Best ways of teaching notation

[abell88]

I thought it would be good to start a new thread, rather than discussing this in the Suzuki question.

What are the most effective ways of teaching notation? What (in your experience) has not worked well?

By the way, I just looked at Candida Tobin's system (www.tobinmusic.co.uk). It looks very interesting -- check it out if you're not familiar with it.

Alice

[vera]

In response to Johnkeller, as a continuation of the Susuki postings:

I did not know, that my ideas about teaching reading to very little ones, before they know letters, came from a Russian School, but that is very interesting. Thank you John.
I guess many of us pick up things over the years, and we may not remember, where those ideas come from. I thought a lot of them were my own ideas, but then, who knows? Something like this was mentioned before, I think.
i have noticed, that with my way of teaching note-reading, the students usually know the position of the note quicker, than that they know the name. But isn't that the most important in the end? Never mind the names, those can come later. After all, they only simplify the communication between the teacher and the student but are not really necessary with the note-reading. To the student they may be a distraction.

I have noticed a weird defect in the reading with some Korean students. Those that have had some years of tuition in their own country. They play things in the wrong octaves, e.g. an octave too high or too low, getting confused with the pitch, but with the "right' note. I have seen it quite often and wonder, what causes it. Anybody's ideas about that?
May-be it has something to do with the books they use: mostly Alberti bass accompaniment stuff.

Another thing to help teaching notation: Make the student write down extremely easy songs they know, like "three blind mice", and do that on various places on the staff. It has got to be 3 note and stepwards stuff, or at most a third in it. And afterwards " discover' on the piano, what they have written. Do not worry about the rhythm at that stage.
Make the stave big, little ones cannot write small.

What I find a disaster, are the teaching books, that spend an entire book in the same position. And especially if much fingering has been put in. The students have to understand as soon as possible, that the hands go everywhere, and that there is no set finger for every note. Spend as little  time as possible  in the five finger beginning position.
But they also have to understand some "practical rules" about fingering as soon as possible.

I have never really experienced problems in teaching reading, unless I struck one with an unusual deficiency, like dyslexia. For that I am not equipped. And in those rare cases there always were problems with reading in general. These have been a rarity in my 35 yr long teaching career.

[johnkeller]

Vera, I agree wholeheartedly with what you say and have written my own books to avoid the association of notes with a particular finger. But I followed the modern trend of starting on black keys, (staffless notes and finger numbers), then notes with letternames before introducing the grand stave. I am rethinking the whole thing now, and would very much like to know more of the details of how you do it without even naming the keys!

I have had some experience with dislexic types of kids, eg one who couldn't tell right from left - so I called the hands 'high hand' and 'low hand' and placed a bird on the high keys and a frog on the low side. This seems to solve that problem. Another child couldn't remember which side of the two blacks was C! So I start from A now. I also suddenly noticed the symmetry of ABCDEFG one day, which was quite a revelation since noone seems to have noticed it, including me till then, (A  BC  D  EF  G). And the fact that the bass clef shows this symmetry (A at the bottom, G at top and D in the centre) made it very easy to teach the bass clef, but my students always struggled a bit to learn treble. The trouble is the two different clefs interfere with each other!

I'd like to have some more details from you if you can afford the time, such as: do the big sideways staves have to match up with the exact piano keys; do you draw sideways clefs; if you, say, show the D note positions (since this is the easiest key to find) how well do the kids remember their three totally different locations on the staves? etc, etc,

Very interested! -John.

[Torp]

I'd like to have some more details from you if you can afford the time, such as: do the big sideways staves have to match up with the exact piano keys; do you draw sideways clefs; if you, say, show the D note positions (since this is the easiest key to find) how well do the kids remember their three totally different locations on the staves? etc, etc,

Very interested! -John.

John,

Thought I'd drop in on the conversation because I'm struggling with teaching notation to a 5 year old.  One thing I will say about the section I quoted above is "it depends".  Mostly it will depend on the ability of the student to think abstractly.  Most children up to about 6-8 will think in mostly concrete terms and that having the lines line up exactly with the notes is a great help.  Once the concrete foundation has been put into place you can move to the abstract.

I've just realized I'm having a difficult time articulating what I'm trying to say

Vera,

How long do you find it normally takes for a student to "get it" and be able to truly correlate the notation (in real printed music, so to speak) to the actual physical location of the notes on the piano?

