the grand staff mimics the piano keyboard and the position of every notes both on treble or bass cleff
By using this method the problem with the bass cleff and the dangerous tricks to memorize it are all useless as the kid doesn't think of the bass cleff as something separate from the treble cleff but just as the specular rapresentation of the lower part of the keyboard

The best way to learn reading notes is not by thinking of their names but learning reading by intervals instead
With this method the intervals are learned subtly and effortlessly without being spacifically taught
You can even teach the kid the position of the notes in the keyboard according to their position on the grand staff without the need to teach him the name of the notes (this can come later when all the position are learned)

Good luck
Daniel

 

[halfstone]

In the beginning  I'm not interested in kids beeing sight-readers. I want them mainly to listen and see, that is, watch there hands and movements when there playing music. On the other hand, they do require enough reading skills to remember what we did at the lesson. The method I use is fast to explain and introduced in one of the beginnings lessons.

I tell them they have to recognize the b' and the d, being the ones placed on  the center lines of the staffs. I usually start with the upper staff. I then press down all the correspondent keys to the g-clef stafflines and tell the student to imagine it beeing the five lines of the staff.  I ask some questions about the keys which are not pressed down, and we agree that they will have to be the notes in the spaces between the lines. I then learn them ot press down triads, one time with the b' on top and one time with the b' in the thumb. That's because it's easiert to press down three keys than five and with these two triads they have covered all the staff-lines. With this "tool" the student is able to indentfy all notes in the staff. I learn them to count ledger lines and use the principle of thirds to find them on the keyboards. Then I go on with the bass-clef.

I insist that the kids learn this system. I let them do some excersises while having lessons

Of course, this is just the starting point. Most kids get a grasp of the concept quickly and it enables them  to identify all sorts of  notes quickly. The rest of their reading skills the first years develops as we talk about the music in front of us, and when their practising at home.

Hallstein

[halfstone]

BTW
I read the first post more properly. I wouldn't bother to learn a five year old reading skills at all. As for your son, I agree in the big advantage with frequent short lessons. I once learned my son songs spanning 5 pages, simply by learning him two bars a day. Most effective.

At that age I would focus on movement. I teached som 5 years old once, and we had a great time playing the one note samba. I played the chords in a proper bossa-nova way and my two little students played the one note while we happily sang along all three of us. (We made up new lyrics). Besides that the samba is good for their sense of rhythm, the one-note playing advantage is that the child developes a good arm and wrist movement. (If the teachers focuses on that). I wouldn't let them start playing in five-fingered before the arm and wrist movement is well established.

Slightly off-topic
Regards
Hallstein

[kaff]

Thanks for all the answers - they are very helpful and encouraging. 

Kathryn

[lostinidlewonder]

I always show little kids where is middle C. Where is that on the keyboard. Where is that on the paper in both trebel and bass. Then I ensure they know as we go up the keyboard so we go up the page with the dots. As we go down the keyboard we go down with the dots.

Once they memorised Middle C, where it is how to write the two forms of it in the Bass and Trebel then i show them how the notes move up. So from Middle C in the bass it goes to a space, then line, then space, then line so on ......

Show this step wise movement on the keyboard and then show how it moves step wise in the music. Listening to it being played and watching the notes being drawn in as you play.

Then I get them to draw notes moving from middle C all the way up the page, i get them to draw leger lines to go further than the staff allows. Keep going as far as the paper allows just for fun it doesnt matter.

I ask them to demonstrate what they just wrote, starting from middle C, some can use all fingers some can only use one finger while playing that is not important. Just get them to play all the white notes and keep going the keyboard while acknowledging each note moving up the page.

This gives them a good sense of what the page might sound like. I like to show them some music then. Some pieces with very low notes trailing up the keyboard, whatever is visually obvious on the page.

I then try to show them where all the C's are and where they are written on the paper. Usually Three octaves above middle C and three below is enough. This gets them to understand where notes on the page are really on the keyboard. SO then i write notes which are within the bounds of the octaves of C. Then i ask them to say, where abouts that note could be. So long they show an area between the correct C octaves they are right.

This sense of where you are at the keyboard to what is written on the page is the initial basis i think has to be started with. After that then we teach the ways to memorise Line and Space notes.

[ChristmasCarol]

One technique i use for little guys (3-5) is to give them a page of staves, show them how to make a whole note and put it on the staff, then I have them make notes all over the page.  I then play it for them.  for some kids that's all they need to get the symbol orientation.  I always offer to play the piece first if they hesitate to play anything because they are overwhelmed by reading music.  By eliminating pressure when they are learning I find they get comfortable with reading music when they're ready.  It's just different timing for everyone.