Simpedia

Karen G.,Tennessee

One thing that immediately comes to mind are the ‘tools’ students have developed which will help them read and play…. looking for patterns, sentences, shapes, fragmenting, as well as the foundation of playing which comes first etc. For those students of mine who have started reading, looking for and seeing these sorts of things makes reading the pieces much, much easier.

For instance one of my students is working on the right hand of the upper section of ‘A Traveler’s Tale’ in Time for More Music … once he discovered (from the page), that his hand is basically in one of 3 positions, it made it much easier for him to read the piece. This same student has easily added many of the TFMM pieces to his repertoire (almost without trying) because he sees the patterns, etc.

Also, the emphasis on reading the outer ranges (ledger lines) seems to be a difference… for my students who already knew how to read, being able to read in the high and low ranges, just as easily as around the treble and bass clef, is a new experience.

Suelin B., Idaho

I have taught traditional piano for over 20 years. I only have had one student so far finish the Reading Program, but I would like to report that with this one experience, I saw stunning results. Truly, this is one of the things that attracted me to SM in the first place. Despite all the games, tricks, and techniques, two years ago, I had a large
group of students who were just not getting “reading notes”. They were great players and very good performers, but lousy readers. I agree with Karen’s post that there are more tools available that enhance their deciphering. I was very pleased with the student’s independence in reading new music, as well as the level of sophistication in reading. My adult emerged from the reading program reading Bach and Burgmuller with ease and accuracy.

In traditional piano, reading begins with ‘easier-than-Level-1’ type music. Also, more often than not, students need help in deciphering some notes and many rhythms. Most traditional methods do not fully prepare students well in early levels to play dotted rhythms, sixteenths or ties.

Jenny S., Australia

I am a classically taught pianist and have taught both classically and Simply Music. (Simply Music for 4 years).

I believe that SM training – once the Reading Program begins, opens the students eyes to not only see the notes and know their names, but to evaluate them in relation to the other notes on the page. It removes the fear of ledger lines, and unfolds the wonder of finding shapes and patterns within a reading context.

Personally, I believe that I am a much more confident reader as a result of teaching SM.

Lynn F., North Carolina

The most amazing difference for my “reading students” is that they essentially learn to read the WHOLE staff at once – not piecemeal as in a few notes in the treble, then a few notes in the bass, etc. At this point in the program, I tell them that they are enabled to UNDERSTAND any piece of music. Several of them have experimented with pieces that are “over their head” (in terms of their experience with reading) with great success and they are so excited about it!

Several weeks ago I was explaining the “C” relationships on the regions of the staff to an older student. She said, “I see it!!! I see it!!! I understand!!! I can read music and I never really believed it could be so easy.” My husband called me before she had left the studio after her lesson and she said, “Tell him I can read music!!!!” She almost ran out of the studio and excitedly told her father the same thing!!! It was one of those moments in my teaching career that I shall never forget.

This certainly never happened during traditional lessons as we labored through the reading process!!!

I am finding the simplicity of the explanation to work with any age with great success. Like anything else, it depends on the commitment of the student to practice reading as they practice playing to gain efficiency and speed.

When it is all said and done, I believe the reading program is brilliantly conceived (as is all of SM) and I try to do it justice as I present it and “pass through the eye” of that tiny needle.

Laurie Richards, Nebraska

Students who have had traditional lessons, even those who have had several years, typically are very intimidated by notes on the ledger lines, and most have trouble reading them. Because SM starts with ledger line notes in the reading process and progresses from there, students become comfortable reading a huge range of the keyboard relatively quickly. Actually, considering that notes higher than 5 ledger lines are usually notated with an 8va, they learn the entire range of the keyboard. (even if a piece of music does use 8 ledger lines instead of an 8va, the student would be able to quickly find it using their secure understanding of intervals).