I am also very interested in this topic because I think the hand-position books are very limiting.  I had a situation yesterday with this particular student where we were working on moving from the grand staff notation provided by Halfstone to a piece of music that had notes in the treble clef.  I pointed to a note in the music and asked her to show me where that note was on the piano.  She pointed right to it!  Ah, breakthrough I'm thinking to myself.  I point to the next note (which is a whole step above the previous note) and she looks at her hand and promptly plays the note two whole steps below.

I was stumped so I asked her why she chose that note.  Her response was an eye opener for me.  She said, "Well, the number above the note tells you what finger to play the note with.  The number is 1, so it's this note."  The first note she had played had a 3 above it.  Using her logic it makes perfect sense that the 1 finger would play a note 2 steps below the 3 finger (obviously I'm talking RH).  So, based on the "hand position" books she's been using she wasn't able to reconcile the fact that she would have to move her hand in order to play the note "above" with a finger that is normally playing notes "below."

I hope what I wrote made sense.  I seem to be having one of those days when critical synapse gaps are misfiring

So, Vera, if you're willing, please expand on your methodology for teaching notation.  I'm particularly interested in its application to younger children.

Jef

[vera]

John, please realize that I do teach with naming the notes, if at all possible. But this topic is really about what I do, if names are too difficult. I rarely use it, only with the 4 and 5 yr olds and non-English speakers. I also find then, that it has to be kept as simple as possible.
In the beginners book I use, Making Music, Blake/Capp, there is a picture of the 2nd and 3rd fingers over the 2 black keys in the centre of the piano. And the thumb is "hanging" over the c. I think it is safe enough to say, that a lot of tunes start there. Let them find the other similar sounding notes  just to the left of the 2 black notes. It does not matter , whether to name that one or not, but use no other names.
I will make a large grand staff, which you can fit on an oblong serving tray, preferably with upstanding edges, so you can "park" notes on the edge later. It does not have to correspond exactly with width of keys, that is tricky actually. You can also use a large shoebox. You do not have to worry about the clefs, you can write them in normally. Treat the thing as one big frame to put notes on, not as 2 unrelated staves. With loose carton keys you show both the d and the b in a nice symmetrical position just on either side of the starting note , which they can now find on the piano.
I forgot to say , that the grand staff has to be vertical.  Next you can explain that the first note they learnt on the piano is a very special note with a very special place. And  show them that we need a little extra line to write it down and how you know, which hand may play it.  It does not matter at this stage that they think from a certain place you play things with the RH or LH. Very soon their RH will"borrow"notes from the LH and vice/versa. Next, generate tunes for 3 notes.
 It is necessary that they understand, that the c is a note on a line, and that it is not a special shape by itself. Otherwise you get the strangest misunderstandings later.

I have not done this explanation in exact order, because I preceed everything by going up and down the grand staff in steps and 3rd jumps until they understand the up and down movements. That is very important. And it is not difficult. You can make a bit of a game of it. Even at the earliest stage I will move the staff to a horizontal position, and explain, that everything remains the same.
You have to keep on doing that.

There is a first piece in the book containing just middle c's, played by RH and LH in turn. That can be done before the understanding of the steps and jumps is there and it is good for the earliest
rhythm. I also turn the book around for that. Which hand plays what etc. I do get them to play that in the first lesson, and make up an accompaniment to make it sound interesting.

Having explained up and down in steps and the keys bcd without names, you can add more notes at either end, and start using the book. 10 pieces later they have covered 5 keys either way and they will be ready for moving around high and low c , again explained in a kind of symmetrical way.
I will refer to a key as e.g. the one to the right or the left of...  or "on that side of"or even a note in a certain pos. on the stave belongs to such and such a pos.on the piano. It sounds terribly complicated trying to put this into words.  They usually have covered and understood the 5 notes either way in about 4 to 6 weeks. Then they move onto high/low c area.
That should answer your question, Jef.
 Immediately once they are around high/low c position changes come into it. Pieces moving 3 notes above c, than changing over to 3 notes below c, first having a thumb on c , then a 3rd on c. etc etc
The first piece where high c gets used has a position change , where you go from a 5th finger on g to a thumb on g and jump to c (4) and in the left hand go down to f (5) upto g (1) and jump down to c(5)
 After that they know, that your fingers can go anywhere.  Please ask if you want to know more. V.

[Torp]

Thanks Vera, this was great.

