Hi there,
I need some advice on note reading. I have some very musical students who practice very hard but when it comes to reading new pieces or doing sight reading they are a disaster area. They forget the lines and spaces or once they have figured the notes out and go back they have forgotten them. It is like they have never read music in their lives. I try to get them to do other pieces apart from their exam pieces and they do theory books. Also, in the past few months they have been doing sight reading books. I am kind of stuck as to what to do next. I am trying to "think outside of the box" but I'm not really getting anywhere. So, if anyone has any ideas on how to improve note reading quickly and in a fun way, (well as fun as sight reading can get!), I would be very grateful for the advice!

Are you encouraging and teaching them to read by pattern, rather than by identifying each individual note? Susan Paradis has some very useful cards that you can print off and use to get students reading patterns rather than individual notes. www.susanparadis.com - I think, or google her.

Also The Bass Clef Book is very good on reading by pattern (costs less than ?5)

Let me know if you have difficulty finding either of these - its a bit late now, and I haven’t the energy to go rummaging!!

Thanks, will look those up! Yea, I have tried to explain that if the music goes up or down by step on the stave then it will do that on the piano etc. For sight reading I tell them to feel the shape of the music on their hands before they play it. It seems like the minute they start playing they panic and anything that they have learned goes out the window!

If you are looking for out of the box, how about using some of the ideas from Dogs and Birds (www.dogsandbirds.co.uk). I use a large stave and have the wooden animals representing each note (Ant, Bird, Cat etc. etc.) although it sounds like your children are probably past this stage and you could just have note 'counters' and play / sing simple melodies on the piano for the children to sing back and notate on the stave. This helps aural development, musical memory, as well as note reading skills and it's quite fun!

Hi

Not sure which instrument you're referring to. One series of books I've found very useful and which pupils have taken to is 'Join the Dots' by Alan Bullard (abrsm). They are for piano though.

I still also find the traditional mnemonics...Every Good Boy etc....and FACE work well.

Another more modern approach I use which today's pupils easily take to and seem to learn quickly with are phone applications. I know not all pupils have access to smartphones but I've found, especially this year, more and more pupils (or their parents) are using them, if they haven't got one - I use mine in the lesson. There are lots of free note reading apps out there. A simple one I found my pupils learned very quickly with was this one - and it's free:

Treble Clef

but there are lots to choose from.

I think it's important to keep up with technology as even if one feels left behind, it's a definite that the younger pupils are very much in the know and things like phone apps are only going to become more and more prominent in the near future - and they do seem to work.

This topic comes up repeatedly and we have had a lot of threads on it which only goes to show it is a very frequent problem. I have some good readers but I do also have a number of what I call ?reluctant? readers and for me the key is the word ?reluctant?. Somewhere deep in their brains there is a little voice saying ?This is difficult. Don?t bother to do it. You can find your own way round it.?

For my reluctant readers I have tried almost every method I can think of plus almost all of those suggested by other forum members. My conclusion is that some of it works some of the time for some of the pupils. How discouraging!!

So I have now given up on trying to find fool proof methods for each individual learner. I have gone back to the old fashioned idea that every lesson will start with repeating the names of the notes on the stave (and it is harder in French than in English) and finding the corresponding key on the piano. Then the individual note recognition is put into the context of either a very simple piece or a sight reading specimen test at least two levels below their current grade.

I have quite simply decided (for the moment anyway) that I must just show them that it is hard work and repetitive and that if you don?t learn to read you can?t tackle a new piece without difficulty. If it doesn?t come naturally it isn?t easy for pupils. If it isn?t easy they might as well know it?s hard and they have just got to get on with it until it is cracked. But they do also need to know that teacher is on their side. It is a battle with the reading, not with the teacher.

As a consolation to other teachers, particularly those younger than me, I might add that I find it far more difficult now to get children to read music fluently than thirty years ago. But that is another debate.


This topic comes up repeatedly and we have had a lot of threads on it which only goes to show it is a very frequent problem. I have some good readers but I do also have a number of what I call ?reluctant? readers and for me the key is the word ?reluctant?. Somewhere deep in their brains there is a little voice saying ?This is difficult. Don?t bother to do it. You can find your own way round it.?

For my reluctant readers I have tried almost every method I can think of plus almost all of those suggested by other forum members. My conclusion is that some of it works some of the time for some of the pupils. How discouraging!!

So I have now given up on trying to find fool proof methods for each individual learner. I have gone back to the old fashioned idea that every lesson will start with repeating the names of the notes on the stave (and it is harder in French than in English) and finding the corresponding key on the piano. Then the individual note recognition is put into the context of either a very simple piece or a sight reading specimen test at least two levels below their current grade.

I have quite simply decided (for the moment anyway) that I must just show them that it is hard work and repetitive and that if you don?t learn to read you can?t tackle a new piece without difficulty. If it doesn?t come naturally it isn?t easy for pupils. If it isn?t easy they might as well know it?s hard and they have just got to get on with it until it is cracked. But they do also need to know that teacher is on their side. It is a battle with the reading, not with the teacher.

As a consolation to other teachers, particularly those younger than me, I might add that I find it far more difficult now to get children to read music fluently than thirty years ago. But that is another debate.

For those reluctant to learn their note names how about a speed test? I give them 10 - 15 notes on a stave and time how long it takes to name them. The following week they try to beat their score.
Apart from real learning difficulties there are some who expend an awful lot of effort in choosing NOT to learn the note names.

For reading and playing on piano once the first notes are found it's probably best to read by interval starting with 'steps' and 'skips'. Alongside this I have them place a hand on the piano and give a starting finger then ask them to move up or down by a step or a skip from each note.