Not Father Christmas mnemonics or circles of fifths this time, but... does anyone have any tips on how to get kids to remember to play the notes that are in the flipping key signature, and not pretend everything is in C major???

I have several pupils who are really good when they've learnt the pieces properly, and very musical, but while they're still learning the piece, or if it's sight-reading practice, they consistently forget to put the sharps/flats in that are in the key signature. No matter that I say 'don't forget the key signature' until I'm blue in the face....

Does anyone have any tricks to get through this? Does it just come with time and practice?

Have you tried starting by getting them to play the relevant scale then describing that as the alphabet they need to play the piece?

Yes! With some of them anyway. It normally descends into 'oh, I can't remember that one', and then a gradual limp through the scale... Will try it with the others, though.

I really just drum the scales into them.. maybe that's a bit old fashioned? It seems to work though!

The first thing every pupil plays in my lessons is their scales. Most are so used to it now they don't even get their books out until we've done the "scale part"

Transposing simple tunes into different keys is a good way too.

Hmm. I do scales first too, and am fairly strict about them. But these *should* be easy key sigs / scales for the level the kid is at. Eg. a grade 6 pupil sight-reading a piece in Bb major - he can play his Bb major scale no problem! But it doesn't help, he still plays B natural and E natural in the piece!

Transposing: like the idea, but not yet convinced it will help...

Could you not stnd up the top of the keyboard and hit the relevant sharp/flat when required - creating a nasty dissonance if they forget? It might remind them, and if it doesn't sound nice they're more likely to want to avoid it. Possibly?

Some of my students have this problem too, no matter how many times I tell them to remember the key signature. One tactic I have tried is to get them to check the key signature, then skim-read the piece to roughly plot "landmarks" - notes affected by the key signature - so that they are at least half-way prepared when they reach them. But I'm not convinced it works.....

I teach violin but....

yes, I get the kids to put a pencil ring around any notes affected by the key signature, it seems to work!

Of course they have to do it with just their brains in the exam but going through doing the brain/pencil thing before the read the blobs/make a noise thing seems to build some good thinking habit!

I think the most effective way is just to write them all in with a pencil.
If they do it lightly enough they'll be able to rub them all out if they're worried about messing up their music.

You should see some of my band music.. I think theres more of my writing on it than there is actual music!!

I've had the same problem with some of mine. I wonder if the pupils forget because their hands end up in different places during a piece that is different from the basic scale fingering. For example, one of mine keeps forgetting to put the Bb in Mozart's Minuet in F when her RH ends up in G position needing Bb in the middle. She remembers it when finger 4 goes on Bb.

I have used the climbing exercise pattern - it's easy from C making their way up the piano - but try it from a key with black keys in - say D major - and it makes a very interesting journey when the pupil has to remember where they all are as they climb up through all the notes. I think it makes them think really hard about the sequence of letters in different keys from different start notes and it's fun.

C major - C climb to 2 on E F G A and back again to D climb to 2 on F etc.

or D major - D climb to 2 on F# G A B A G F# E climb to 2 on G A B C# B A G F# climb to 2 on A etc

I have to admit that I can't sightread (really really hopeless) and one of the things that causes my teacher to look as if she's about to punch me is that invariably forget the key signature.

However, I've started practising for at least 15 minutes a day and before each piece I sit and play the scale, then play the notes that are affected by the key signature and finally, before I start playing I go through the music and see what notes are affected by the key signature.

In the exam obviously I wont have enough time to do all this (I also sit and clap out the rhythm etc) but it really seems to be working and I'm getting better at remembering the sharps and flats.

So, although I'm still hopeless (I sight read at about Grade 2 and play at about Grade 6) I am improving so I think it's like everything else - lots of practise and prior analysis of the piece.

Circled notes, just so far in to the piece, to get us going.

For some pupils who have serious difficulty remembering key signatures, (especially fun for my 'special' children who have educational issues) is to neatly highlight the affected notes with a coloured highlighter pen. Yes I know some of you will gasp at my using ink on the music, but it is the child's sheet and the cool, snazzy, spotty music can actually inspire them to try, instead of them being panicy about not remembering the accidentals. It helps and results in a smile having given an accurate performance - well - we all know what matters most. Sometimes we have done exams with a blue piece, a pink piece and an orange piece!

I think the propensity to misunderstand key signatures stems from a general lack of musicality/genuine musical awareness. A truly musical/musically aware child would immediately recognise when they played a wrong note because it would sound wrong in the context of the piece, unless the incorrect note happened to sound right as well, by chance.

I know this sounds a bit dogmatic but to be fair I think the lack of classroom singing in primary schools has a lot to do with it. I also have a lot of pupils who tell me their mothers never sang to/with them when they were little - it's very sad. So as a result much 'music-making' becomes following symbols on a page without any real understanding of the music involved; no wonder key signatures get missed and misunderstood...

I think a 'moveable doh' Kodaly-type training before taking up an instrument would go a long way towards remedying this and I've recently decided that with all future beginners I'm going to start teaching them to sing in solfah before learning to play a single note on the violin. After all, if they don't know what a tone or a semitone is supposed to sound like, how can they be expected to play it in tune? And if they can't sing a major scale themselves (or hear it in their heads), how can they know when they're playing a wrong note when they're playing a scale?

Otherwise you end up resorting to stickers on the fingerboard out of sheer frustration, and then the student ends up looking to see where their finger's supposed to go instead of hearing it, and grrrrrrr grrrrrrr grrrrrrr!!!

My old violin teacher refused to take any children as pupils unless they could sing perfectly in tune and while this sounds harsh, how can a child play the violin in tune when they can't sing in tune first? In other words, they can't.

