Why does your child have trouble reading music?
This was one of the most common questions I encountered during my teaching career, and I kept looking for answers.
I had never experienced these issues as a child, so it was difficult to determine why.
I'm almost certain how to approach this infamous conundrum.
(I'd like to point out that some neurodivergent people have unique health conditions, so we need to take different approaches for them, and I'd like to exclude these special conditions to avoid any confusion).
First and foremost, I believe it is helpful for all of us to understand that "being able to name the note correctly" and "reading music" are not the same. They are two distinct things. They have no correlation with one another. We will never be able to read music fluently unless we can recognize a group of notes as one unit, just as someone who knows all of the alphabet is required to read.
A baby first listens to people's voices and begins to mimic them. It takes time before they can read and write. Learning music is the same.
The best approach is to begin by listening to music, moving to it, singing, and playing the piano, and then progress to learning to read music.
When we play the piano, we are doing multiple tasks at once with both hands: reading music, locating the notes on the piano, recognizing the pitches, deciding which finger to use, how long to hold (rhythm), what is the meter (beat pattern), tempo (speed), dynamics, and expression.
Even though complicated elements like rhythm, dynamics, and expression can be added later, there is still a lot to handle.
The problem is that they are all linked together, much like the Earth's ecosystem. In most cases, if we disassemble and break down into tiny segments fporlearning purpose, we will be unable to reassemble them.
Imagine you got Larousse (a traditional French cooking book), chose one of the most complicated dishes you've ever eaten, read the recipe, bought all the ingredients, and cooked it.
The first challenge is that you've never eaten it before, so you have no idea how it tastes. Number two is that you may have never used some of the ingredients before!
Number three, even if you successfully cooked it, you have no idea whether it tastes good or not because you have never eaten it!
You can probably tell whether you like it or not.
Would you like to try another one in the future?
This is probably what every piano kid goes through.
They sit in front of the piano and are asked to play it while reading a book with many little dots and symbols printed on it. They must know which fingers to use and how long to hold. They're even asked to count the numbers out.
They even have to use their fingers in ways they never would in everyday life!
How complicated!
Then we think that mincing them into bite-sized pieces will help, which it does not, unfortunately.
The problem here is that we are giving them too much at once, and we are constantly giving them new things before they have digested them.
Forgetting is human nature.
It's nobody's fault.
So if we have too many half-forgotten things and new things keep coming our way, the result is a mess.
We made our own chaos.
I saw this numerous times, and detangling was difficult until I changed my entire approach.
Let me share my solutions with you.
Once you've got it, it's pretty simple.
I start by moving and singing to train the ear, and then students start playing the piano without reading. I do not use black keys. It is because black keys are technically difficult to play, and remembering their pitches is unnecessary. I want my students to become familiar to seven pitches: Do to Si (Ti) or A to G. It's your choice, but I strongly recommend using solfege note names because they sound like a new set of musical language, whereas letter names are difficult for children to associate with the sound. The question of fixed or movable Do can be addressed after the pitches have been settled. (How you hear Do as a key center comes naturally to each person.)
I know some teachers teach reading without using note names. If it fits your strategy, why not?
When students are ready to play the piano, they begin using music notation. (It depends on the student's age and ability.)
They start by learning more notes for the right hand and a few for the left hand.
Left hand notes will be introduced gradually, up to five.
They will remain C-G for quite some time until they can read and play fluently.
In the first few months, they only learn the ten notes, finger numbers, quarter and half notes, and will not play with both hands at the same time.
This is the most significant difference between the methods I use and the traditional methods currently in use.
After a while, they will learn more notes that expand to an octave, dotted notes, more rests, and the most fundamental and useful fingering patterns such as crossing and changing fingers on the same notes. Students will master a variety of fingerings. It's because they can learn techniques through fingerings. While they continue to play hand separately, they will gain experience and learn techniques that will be used in the future, becoming experts in hand separately.
We all have a dominant hand. It means that our non-dominant hand is less skilled than our dominant hand. It's another challenge to balance these skills between both hands while playing advanced repertoire. This is the best opportunity to train each hand to become an expert. So playing with both hands comes naturally and easily. This is because of the way our brain works.
Students will learn one concept at a time and practice it until they have mastered it.
Progress steps are set so shallow that students do not notice there is a step in front of them, but they continue to climb these shallow staircases.
This approach avoids the stress associated with learning, known as the "learning curve," making each lesson more enjoyable for students.
Any child would be happy to repeat what they can do at home.
This is an excellent way to address both reading hiccups and home practice issues.
Currently, all of my beginners are thriving on the piano.
There is no hustle and bustle for note reading because they do not read them but rather play them.
Can you imagine how happy I am to finally get the answers?
Integration is critical.
As whole food is beneficial to our health, whole music is a solution.
Piano Fun is my current primary methods, as shown in the picture.
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