Jef

[johnkeller]

Hi Vera,

You have put in a mighty effort to explain your teaching method, so many thanks. I think I understand it better now. Its actually a bit different from the 'Russian' method I was told about, in that (if I understand correctly) in that method the student is told a story something like:

Theres a magic treasure (m.C) in between two streams the (2 large vertical staves) - can you find (play) it with this hand? Now the hand has to go away and wash in this stream (teacher draws the t.C note in the right hand stave 3rd space) and the magic treasure appears again but sounds higher (kid finds the next C and I guess listens to how it sounds similar to but higher than the 'treasure'). Then he continues on his way and 2 miles later the magic treasure appears again (draws 2nd legerline C).

This story is then repeated with appropriate variation to the left hand going down, so that at the end there are 5 C's drawn on the grand stave. The stave is then turned upright and the kid is tested I suppose on the 5 C's! Well this is what I recall of what was told me, with a bit of my own creativity filling in gaps!

I guess there would also have to be the same kind of demonstration of how notes step and skip on the staves as you described. What I wondered about this method is: does the kid go home after the 1st lesson with a little tune to play, and what are they to practise; are they given the giant stave to take home, might they wonder why the 'treasure' has a line through it but in the stream it is in a space, might they turn the stave round the wrong way, eg they might want to put the 'big loud notes' up the top ... etc, etc.

If any readers know anything more of this method (I was told it was called 'Method for Teaching Young Geniuses' or similar) I'd be interested to hear from you.

Anyway Vera, it seems your method might be your own after all!

One thing worries me a bit: you show the B and D as symmetrical on the stave and they play them with symmetrical fingers (2) in their hands, but do they ever notice that the keys they play are not symmetrical, or ask why. It's a philosophical question I guess - why is the symmetry of the notation more important than the symmetry of the keyboard? Could notation be taught from the perspective of the symmetry on the keys instead? Just food for thought!

Cheers and thanks again. John

[johnkeller]

Torp (Jef)!

I liked your deaf frog story in "Why people quit".

I use frogs in my teaching to explain "low" (and birds for high). Kids often come to 1st piano lesson thinking the words high and low mean loud and soft. ('They were talking in high voices'; 'Turn the TV down lower, will you', etc) so I always start with "Lets put our hands up high and make sounds like birds - tweet, tweet - high sounds; and "Now put your hands down low and lets make sounds like frogs - ribit, ribit - low sounds".

Then I ask them "What do the keys on this side sound like? Birds! so this side is called "high", etc. It is important to get that straight at the start and it also gets kids used to the idea of singing. You might like to check that your 5 yr old student is not confused about these terms. They often describe low notes as 'loud' or 'big', so might even call them 'high'! And which string would a beginner guitar student play when asked which is the 'highest' string? ...

You're probably aware of all this anyway, but I just thought I'd rave on a bit! New to the internet you see...

John

[vera]

Looking back at my last reply I find, that I still have not been clear enough. It is very difficult to take this subject matter down to the very smallest "atoms". It is easier to do it, than to write about it.
Yes John, they take a piece home, the one I referred to, with only middle c, played between both hands. At that first lesson getting some idea of together playing and one and two beat notes is stimulating. They find it great fun, to play this little duet with me. It usually works. Otherwise
you try the next week again.  I send them home after the first lesson with finger exercise ( 1515-1414-1313-1212 in each hand, and playing 15 together in a marchy rhythm, each hand separately, no matter where on the piano.The stepwards movement can wait until later, that is actually harder. And they get a large sheet with the grand staff etc.
 You do not dwell on the location of the middle c on the extra line at first, because I am more interested to explain the d and the b first and then work inwards by saying " we are running out of lines for that special note, so lets put a little line in, and a note on it" something to that effect.
Again, before you do all of this, I go up and down the entire grand staff in steps and jumps, so there is absolutely no misunderstanding about up and down, and when the staves are vertical, that it corresponds with the keyboard. I work on the basis of symmetry in the notation, I do not relate that to the keyboard, apart from that it is symmetrical with the white keys. But I do explain right away also the symmetry with finding the keys with a similar sound .
That does not seem to be a problem. after all, they will not be playing black notes for a while, and by the time they do, it is no big deal. ( In my book actually fairly soon)
Actually, the way I came to do it this way comes from what i do with the students, who know the alphabet. I explain the clefs and where they come from, and what they symbolize and If they can guess, what the letter is, where the clef comes from. You guide them towards recognising that, and I have pictures of the changing shape over the years. So I explain the notes "inwards" from F below and g above c symmetrically. Naming the left hand notes is obviously a nuisance, so the understanding of location and place on keyboard symmetry is the main thing. ( With those students I will have gone over the whole keyboard naming the notes) it always takes them longer to name the keys fluently, than it takes them to find the right keys. Sometimes they read first, find the key and only afterwards name. I do separate exercises naming keys on the keyboard, also "centrifugally": cbcdc-cdedcbabc- etc and mixing them up. All those activities I do in small "bursts" so you keep their attention. Anyway, you would wonder, how I fit all of this in half an hour a week, with parental guidance-- I insist, the parents observe at those early stages.
 In other threads I already mentioned the other activities.
And yes, I definitely use the same symmetry explanation, when dealing with high/low c, and very high/low c, with grand staff vertical. I am going on forever about " 3rd space up, 3rd space down, 2nd line above/ below stave etc, so they get several "supporting spots to work notes out from. Each student also seems to get their own favorite support notes and I encourage this.
The reading always has to come from the nearest support note, otherwise you never get any speed.
By the way, I do not use any fancy stuff to make things clear. It never seemed to have been necessary. I enjoy immensily working with the little ones and that probably transfers. It is always a magic moment, when things "click".
 My "method" if it is such a thing, is partly derived from what I was taught, it was adapted by me and supplementary material added as time went on. Also every time I adapt it to the individual, never do it quite the same twice. And the order varies.
My first five years of teaching I consider a steep learning curve, nobody can quite prepare you for this, and I
 found the young ones very difficult and did not really want to do it then. So it was like being paid for learning myself.