My heart positively sings when a student adjusts their finger because they know the note is out of tune. The corollary of this is that my heart sinks when they leave their finger right there on the out of tune note - ot the B natural when it's meant to be B flat, and blithely carry on when the music sounds so WRONG but they haven't noticed...

Interestingly, I have an Eastern European pupil (now 16) who refused to read music from the start. I battled with him over it for a bit at the outset but them gave up and started teaching him to play by ear. He's now one of my most virtuosic pupils and he plays perfectly in tune!!! In fact he's become so fantastic that he regularly gets asked by the Head to perform in front of the whole school, and is used as an example (by the same Head) as someone who expresses himself with passion!!!

I think we should all spend at least 10 minutes of every lesson teaching our pupils to play by ear- but that's a whole other debate...

I'm quite glad you mentioned this because I had wondered about using coloured highlighter, especially in, say, the first piece in a previously unfamiliar key.

I (mostly!) draw the line at writing in the sharp or flat by the notes that need them (despite wheedling by pupils who have come from other teachers and try to convince me it's what they are used to !) - I might do a bit of this in the very early stages as a stepping stone but not for an able student who passed grade one last year.

I am more willing to write in a clue which says "think!" than something which simply provides the answer in the form of an accidental.

Yes, I've often played a piece through to a pupil with and without the neccessary sharps/flats to see which they prefer and why....thankfully everyone has preferred the "in key" version so far!

It's good to study when someone omits a flat or sharp, to see whether they react. So far I've only had one pupil who seemed completely unaware that the music sounded odd.

Oboist, so that doesn't work... I could squeek something horrible when they make a mistake I guess, but by the time I've got the instrument in my mouth the note will be far behind!

I don't want to go down the highlighter pen, or even pencil, route as I don't think it'll really help them in the long term. I will pencil a sharp/flat in occasionally if they are basically playing the piece correctly but consistently forgetting it in one place, but I don't really like doing it. (But I do it for my own pieces, so it'd be hypocritical not to!)

I've tried getting them to spot the notes which need the sharp/flat before they start, and they can happily do that, but still forget when it comes to playing!

I have tried threatening to fine them a pound for every time they forget, which does have some effect, but you can only do it once because they quickly work out that you don't really mean it!

Violinia, I completely agree about the singing, and the fact that they don't *hear* the music in their heads before they play it. Trouble is, some of the time the piece sounds reasonably okay with the 'wrong' key signature, so they don't really notice. If it really obviously wrong, I stop them and ask them if they think it sounds right, and they agree that it doesn't - but it's too late by then! Also, especially after about grade 5, I make them play a lot of C20 music (oboe repertoire being mostly only Baroque or C20 anyway...), so the 'wrong' notes are less obvious.

Hmmm. Maybe I need to force them to do more singing! (That will go down well....)

When you learn to sing scales in solfa it is a way of analysing and understanding them (very difficult to describe on paper, but believe me, it works!).

Sorry to go on about this again - but I find it so sad and disturbing to read yet again how reluctant so many students are to sing - and how they have to be 'forced' to do so...

If we got all children singing from as young an age as possible, we just wouldn't have problems of this magnitude.

one thing i insist on is that my students do theory whether it be Chesters Music Puzzles or the ABRSM workbooks and this really helps to develop the sense of key. I also feel that scales are a fantastic tool to practise legato, / staccato and a whole range of dynamics etc on.

I usually make them finger the key signature notes before they start (e.g. in D major they very definitely finger the Fsharp and Csharp as well as saying what they are - talking recorder sightreading here). Other than that it's just a case of continual reminders, and not letting them play through something with the wrong notes in - if they play a Cnatural it's back to the beginning and start all over again. The "keeping going to the end" bit of sight-reading can come at another time.

My pupils have learned over the years that when I say the word THINK when they playing either sightreading or a general piece it always means they have missed a sharp or flat, and it does work.. once the child has connected the word think most of them automatically glance at the key sig and then review their fingers!!!

Good luck

I've always found it rather disturbing when pupils can mash through a piece they've been playing for a couple of weeks, play a ton of wrong notes, and not notice. I too have a warm glow when a pupil hits a wrong note and goes "oh god, no! That can't be right!" I don't expect pupils to play all the right notes all the time, but if they don't notice when they've gone wrong it's not a good sign for their musical future. Some of my previous worst offenders have gone wrong near the beginning of a piece and continued to play the rest one semitone up or down. How can they not hear that!

I make a copy (they've bought the book). We then put a splash of green felt tip on the sharps and blue on the flats. I do it for the beginners, asking thme to help spot the notes and the older ones do it for themselves. This is, I know, cheating, to some extent but it does get them playing the right notes from the start so avoids wrong muscular habits. When they are reasonably sure we revert to the original copy.

As time goes by and they become more generally confident readers we only mark the sharps and flats they forget and by Grade 3 I am usually refusing to let them mark because they have to learn remember at some stage.

One problem I find is that they don't get enough practice because there is a lack of simple pieces in complicated keys.

I've found a differnet approach works. My pupils always play the scales in the keys they are currently working in. Minors, harmonic, melodic and natural (modal). I tell them the key of the piece, I then ask them what sharps and flats are in the key, and in the case of minor keys what accidentals they are likely to find.

When the piece then goes and does somthing awkward and modulates to the dominant, that's where I use a little solfa. The interval te-doh is so recognisable to me that I get them to sing it to me. Oh I say its changed key cant you hear your part singing te-doh? What key has it gone to now?

It teaches them tonnes of theory and at the same time helps them with the structure of the piece.

Great for when you want to teach cadences later!