Kids are naturally creative and musical. When we create a pathway for them to begin making music immediately, the importance of notation begins to make more sense.
For the reason, intentionality in the way music notation is presented is extrememly important
My Childhood Piano Lesson Experience
I remember being about 5 years old sitting at the piano with my first ever teacher.
What note is this?
I stared at the page.
What note is this?
I continued to stare
Do you remember the names of the lines?
I remembered “Every Good Boy Does Fine”, but I couldn’t match the notes.
I quickly decided I hated reading music. And although throughout the years I would occasionally decide to try and get back into reading, it wasn’t until almost 15 years later that I had a note reading breakthrough.
Telling A Different Story
Chatting with many others about their piano lesson experiences as children has shown me that this is not an uncommon feeling.
It is a tragedy to think about how many musicians were never developed because of their inability to read.
It’s not that I was incapable of learning to read, it’s that I needed a more clear way to understand that the notes on the page had a deeper meaning than a letter.
The War Against The Page
And so, rather than only teach note reading in one way, P287 music students are taught note reading using multiple mediums to help them not only understand the information but interact with it.
Students who are presented with the same information in many different ways are able to internalize, retain, and make use of the skills and information they are taught.
Create First!
One of the ways we get kids playing right away is by working through improvisations designed for absolute beginners. This approach, inspired by the great Forest Kinney, immediately allows children to access creating music. What they think they are doing, is playing a game – but we use these improvisations to allow them to “discover” all sorts of things.
- Proper piano technique unhindered by processing notes and rhythm
- Understanding and experience of “pulse”
- Discovery of rhythm from an aural standpoint, giving context to a written rhythm.
There are many different types of learners, teaching music reading through the “backdoor” approach of improvisation keeps children encouraged, engaged, and doing what they do best – Creating
Note Speed
Note speed is a game that we consistently play with our students to improve their note recognition.
It is extremely effective for a few reasons:
- Isolates the skill of note recognition without the pressure of physically pressing the notes
- Introduces an element of uncertainty – “can I beat last week’s score?”
- Provides an alternative way for students to interact with notes, making the information more immediately relevant to them
Many Small Wins
Two things are true of music lessons:
- Every lesson should feel like a win for a child.
- Music is a complex art that involves many layers of information. Because of this, we want to make sure concepts are mastered before we move on.
In order to allow every lesson to be a win, while each level of musical information is still mastered, we take an approach I like to call “many small wins.”
Rather than a traditional method book approach where students work on one concept per song, we work on one concept for many songs.
This is significantly more effective because:
- Students get in the necessary repetition for mastery, while still feeling a sense of accomplishment from finishing a piece
- Interacting with one concept in multiple pieces increases relevance.
Literacy Matters
The idea that all students must learn to read music is true. The problem that we bump into is when we expect all children to learn the same way and at the same pace.
Taking the above approach allows kids to use their strengths to grow the areas that are weak.