Can a simple game help students read sheet music a little?

[lighthouse2020]

Dear community,

Years ago, when I was a young boy, my parents gave me the opportunity to take piano lessons. I think I took those lessons for about 2.5 years. One of the reasons for quitting my lessons then, was that every time I started a new piece of piano music, like everyone else, I had to spent a lot of time finding out where I could find the notes on the piano. Unfortunately at that age I was not that serious and focused. The moment I told my teacher that I was quitting playing the piano, he told me that he thought two people were very happy with that decision…

At the age of 28 I took a fresh new start to learn to play another instrument: the saxophone. But now, with a new teacher, I learned to play by ear to some extent and I tried to memorize the notes I had to play. This worked very well for me in the end while playing in local bands, but when I was asked to play in a bigband, I think you can guess what happened. I studied to memorize the 14 written pieces of music (the music was great), but when the bandleader introduced some new written pieces after some time, I had this deja vu…

Why am I writing this? And why am I writing this here, you may think? Well, since that deja vu, I started to think about easier ways to learn to find notes on a piano or keyboard, especially when you’re a teenager.

And that easier way I was looking for, has resulted in a simple game that I made. A game that can be played when there’s no piano around. By playing this game a lot (you have to shoot notes form the staff and score some points), you automatically learn to find notes faster on a piano. The more the game is played, the faster you get in finding notes on your piano. Even if the key contains 4 or 5 flats.

I admit, this game is not the most exciting game around. Far from that, but I think that when someone plays it a lot, while waiting for the bus or on vacation for instance, finding notes on a piano becomes much easier.

But that’s what I think. The reason I’m posting this message, is that I am very curious if games like this and the goal of it, can in some way prevent the less motivated students to think about quitting their piano lessons too soon.

About 6 months ago, I posted a message about my app on this site (www.pianostreet.com) in the students corner. I did some improvements since then and now I hope that some of you as professional teachers can take a look at my app to see if it can help some students a small step ahead in your opinion.

Some details about my app can be found on my website. Not unimportant to say is that the first 3 levels of this game are fairly easy (zero sharps and flats, one sharp, one flat) and free.

Kind regards,

Harjan Evertse



Website: https://www.paglano.com
Device: iPhone or iPad
Download link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/paglano/id1516800194

[lelle]

I think the lack of responses is due to people here being suspicious towards ads/spammers. I don't have an iPhone unfortunately so I can't try your app. May if you could make a web version?

[perfect_pitch]

I use and have used Tenuto for almost 10 years, and find it far superior to every app that seems to crop up to compete against it.

Also, their first message on this forum was to advertise his product. Not hi, or helping out students first - it was to promote an app that I won't bother downloading (especially when looking at the interface on the web-site).

[lighthouse2020]

I think the lack of responses is due to people here being suspicious towards ads/spammers. I don't have an iPhone unfortunately so I can't try your app. May if you could make a web version?

I noticed the lack of response, and yes maybe that’s due to the fact that the higher levels in the app are cheap but not free (I want to be very honest about this, so that’s why I mentioned it). The real question behind my post is that I’m wondering if some gamification in (a small part of) learning to read notes can help students in your opinion. And yes a web version can be a good idea.. Thanks.

[lighthouse2020]

I use and have used Tenuto for almost 10 years, and find it far superior to every app that seems to crop up to compete against it.

Also, their first message on this forum was to advertise his product. Not hi, or helping out students first - it was to promote an app that I won't bother downloading (especially when looking at the interface on the web-site).

Thank you for your honest response. I did not know Tenuto and I can see that it contains a lot of exercises. My app contains just one: while playing a game, a player only learns to find the notes on a piano. So I see your point.

[keypeg]

The thing with these various approaches is that I'd like to see it done on an actual piano.  The reason is that we have 3 senses in playing the piano: eyes, ears, and touch. There is also proprioception - the sense of where we are in space physically vis-a-vis the instrument.  What you actually want to train is "When I see this symbol" (circle hanging just below the bottom line of the treble clef) my hand wants to push this key between the two black keys right in front of me."  That is the reflex you want to build.  The name for this joint experience (symbol and piano key) is D. A specific D.  The D right in front of you.

[lighthouse2020]

The thing with these various approaches is that I'd like to see it done on an actual piano.  The reason is that we have 3 senses in playing the piano: eyes, ears, and touch. There is also proprioception - the sense of where we are in space physically vis-a-vis the instrument.  What you actually want to train is "When I see this symbol" (circle hanging just below the bottom line of the treble clef) my hand wants to push this key between the two black keys right in front of me."  That is the reflex you want to build.  The name for this joint experience (symbol and piano key) is D. A specific D.  The D right in front of you.

I fully agree. When there’s a piano around that you can play, the best thing you can do is to use that piano to train that reflex. And when there’s not… (you’re in a bus, you’re on a holiday or you want to practice at night, for instance), only then, you can consider using an educational game or app. (And your remark about the 3 senses is even more true when you play an instrument where you can’t see the keys while you’re playing… say in my case the saxophone…)

[lostinidlewonder]

Sight reading includes many different skills but I am wondering with your program where is the musical playing (hearing and anticipation of the sounds to come) as well and fingering understanding? Just pressing notes on a screen I guess is good but it is forcing you to calculate every single note rather than being able to see larger parts at once, it also doesn’t care which fingers your use. I never do reading flash cards with my students so I’m thinking teachers who like this kind of thing wouldn’t mind your program.

[lighthouse2020]

Sight reading includes many different skills but I am wondering with your program where is the musical playing (hearing and anticipation of the sounds to come) as well and fingering understanding? Just pressing notes on a screen I guess is good but it is forcing you to calculate every single note rather than being able to see larger parts at once, it also doesn’t care which fingers your use. I never do reading flash cards with my students so I’m thinking teachers who like this kind of thing wouldn’t mind your program.