But there is more than one way to skin a rabbit, and so there will be with this. I won't pretend to have the one answer, but this one works for me. Regards, V.

[johnkeller]

Vera, Firstly in reference to to your other subject posting, yes I also find a lot of the local piano teachers are not interested in sharing ideas, networking etc, but I have realised that some of this is actually a kind of defensive reaction. Maybe they feel threatened. Maybe they are guarding their own methods. Maybe they are just not interested in considering other ways of doing things than how they already do it. I do have one colleague though that has become a close friend because she does actually like to consider other ideas, and we spend a lot of time 'talking shop'.

Now I'll try to make this clear. When discussing things it is sometimes easy to misunderstand, but I'd like to explain some of my methodology so you can see where I'm coming from.

Firstly 'high and low': I have read reseach on this as well as done some informal trials myself. Music psychologist L Marks has found that non music trained people when asked to describe what we would call 'high' and 'low' sounds, are actually more likely to call them 'light' and 'dark', and his theory is that there is an innate psychological connection of high sound with lighness or brightness, and low sounds with darkness. I have found this to be true, the most recent case was in an introductory talk to parents on the benefits of learning music: I asked a 4 yr old girl "what does this sound like?" playing low keys on the piano. She said somethig like "Kind of dark and loud". Previously I have asked little kids similar questions. One amusing example was "Can you sing in a high voice?" - no reaction. Dad gets into the act "Come on Alicia, you can talk like this" He spoke in FALSETTO. Immediately 3 yo Alicia reacted "Daddy that's not a high voice!" We were all stunned. She spoke with such assurance. I asked "Well what kind of voice is it?" No-one including myself had any idea what she would say. "Its a little voice!" was the answer. So for her the terms were "little" for high sounds, and "big" for low sounds, which makes sense if you think of say Daddy Bear and Baby Bear or any number of other stories she would have heard different voices in. So my point is that in the first lesson you have to actually clearly explain what "High" and "Low" are going to mean. I think most teachers are not aware there may be some confusion. In beginner books you often just get an arrow to the right saying "up". What is really meant is 'If you see a row of notes going upward play the keys this way, towards the high "bird" sounds on the right.' I use birds and frogs because the sounds they make relate to the spacial positions of where they live. Other teachers have told me they use chime bars for example, but this would reinforce the descriptions 'little' and 'big'. They put the little ones on top of the big ones and think this explains high and low. But if you placed them upright, it would be more sensible to call the tall low bars "high" and the short high bars "Low"!

I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing you were referring to when you said you didn't find it necessary to do any 'fancy' stuff. My attitude is that lots of kids will just learn it anyway, but if you want to make it as foolproof as you can for every child, then these details should be considered.

