I have just taken on a new student who apparently had been having piano lessons for 2 years, then had about 2 years break and now wants to start again.

The girl is 13 and fairly bright and she plays quite well. As she wants to take exams, I had a consultation lesson with her and I would have said she could do grade 2.

The problem is, she can't read music at all - she knows vaguely which note is which in the treble (note: vaguely) but she has no idea about the bass. She also doesn't know anything about note values, rests, dynamics; anything to do with music basically, she doesn't understand, and yet she can play fur elise and the moonlight sonata movement quite well. I've never taught anyone by ear, but is it plausible that her previous teacher could have taught her these pieces entirely by ear and neglected any other part of musicianship?

Anyway ... back onto my query - I don't want to hold her back by making her play pieces that are far too simple for her, and yet she has to learn basic reading and theory skills in order to progress. However I think about it, she won't be able to learn the grade 2 pieces unless she can read them, because I am not prepared to play through every little bit so she can copy it until she knows the whole piece! That would be crazy!

Normally if someone's theory/reading is behind their playing skills, I build up to the grade (learn the pieces with supporting exercises, scales, etc) whilst doing "Notespeller" and a theory book alongside.

I can't work out where to start with this student though - to go right to the beginning and treat her like an absolute beginner seems unfair, but in terms of reading, it's not far off!

The AB do recordings of exam pieces. If she has a particularly good ear, which your message certainly suggests she has, then is it worth doing as you are doing - assisting her to build up her theory knowledge, but get her to purchase the book and recordings and see what she can do? As she is encouraged to build up her reading skills she will begin to connect what she is hearing and playing with what she is seeing - an inverse way to learn?

I took on a boy of a similar age recently who was fairly new to piano (less than a year's lessons). He could play quite nicely - pieces of roughly grade 1 standard, however I discovered that he wasn't reading the music at all - he was reading finger numbers (as supplied on every note in his tutor book ).

I started him with Hal Leonard Adult Course book 1 - ie a complete beginner's course. I explained that he could play everything in the book easily, but the object of the exercise was to get him to read the music. After a term, he is now reading pretty well (better than my average grade 1 students) and is making good progress - he has learnt 2 of the grade 1 pieces already and I'm thinking of putting him in for grade 2 next term. He has also covered all of grade 1 theory. I gave him some more difficult pieces alongside the HL book and we worked them out by a combination of reading / rote learning, so that he felt he had something a bit more worthy of his playing capabilities as well.

I think a slightly older child like this is actually capable of catching up a lot of basic music theory / reading etc quite quickly, so long as they are reasonably well motivated to do so. I don't think you have much choice but to go back to basics with this girl - it needn't take that long to cover everything. Perhaps you could draw up some sort of curriculum or list of objectives with her - if she can see that there is a plan and it isn't going to take for ever, she may surprise you. Good luck!

It might be worth asking her if she always played like she does now, or whether she did actually read the music when she had lessons in the past. Two years of lessons isn't all that long; she's been away from it for longer than she'd been playing, and she may just be able to remember her previous pieces from memory better than she can remember how to read music. Maybe the muscle memory lasts longer than the more academic stuff!

I wouldn't rush straight into an exam, as you might compound the problem - if problem is the right word. It might benefit her more to try out lots of repertoire for a while, without necessarily perfecting, in order to refresh her mind with regard to reading. Going straight into an exam means there's a danger of learning the exam pieces very quickly by rote too, which may be fine for now, but she might hit a brick wall when it comes to learning, say, Grade 5 pieces in this way.

If, on the other hand, she has never read the music and has always played by rote and by ear, then there may just be a difficulty there that will mean margaret's idea might be best. But I wouldn't assume an inherent difficulty yet. But if you go straight into an exam you may never know!

I inherited 3 pupils who had all played for between 3 and 5 years and never done any theory/note-reading at all. One played pieces about Grade 4 standard, the others about Grade 1-2, although all very badly. (Each week, apparantly, their teacher would spend the lesson playing four new bars (and revising the old bars) and that way after 6 months they'd learnt the piece !).

Two had figured out the notes a bit for themselves (by default really and only a little bit). The girl had NO idea. Treble clef, stave, crotchet, middle C - not a clue. She put the music up in front of her and that was all.

I asked her: is there anything on this sheet that means anything to you whatsoever ?And she said: No, it's all Chinese to me.

Anyway, we had a frank talk and I told her we were going to spend one term doing 'baby' things (her technique, like the others, was awful too - not only their hands but they'd never done articualtion, dynamics, phrasing. . . . and needed a 'back-to-basics'). She completely understood and was really keen - she hated not knowing what all the notes were.

I used the Hal Leonard childrens' series because she was 10, I like it and she had two younger sisters so it made sense for the family to buy them. We spent the term doing book 2 and a bit of book 3. She loved it, started practising like she'd never done (been able to do) before and took off flying.

By the end of the term her theory was fine for her level (I have no problem with learning pimarily by ear but I think basic theory is essential).

I think your girl will probably pick it up very quickly and after a few months it won't be an issue any more. Just explain it to her, the timeframe and why it matters and get her on side.

I agree with most of the things said so far - I've had similar problems - but I think dolce@piano's last point is very important. It has to be very clear to the pupil why she is learning a particular piece - for pure pleasure, for learning to read, or for technique. She sounds as if she is bright enought to cope with this and if so I think in a while she will get there. You will probably need lots of patience.

I did once have a boy who played very well and who learnt everything from listening to CD's. But after a certain level (Grade 6/7 ish)the fact that he refused to read certainly curtailed his ability to progress and, of course, he can't play with other musicians. He can't, for example, just pick up the music and accompany his brother who plays flute.