Thank you for your replay. I can say that my program has nothing to do with all the aspects of sight reading you mention. I agree to that. When a student knows where to find a note, without calculating and memorizing, it gives the student the opportunity to focus more on all those aspects you mention. My program just aims on ‘learning the letters of the alphabet’ (and finding those ‘letters’ on a piano). In my opinion, if you’ve learned the alphabet, you still cannot read or write.

[keypeg]

I would say that this is not about sight reading (title also doesn't mention it) or even reading per se.  Instead, it addresses one of the prerequisites for being able to read music.  That is, know what the notehead on a given line or space represents.  Otherwise, how do you get to the note in the first place?  And/or do you do it in some awkward way like knowing where middle C is and counting your way up 6 notes to get to the A and know what it is?  This is a particular thing we need. Anyone who got it properly may take it for granted because it's automatically there for you.

[keypeg]

Dear community,

Years ago, when I was a young boy, my parents gave me the opportunity to take piano lessons. I think I took those lessons for about 2.5 years. One of the reasons for quitting my lessons then, was that every time I started a new piece of piano music, like everyone else, I had to spent a lot of time finding out where I could find the notes on the piano. Unfortunately at that age I was not that serious and focused. The moment I told my teacher that I was quitting playing the piano, he told me that he thought two people were very happy with that decision…

At the age of 28 I took a fresh new start to learn to play another instrument: the saxophone. But now, with a new teacher, I learned to play by ear to some extent and I tried to memorize the notes I had to play.

My variant of this:

I was simply given a little electrical (1960's) organ and later a piano; no teacher.  I got into some way where I thought I was reading music and did have part of it.  I found "Do" (Tonic of a major scale, 6th note of a natural minor scale) and sang my way up and down a scale essentially and then tried to make the piano sound that way.  The music I had was diatonic and predictable, so this worked.  Then from age 18 to 52 or so, I didn't have a piano.   I got a violin and violin lessons in my 40's, and simply used what I had before.  I heard what I saw, and played what I heard, reaching for the sound.  There was a lot of predicting where the music will go because of patterns in music, and hints.  One day when I was sight reading a new piece in front of my teacher, I got lost when he stopped me, and found out I wasn't really reading.  Then a bit later when I got a piano, the first time I had music that didn't have the usual patterns, I was also lost.  This is when my own "hunt for the missing part of reading" started.

Now when I went back to the drawing board, I did seek out specifically to get the connection between "note on staff" and "key on piano" including the physical reflex part.  But relating "note to place on keyboard" was the crux of it. And that is what you're addressing.

What interests me is that while playing the saxophone you have reached back over the the piano keyboard.  I've seen this before, where the piano seems to be a reference for other instruments.  It sort of makes sense, given the layout on the piano.  And any music major for other instruments also has to have some level of piano, as I understand it.

[lighthouse2020]

My variant of this:

I was simply given a little electrical (1960's) organ and later a piano; no teacher.  I got into some way where I thought I was reading music and did have part of it.  I found "Do" (Tonic of a major scale, 6th note of a natural minor scale) and sang my way up and down a scale essentially and then tried to make the piano sound that way.  The music I had was diatonic and predictable, so this worked.  Then from age 18 to 52 or so, I didn't have a piano.   I got a violin and violin lessons in my 40's, and simply used what I had before.  I heard what I saw, and played what I heard, reaching for the sound.  There was a lot of predicting where the music will go because of patterns in music, and hints.  One day when I was sight reading a new piece in front of my teacher, I got lost when he stopped me, and found out I wasn't really reading.  Then a bit later when I got a piano, the first time I had music that didn't have the usual patterns, I was also lost.  This is when my own "hunt for the missing part of reading" started.

Now when I went back to the drawing board, I did seek out specifically to get the connection between "note on staff" and "key on piano" including the physical reflex part.  But relating "note to place on keyboard" was the crux of it. And that is what you're addressing.

What interests me is that while playing the saxophone you have reached back over the the piano keyboard.  I've seen this before, where the piano seems to be a reference for other instruments.  It sort of makes sense, given the layout on the piano.  And any music major for other instruments also has to have some level of piano, as I understand it.

Indeed, in some way I also use the piano as a reference. I play tenor saxophone mostly by ear in the horn section of a local band (tenor sax/trumpet/alto sax). In the parts we play together, we play memorized notes. In the parts when there’s a solo or a more free role for us, we try to improvise.
The way I practice improvising on a chord progression is to play in some bar/chord towards the 3rd or 7th note of the first chord of the next bar. And at home I use my piano to play chords with my left hand and the ‘solo’/‘sax’ note with my right one to check how it sounds in the given chord.
And while playing the saxophone at home, I still look at the piano in front of me to check what’s the third, fifth, seventh of a chord, for instance (although a tenor sax is a Bb instrument).
And when I have a saxophone lesson, I do not bring my saxophone. We sit behind…a piano.

[ranjit]

I can think of a bunch of different ideas for games which would be more effective than that and actually be useful. All I see here is a means for extremely distracted, phone-addicted children to gain some basic "All Cows Eat Grass"-level knowledge

I wonder what would happen if someone were able to map real ear training/sight reading skills onto a game like osu.

[lighthouse2020]

I can think of a bunch of different ideas for games which would be more effective than that and actually be useful. All I see here is a means for extremely distracted, phone-addicted children to gain some basic "All Cows Eat Grass"-level knowledge

I wonder what would happen if someone were able to map real ear training/sight reading skills onto a game like osu.

Thank you for your opinion, and I will check out the ‘osu’-game for some inspiration.