As a 2nd topic, I'd like to describe how I teach the keyboard letternames. Briefly it goes like this: Ask the student which black key seems to be ‘special’ (pointing out that the 2-group is like 2 eyes - one side is no more important than the other, etc). They will usually be quick to suggest the middle of the 3-group. Then get them to play and hold down two of these ‘special’ keys. Count how many white keys are in between. Tell them that these 7 white keys are named by the first 7 letters of the alphabet. Drill the first, last and middle keys (A, G, D). It is all so logical that no student will ever ask why A is where it is! And it doesn't require the dubious logic of starting with C and adding A and B onto the end. This is what I mean by keyboard symmetry. D is in a central position, C and E are mirror image keys, so are B and F, and A the 1st and G the last letter. (You also get key-signature symmetry: Bb mirrors F#, etc.) If you look at the keyboard, the symmetrical pattern has D at its centre, not C.  Now regarding the two clefs, why would musicians of the past have chosen the last two letters of the musical alphabet to represent low and high (F clef and G clef)? I actually want my students to think about all this. I don't want them to just accept it ('Thats just the way it is.') Because otherwise there's never any thought for change or improvement of the notational system. I am a member of MNMA.org, the Music Notation Modernisation Association, and I would like to give my students the awareness that music is not its notation, that the notational system we have for music is not set in cement. It evolved and maybe took some wrong turns on the way, like two different clefs for piano, when they could easily have been the same!

So I'm back where I started on Piano Forum, with Theirry taking me to task on my 'stupid' ideas. I want to teach the best way I can, but I don't want to say we have to have middle C as the centre of a grand stave and so on. I like your ideas and appreciate you sharing them with me, but I'm also thinking of how I might adapt them to fit my own philosophy. Such as teaching the stave positions of three Ds, 'Down-a-line' from the top and 'Ducking' under the treble stave, and at the centre of the bass, where it ought to be! Did you realise that the bass is the only clef that shows the same alphabet symmetry as the keyboard? A to G with D in the centre. You only have to learn half of the bass; the other half is the mirror image. eg C below centre, so E above. Even works for the legerlines! If we ever considered using just one music stave instead of five, I'm barracking for the bass! BASS: Board for the Advancement of Stave Systems!

So there you go, Vera! Am I a madman or visionary? Maybe a bit of both. But its great to have someone to listen and to listen to!

Over and out, John.

[abell88]

Just a comment on high and low...I vividly remember in Kindergarten our class was told to hold our hands up high for high sounds and down low for low sounds. I guess the rest of the class had had some previous teaching on what this meant. I consistently did it the wrong way, and was totally convinced that I was right and the rest of the class was wrong. To me, the word "high" made me think of mountains -- so those big solid sounds had to be "high".  So I agree with you, John, we really need to make it clear what those two words actually mean.

Alice

[loveboat9]

teaching note to different age of student is not that hard, the hard way is we should understand students ( not only by age also brain) are different, so first, case by case, second don't use traditional way to teach contemprary student , they are much more smarter then ever, so try to understand which world you live in, now you will know what you need to prepare.

[vera]

First John, I was fascinated by your reply, but before I make comment, first I'll respond to some things brought up at the beginning of your letter.
Of course, the high and low, bright and dark aspect comes up, right at the beginning, and I do orientation too, related to what you do. Finding easy to recognise keys, the centre black of the three, I try several different ones, so then they know how the keyboard "works"
Regarding "fancy stuff", I do not mean words, but gadgets, unless you would consider my "board" a gadget. With a small child there is no limit as to how you want to describe things, as long as it helps to get them to understand things.
There is so much more than understanding notation to deal with, but then we may stray too far from the topic. That is actually a bit of a problem, when discussing things here. It can be very difficult to comment in a "narrow" way, and we are in fact already getting outside the original
threat about teaching notation.
I find the way you deal with naming notes very good, and will have a go at that also, but...
with those, that can handle the alphabet. Is that your idea? Or does that come from some other teaching school? What would you do, if you could not use the alphabet? You have to make your way to the c eventually, as the easiest key to play in is c after all.
Wouldn't it be ideal , if we could change the piano tuning to make d sounding like c, then you also have a nice symmetrical structure. That might be easier than changing notation.
Other notational systems have been tried, like claverscribo (don't know, how to spell it) but it never quite took off. That has vertical staves.
Thank you John, for your extensive explanation, it is very worth-while and certainly not crazy.

As for the response from" loveboat",there are a lot of very bad readers around, and many of us get landed with students, whose reading difficulties needs fixing, before we can do much else.
  That certainly is not an indication, that the new generation is more intelligent than the preceding ones, and it also indicates, that teaching reading is as challenging as it ever was.

[vera]

Back again.I had my brains in a twist when I wrote just before, about changing the d to a c. Wouldn't  be wonderful, if there was a notation, that had an easy scale of a, only white keys, AND a symmetrical way of reading the notes AND symmetry on the keyboard to match that. No such luck.