Good luck!

Just as an addition to my previous comment - I too would not encourage that she actually takes an exam at this point! My reference to the exam book was purely to give you an idea of what she can actually achieve and how she achieves it. She certainly shouldn't take an exam until she has gained more confidence in her note reading, for starters, how would she get through sight reading! Better to enter her when she has gained real confidence in ALL aspects of her musical understanding!

Thank you for your advice - it confirms what I had been thinking already to some extent.

It makes sense to work with Hal Leonard (or I might take a look at Alan Haughton's 'Teenage' series) and to really concentrate on the basics for a while, but I will probably introduce 1 or 2 pieces that will keep her interest in playing up. Not sure about doing it with a CD at the moment, as that might undermine the work we are trying to do, but maybe some easy, tuneful studies that help with technique. (I'm thinking of recording them and doing as you suggest with those, rather than the full on grade 2 pieces?)

I wasn't ever intending to go straight into grade 2, as whatever her reading and theory skills were like, she hasn't played for 2 years, so I don't think diving straight in head first would be beneficial in any case!

Dulciana - she has always played like this, because she said she had used the music, but never understood anything more than which note went where. And even that it vague (although I think that is due to absence from music fro 2 years, rather than not knowing)

Dolce - its a shame your new students were in that position, but on the bright side, now they love piano and you have unlocked the wonders of playing for them! They will probably be some of your most eager and diligent students from now on!

I think as you say, SueHM, that older children are probably able to grasp basic theory quite quickly compared to the little'uns. Plus she is very bright and eager to learn - she isn't afraid to ask questions and when she realised that different note values add up to create rhythmns in the melody, she was very excited and that spun into a whole new stings of queries ... I think ultimately the important thing is to make sure she is always enjoying learning and yes Aquarelle - she needs to know why she is learning each piece. This is something I make sure I do with all my students, whatever age or standard.

Music Margaret has given you some really sound advice, which IMHO would follow.

Use the skills she has to build the music reading on. To have a pupil with an excellent aural memory, and the ability to pick things up by ear is an asset.

I sing note names to people where there is a simple melody and bass part to reinforce where these notes lie on the stave.

I'm sure Cyrilla could come up with some really useful strategies too, as this is an example where Kodaly has some excellent ideas of binding practical with theory.

(And this comes from someone who thinks Kodaly isn't for everyone, but had some really good ideas that can be adopted into conventional teaching methods.)

Yes, I do think that to have a good ear and aural memory is definately an asset - that is how I learnt as a child, completely by ear. But that is why when I started to take things seriously, around grade 7/8 level, I was hindered because of my lack of theory knowledge and my sight-reading wasn't up to scratch to take exams. I ended up not doing much of enything for a while, playing bits and pieces, but I couldn't take the exams because of my lack of skills other than playing well. It got to the stage where I was playing at diploma level, but was not a good musician. So whilst I know the benefits of playing by ear, I wouldn't want to make it the basis of my teaching with this girl.




Oh yes, because I'm not very familiar with Kodaly, I always forget about it when it comes to this kind of learning. I will have to do some research and see how I can use it with her ... any good sources you know of to familiarise oneself with the methods?

(I know Cyrilla is an expert! But she might not see this thread or might be busy, so I will see what I can find.)

Cyrilla is the expert here. You could always PM her.

I had a self taught teenager who didn't read at all and worked in a similar way to this.
We had things on 2 levels, his reading level and something a little more challenging which he learned mostly by rote but with a growing ability to refer to the page when he needed a reminder between lessons.

This does really depend on the student WANTING to develop reading skills.
I've also had a couple of self taught non readers who found out that they were really happy enough learning by ear/rote. They didn't stick with lessons for very long as they didn't feel the need to persist with reading and correcting technique.

'Kodály' is really an umbrella term for all that is best in teaching music - both the underlying philosophy of music for everyone, plus the principles of how children learn, plus the most effective tools and techniques for teaching musical elements, skills and understanding.

Sadly, it's not possible to learn it from a book (any more than you could learn to play an instrument purely by following written instructions), but you could try looking at 'The Kodály Method' by Lois Choksy (Prentice Hall) and 'Kodály Today' by Michéal Houlahan and Philip Tacka (can't remember the publisher but you can find it on Amazon). The former is very expensive but you can sometimes find second-hand copies, or approach a library. The latter is newly out but a real tome (I've only just got past the introduction!).

I can only recommend that you try to get yourself some private lessons or that you go on a course - check out the British Kodály Academy's website.

If I can help further, please just PM me.

Just to say that patience wins the day! Son had a hard time getting REALLY fluent at reading music.

I notice that his current piano teacher has finally got him over the barrier over the past 6 months.

The teacher never demonstrates new exercises, but expects Viohazard to have several new exercises fluent, correct, and at tempo each lesson (e.g. Hanon - he started piano a year ago). Son doesn't get bored, and being required to present new material accurately at tempo gives him a technical goal as well as the notation-reading goal.

Interpretation and dynamics are not stressed. That seems to have been a key issue - as soon as he's thinking about "music", he quickly switches to relying on his ears rather than his eyes.

Using this approach solely for new pieces doesn't involve enough new music every week, and "pieces" require more thought and musicality, which are not "decoding" skills. For example, his violin teacher had him doing the same thing with Bach sonatas and partitas, and really, all he was doing was commiting the pieces to memory as fast as possible so that he could work on the phrasing by ear, and of course at lessons they would further pull phrases to pieces, so he wasn't drilled every week on accurate reading of notation at tempo. After several s&ps, his sightreading of them hadn't advanced much, although his understanding had!