My 15-yo student who has had 4 years of traditional lessons just started on the High C streams. When we talked about knowing the phrase “two ledger lines above treble clef”, he said “Oh! That’s a good thing to remember!”. He was just guessing before that.

We could say basically the same thing about rhythm! I have an ex-traditional student who just switched over and recently started the SM Reading Rhythm Program. She told me she already knew how to read rhythm. I kept it really light-hearted and said “Oh, you do? Great! This will go really fast! Let’s just skip to the end of the book and we’ll proceed from there.” I opened up to a page of rhythm tracks at the end of the book, and said, “Show me your stuff!”. She didn’t get very far before getting flustered. So I just said, “No problem, we’ll just start at the beginning and work up to it.” She actually is very good at simple rhythms, but Neil doesn’t stop at simple rhythms in the reading program. That’s what’s so great about it.

One more thought…. Transcribing! How many traditional students can do this? I would say very, very few. This is an invaluable tool in learning to read that is entirely new to them and strengthens their reading abilities way beyond what they achieved in traditional lessons. As Neil would say, a new layer of learning. Every layer strengthens our abilities.

Gordon Harvey, Australia

It’s clear to me that there’s a world of difference between traditional reading programs and SM. For starters, there’s the approach to reading pitch, ie our intervallic approach versus the more common Acronymic Approach (Every Good Boy Does Fine), although to be fair, some teachers do present intervals in some form as the principal tool for reading music.

Without going into specifics, if it’s a student who asks the question, I’ll say something like this: “You know how you’ve learned to see so many clues to how a piece of music is put together (patterns, sentences, shapes etc) on the keyboard? Well, you can also see the written music in similar ways if you know how. We teach you to see these clues so you can get back to the keyboard as soon as possible and find even more clues there, rather than just learning each note one at a time.” An analogy would be speed reading, where you learn to distinguish entire phrases at once, signposted by keywords, as opposed to simply reading each word from left to right (this analogy is a poor one in another respect, though, because it may suggest we teach sight-reading, which we don’t specifically). Don’t forget also there’s an effective summary of the reading process in the Curriculum Overview.

Some people still attach a kind of reverence to reading music, as if it’s not “real” music unless you’re reading it. Likewise, people may think there’s a fundamental transformation for a SM student when they can read music, as if everything they’ve done is just a preparation for reading. I don’t really see it that way. For us, reading is a wonderful and powerful aid, but only ever an aid. We always remain Playing-Based.  As soon as we’ve found the information on the page that has us able to map the notes onto the keyboard, we’ll be back on the keyboard, looking as always for more clues to processing and memorizing the piece. We may refer back to the page from time to time, but only to remind us of what we’ve worked out. Typically, a traditional approach will rely more on repetition to help memorize, and will have less emphasis on memory in the first place.

A real golden moment for me is when a student comes in with the week’s reading project and tells me what they’ve noticed: “Actually, I discovered this was just a D chord, and then it pivots up, then the LH plays the outside two notes of the chord and the RH does the same kind of pattern as Night Storm” or similar. But mostly what they’re showing me is what they’ve found on the instrument that was first accessed through the page. Besides that, we’ll always be working on projects that have little or no dependence on written music – playing jazz and accompaniment chords, composition, improvisation, arrangements etc.

We’ll also have taken a less “linear” approach, examining the piece as a whole, looking for learning clues, figuring out the overall structure etc, maybe spending plenty of time at this before even touching the instrument. I’ve found that students with prior reading experience may be able to play, but will have little real understanding of what’s actually going on as they do.

I recently started a student who could play fairly nicely, including a piece he described as a 12-bar blues, but who didn’t really know what that actually meant, and certainly had no concept of I-IV-V. I have no doubt that with more experience of playing SM pieces, and an experience of our reading process, he could look at a piece like, say, D-Part, and distinguish that it’s a 12-bar blues with D as the I, and the same style of LH as Jackson Blues. He also will have no problem with finding those notes well below the stave. That’s the entire LH dealt with in a minute or two!