[johnkeller]

Hello all!

I feel very excited by the response to my last posting. It isn't often I get such support and encouragement for my ideas. Actually I was a bit apprehensive about logging on to Piano Forum tonight in case I got shouted down again! By the way, that first post I entered that made Thierry so angry was a bit of a mistake. After getting some ideas down quickly, I pressed 'Post' instead of 'Preview' so didn't get the chance to tone down my provocative language.

Alice - bravo! You were a very smart kid. Logical and brave as well! I think a lot of kids, when they don't really understand something, follow the leader or try to guess what the teacher wants. The pity is you probably didn't get a chance to tell your teacher why you placed your hands that way, and the teacher probably just thought you were dumb or disruptive! I always listen to what kids say, and its amazing how logical they often are, eg the kid who asked "Are these the flats?" running his hands over the flat surface of the white keys, "And these the sharps?" - the black keys sticking out of the plane.

Vera, my way of teaching the letternames is my own invention. It started, as I have said, when I suddenly saw the piano keyboard in a new way. (I was 17.) Instead of

|   U  U   |   U   U  U   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |          I saw:
 
                        U  U  U   |   U   U   |   U  U  U
                            |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

and realised the alphabetical set ABCDEFG was symmetrical; in fact it is the only set of 7 consecutive white keys that form a symmetrical pattern with the black keys. I then thought it would be more logical to kids if I taught it this way. In fact it is, specially to older kids being taught the keyboard for the first time. One clarinet student complained to her teacher that she couldn't understand the school music teacher's way of pointing out the C key and working out the other letters from there. When the clarinet teacher showed her my way, the student exclaimed "Oh that makes much more sense!" She rang me up to tell me.

The big question to me has always been: were the notes originally named like this to show the symmetry, or is it merely a coincidence? I have done a lot of historical reseach to try to answer this, but it becomes very complicated. I feel that it is deliberate but can't yet prove it.

The scale or tonality of C major really is of no relevance when you are first teaching keynames. Kids only need to know how to read the white key notes at the start. I have written lots of pieces that are in C major but not in the 5 finger position; they don't need to know the scale. After a while they will notice that a lot of the pieces end on a C, but that is not a reason to make C the centre of the musical universe! A child's singing range is pretty much middle A up to middle G. (As you see, grouping notes in units A to G makes it easy to specify notes by their register as well as lettername.) When they sing m.A it is in a low voice; they play it with their low hand, and it is written on the bottom stave. Middle G is for high voice, high hand, and is is written on the top stave.

Here is one of my tunes in the unit A to G (LH on middle ABC, RH on middle GFE):

3/4: AB|C C, GF|E C, C |B A B |C - , BA|B B G |F - AB|C C G |E - ,

                       E |F G F |E - 
AB|C C, GF|E C, C |B A B |C - ,BA|B B G |F, - AB|C C E |C - ||


When you say you have to get to C eventually, I don't really agree. It is only the easiest key from the notational point of view. It is just as easy to play in F# - only the notation and our key signature system makes it harder. If you look at the mnma.org site, you will see that the new proposed notations (over 500) have the premise that there are 12 notes in the octave and they each should have a place on the stave. You might also like to consider the 6/6 keyboard, on which every major scale has the same pattern: 3 notes from one wholetone scale, move up a tier (the semitone), play 4 notes from the other wholetone scale and move back for the tonic.  No learning 15 key signatures! If you look up www.ii4i.net, you can even turn your typing keyboard into a working  6/6 musical keyboard! (Go to the grand piano then to the typing keyboard.) I have looked at Klavarskribo, even learnt Liszt's Petrarch Sonnet 104 in this system. It is not a good notation. Others are better; mine is the BEST!!!

Of course this is not relevant to teaching beginners traditional notation. You do it the best way you can and today I made a big magnetic grand stave ready for a new beginner student. I am quite into 'gadgets' actually - the more apparatus you have, the easier to change activities for kids with short attention spans. But I don't try to sell the idea that traditional notation (TN) is music.

My ideal system has only one type of stave; the clef shows which register, but all octaves of the same note look the same - no learning the 5 C's! The notation I have invented, which I call Express Stave, has a number of stages, and is derived from the bass clef (symmetry again). What makes it different from all the other inventors' systems is that a person brought up with TN could sight read in my system straight off. The white key notes look pretty much like bass clef notes and the black keys ... well that's my secret for now!

Thanks for listening to my ideas and sharing yours. Cheers, John.