I have come across this problem several times before but wonder how other teachers deal with this.

I am a woodwind teacher but have a 10 yr old daughter who plays the Violin at approx. Grade 6 so technically she is quite good. She learns new material very quickly - partly because I help her to try and correct her mistakes so the practising is efficient and she is constantly given new material so is sight-reading regularly.
However she has very good ears - I thought she had perfect pitch but she hasn't - and relies on this to help her reading which is not good for her standard of playing. She understands the relationship between different rhythms but plays what she thinks should be there not what really is there on the page. Consequently, she makes silly errors.
She also occasionally confuses a with c (in the spaces) and b with g or b with d (on the lines) so don't know what's going on there.
She doesn't need glasses although she did wear some for about 6 months and she is not dyslexic.
How can I get her to rely on her eyes not her ears to improve the accuracy of her reading?
Any comments would be appreciated
Thanks

Does she play through something quite quickly, so that she's "glossing over" the notes rather than going relatively slowly so as to read each note quite accurately?

SHe does read quickly and doesn't like reading slowly because (I think) she is trying to make musical sense of the piece.

Then I think you may have answered your own question. It may be that you need to be very firm and take her back to reading music really slowly, literally by moving a pencil under the note that is currently being played, so that she realises how important it is to read accurately.

well if she is confusing notes then i would suggest she isn't grade 6 standard at all.




I think that's wonderful advice. I get the impression your daughter has raced through exams without fully understanding everything she has been playing/reading. I think slowing her down is a great idea and then she will have more time to fully absorb what her eyes are looking at and not, presumbably, playing from memory/ear.

well if she is confusing notes then i would suggest she isn't grade 6 standard at all.


As I said above, she is technically at Grade 6 and currently playing the pieces very well. She got a Distinction in Grade 5 in February with 16 our of 21 for her sight-reading so she's not that bad either.

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I think that's wonderful advice. I get the impression your daughter has raced through exams without fully understanding everything she has been playing/reading. I think slowing her down is a great idea and then she will have more time to fully absorb what her eyes are looking at and not, presumbably, playing from memory/ear.
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She hasn't raced through exams - she has only done Grade 3 and 5 since she started three years ago and has been given lots of sight-reading to do.
I'm not quite sure why she hasn't grasped it any better by now.
We are doing theory too so I guess something might click from doing that.

I guess i just don't understand how someone can truly be a distinction at grade 5 with they are confusing notes on lines.

This is said with all due respect, and as I don't know your daughter it may be very wide of the mark. However, she is clearly very able on the violin, helped by your guidance as well.

But it may simply be a lack of maturity and an innate sense of impatience that she wants to play the piece, and hear what it sounds like etc. Has anyone actually said to her that she really needs to play accurately?

I've a couple of pupils like this who ultimately play by ear, and they are a real pain when they're learning something new, because they are basically lazy when it comes to reading notes, and I find myself running the pencil along under the notes as we go. And lo and behold, when the pencil's there, they get the notes right because they really look at them, and because they know that my pencil will not move until they get the note right.

I think it's going to be a case of gently emphasising all the time that accuracy is so important - it may take a long time to get through to her.

We had exactly this problem with our son - he got to grade 8 distinction saxophone within 18 months of starting - 5 hours a day playing - and one of the examiner's comments was 'sight reading disappointing'. He has a brilliant ear and the glut of cd's with backing tracks didn't help! It was only with conservatoire auditions looming that he took himself right back to basics and spent the summer holidays really getting to grip with notation. He can now read anything easily. I think your daughter has to want to do it, and as Susie said, she needs to take things really slowly and understand the need for accuracy. It didn't matter how much I went on about the importance of reading - it was only when my son needed to be at a high standard that he made himself work at it.

I don't think I can help with your problem, but it did bring back frustrating memories. My son used to be like this with both piano and flute. He had a really good ear, and used it not only to "approximate" what the music on the page said, but to memorize what others played. If his flute teacher gave him a new piece, he would make a point of not playing it through first, because on the basis of a single hearing, my son would then pick it up it by ear.

I'm afraid he never got over his stumbling-block, but gave up flute (Grade 4) and piano (Grade 5) and moved onto playing a selection of guitars and reading tabs.

My son is like this too - he always wants to hear a piece before trying it and struggles to sightread - especially the ABRSM practise sight reading stuff because he compains that the pieces aren't music!

However, I'm someone who could sight read fairly well, but not play by ear and i am rather jealous of people who can hear something and play it - I'm useless without my music. Both skills are useful and need encouraging. Unfortunatly only one of them scores points in music exams!

Are you sure she doesn't suffer from mild astigmatism? It can make reading parallel lines harder -- I have it though only slightly, and find I can occasionally misread a note 'out' by a line or a space. It can be particularly confusing if there is a beam parallel to the stave lines. It is not enough, though, to affect normal printed text, and an optician would not necessarily prescribe glasses.

I have just got a new pair of specs and find they make a big difference (though I no longer have any excuses... )

My daughter raced through Flute exams 1 to 5 in a very short timescale. She played lots of things for fun and as part of her ensemble so never had any sight reading difficulties. I think it might well have been the case had she not been getting loads of musical experience on Flute and other instruments.

It has taken her a while to get to G6, because she needed time to consolidate what she has learnt and mature. I'm really glad that she's taken the time out (stopping off to do some Jazz along the way), it's given her time to develop and recently her sound has really started to improve.

I think at some point younger musicians will need to take time to catch up with themselves if they have made quick progress unless they get very specific teaching. I'm sure you and your daughter wil be able to work through this.

Well, I have my LRSM on Saturday - and if I don't wear glasses, I occasionally confuse notes on lines. I know perfectly well what they actually are; it's a vision thing, not a technical one.

Perhaps your daughter should go back to always wearing glasses when learning a new piece - I now do this when sight-reading. If I don't wear glasses, I read music by the musical shape and line - 90% effective, but I do miss small details sometimes.

yes, i too suffer from an eye condition that affects my playing. In fact i had to do an exam on Saturday without my lens in my eye as it had a chip in it. It was very very difficult.

But my comment wasn't based on an eye defect - it was based on knowing the lines and spaces when you see them - as i can when i wear my lens, as i'm sure you do when you wear your glasses.

I wonder if your daughter's speed of reading and responding to individual notes is simply slower at the moment than her aural ability and response.

If she is simply an aural learner and her teacher appreciates this then, with a good and experienced teacher you should simply be proud of your daughter's playing ability at this age.

Talk to your daughter's teacher and I strongly suspect that he\she will already be plotting how to build your daughter's reading skills in the new school year while allowing her all round musical skills and confidence to develop.

I have a couple of "galloping" learners in this age group and I find that sometimes their energy and enthusiasm for the music simply gets in the way of reading all the notes as carefully as someone would with a little more maturity and experience. For these I am building in a lot of fun duet and trio structured sightreading, making a conscious effort to study the score away from the instrument, looking especially for scale, arpeggio and sequence patterns before playing through.

Good luck, keep enjoying your daughter's progress!

I agree. All students have different learning styles. Unfortunately a lot of teaching in in the western world seems to be more reading than listening -based. It's something we as teachers need to be careful about, because pushing the reading aspect too hard can be very offputting to an 'aural' type of learner.

George Odam's book "The sounding symbol" is very helpful when it comes to this subject. I think, too, that with modern music software there may be opportunities for working by ear rather than notation even for those in orchestral environments - it will be interesting to see how this develops. Reading music is a useful skill but it isn't the be-all and end-all of being a musician.