Simpedia

Laurie Richards, Nebraska

I’ve noticed sort of a trend, or maybe just a tendency, crop up around level 4 – 5. Parents start getting really antsy about reading, and worried about all the money they have invested in piano lessons. It’s been over a year, and their kid still doesn’t read music. They sometimes start talking about traditional lessons. They don’t really consider the rhythm they have been learning as “reading”.

What I have done in these situations is to take the time to really talk to these parents about what Simply Music is all about, and more specifically:

• how they have been learning valuable tools all along which will aid the reading process for the rest of their musical lives
• explain that they have started reading (rhythm), and the fact that we isolate this one component of reading before introducing notes is going to strengthen their reading
• reassure them that it all comes together once we get to actual reading projects, in a way that avoids the typical frustrations of learning to read in a traditional environment
• remind them of all the other wonderful musical skills their kids are learning – accompaniment, arranging, composing, improvising, etc. and how these are every bit as important to their child’s musicianship as a whole
• ask them to trust me and be patient with the process; the reading just comes together in a different (much more enjoyable) manner than what we are accustomed to in our culture

It’s come up enough times now that I realized I was missing the boat on communicating these things all along. Part of it was that I couldn’t know how it all fit together until I took some students through it and heard these concerns come up. But now that I realize it, I have decided I need to take action from the beginning to address them.

One thing I am now doing is having a “tool of the week” written on the white board that I discuss in every class (“Tool Time with Miss Laurie”, if you will). One week might be External Speaker, the next CTE, etc. I have not done a good enough job getting the importance of these into students’ & parents’ heads. These are all tools that will aid them always, not just with playing-based pieces. They need to know and understand that.

As an example, we were talking about patterns last week, and I talked about how much learning to recognize patterns can help them in reading music. One mom said “I don’t get how that will help with written music.” (What a great opportunity!) So I pulled out a Chopin etude that looks scary – starts really high, lots of 16th notes, but in fact is a really simple pattern repeated over several octaves (yay for etudes). Their eyes got as big as saucers, and I played the right hand and asked them what they noticed. Most were able to pick out the simple pattern of A G F C repeated down several octaves.

I reiterated that THIS (pointing to scary music) was really just THIS (played the simple pattern). They also recognized that it was no different than the fancy ending on some of their arrangements, just in the other direction. I talked about how the music can be your original source of information, as opposed to me teaching them, but then you can recognize the pattern which then makes the written music a whole lot easier to decipher and play. The mom totally understood then, and it was such a great class because everyone was actually “getting” how much they really have learned. Big “aha” moment.

Thanks to those who recently posted messages about how they teach the tools. It helped me get in gear and make a connection between my oversight and the parents’ concerns about reading.

Gordon requested that I share the specific Chopin etude that I referenced earlier to illustrate patterns in written music. It is Op. 10 No. 8 in F Major. I’ve used it for students to discover the patterns for themselves as well once they know all their location points. They figure out the first note, then play through the intervals; usually they figure out the simple pattern.

We do talk about how not all music is going to have obvious patterns like this one, but it sure helps to be in the practice of identifying them.

Cindy B., Illinois

In my experience it takes at least 12 years to be a good reader, and then they have no experience with: composition, arranging, self expression, chord symbols/accompaniment, to name a few.

I just did a graphic on my white board to compare the length of time it might take a traditional student to arrive at the same ending point as a SM student – they never do.