Developing Reading Skills

Much like learning to read text, learning to read music is a skill that takes time, practise and patience. When my pupils are finding it hard, I remind them of this – they wouldn’t have expected to read Harry Potter in year R (or most of them wouldn’t have, anyway! 😊).

If you had instrumental lessons as a child, the chances are you will remember being taught All Cows Eat Grass (Bass Clef spaces), Gum Boots Don’t Fit Ants (Bass Clef lines), FACE (Treble Clef spaces), and Every Good Boy Deserves Food (Treble Clef lines), or something similar to help you learn to read the music. 

I don’t teach this way, as the issue with it is that you have to recite the pneumonic to get to the one you want & the note on the page doesn’t directly mean anything. Instead, I teach note reading slowly, building up gradually, starting with the D in the right hand and B in the left (the two notes either side of Middle C, which also are So & Mi in solfa). This more naturally corresponds to the way we learn to read text, and the position on the stave is learnt alongside the pitch and note name. 

Later on, I introduce the concept of ‘Landmark notes’. These are notes that are instantly recognisable from where they are on the stave – middle C is one, so are the high C & very high C (treble clef) & low C & very low C (bass clef) – see the first example below. Notice the patterns, which aid recognition, hence the name 'landmark notes' as they can help you know where you are like Big Ben or The Eiffel Tower. 

The ones that always cause confusion initially are Base F & Treble G (shown on the second example on the stave and together with keyboard notes they relate to). As you can see, they look similar, but are different notes & to add to the confusion, both are initially played with little fingers!

Examples of Landmark Notes

Along with the tutor books, there are many games that I use to reinforce note reading in a fun and relevant way.

These include:-

1. ‘Find, say and play’ (some of which are contained within the tutor books) – which involve reading the note on the stave, finding it on the piano & saying the note name. These are excellent as they form an introduction to sight-reading, but without any rhythm attached, as well as reinforcing the connection between the picture (stave), position (key on piano) and note name.
2. Note flashcards – these work in a similar way to the ‘find, say & play’ in point 1, but have the note name on the back, so can be taken home to practise, and also can be used away from the piano.
3. Keyboard Correction – I have a giant plastic keyboard floormat which I use in many ways. One of these is putting note name labelled counters on it, some correctly positioned, others not. The game is spotting the wrong ones and moving them to the nearest correct note. I also use this for helping with the concept of # and b (the black notes). 
4. Button Stave – this is a blank double stave (ie treble and bass clef) which I use with buttons in a variety of ways. Early on, I use it to identify treble and bass clef as well as spaces and lines eg ‘Put a button on the middle line of the treble clef’ – this can be a source of confusion, as when learning to write, pupils are asked to write ‘on the line’, meaning the writing sits with the bottom touching the line, whereas ‘on the line’ in music means with the line going through the middle of the note. Subsequently, it can be used to check note recall, teach landmark notes, write a simple piece of music (without rhythm attached), or explore the use of leger lines (the extra little lines for notes above or below the stave, of which Middle C is the simplest example).
5. Rhythm flashcards – Although not strictly note reading, I've included this here as understanding rhythm is also vital when sight-reading or playing. There is more about this in other blog posts (see the posts on Kodály teaching in particular). The rhythm flashcards are just rhythm without pitch attached, enabling a focus purely on this aspect. They can be used as ‘clap and say’ using rhythm solfa (eg ta, titi, sh etc) and also to build musical memory. They are in focussed sets, so can be tailored to the specific element currently being (or about to be) studied. I often use them to introduce new concepts to lay foundations before they come up in the tutor books.

Without music reading skills being sufficiently developed, pupils rely on their memory to play pieces and find it much harder to develop as musicians as each new piece requires memorising before it can be played, which obviously gets more difficult as the pieces do! Going back to my original analogy, it’s like having to learn the books in the reading scheme word for word by heart, one by one before moving on, as you can’t actually read the words. 

It is important to have an approach to developing reading skills that taps into all learning styles to ensure that this doesn’t happen, but also to try to make it fun rather than a constant struggle & this is what I try to do. 

Of course, with reading music, not only do you have the notes to worry about, but also the rhythm, and there are dynamics (loud and quiet), and articulation (smooth or detatched), the geography (finding your way around both the music and the instrument - does the music have repeats etc) and Italian terms such as Allegro etc too, which is why it does take time, effort and patience, and lots and lots of practise! 

All of these skills are essential to be able to develop as a musician, to tackle more difficult pieces, as well as to be able to sight-read – something for a future blog post!