I started teaching piano nearly twenty years ago, and when my first student got up to Grade 1 level I gave him a Grade 1 piano book and a Grade 1 theory book. I have done that with all of my students ever since; as each grade comes along we work on repertoire and theory side by side. I don't make a big deal out it, I simply present it as a natural part of the lesson.

In recent years I have been asked to teach grade 5 theory from scratch to students who play violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone etc. Their teachers simply do not bother with theory until it becomes absolutely necessary in order to enter for a grade 6 practical exam.

The shocking thing is just how many of these students cannot read music, at least not in the same way that pianists do. They can interpret notes in terms of fingering, but can't tell me the letter names, and many of them have not got a clue what time signatures and key signatures actually mean. They are sorely disadvantaged when it comes to answering a great many of the questions set at grade 5. As for intervals, triads, tempo markings, writing a melody, setting words, choosing appropriate chords,......the list goes on and on.

I enjoy teaching theory, but so many of my colleagues don't. It seems a great shame that they cannot see the long-term value to their students, when starting at grade 1 is such a simple thing to do, even if the students choose not to take an exam.

Any thoughts?

I agree with you completely. I was always taught piano and theory side by side, and tended to alternate exams between the two grade by grade. I regard that teaching has having been essential. Far too many teachers ignore theory, and they should be ashamed of themselves!
I had to teach my daughter Grade 5 Theory before she could progress to the higher grades. Her piano teacher wouldnt do it ! (but I would not have wanted to teach her piano myself, that might have been fraught with difficulty)

I do what you do pitcher54, in fact, my littlies get the Lina Ng sticker books after a few months.

I have just taken on an A level pupil who plays the drums, but needs to get a certain level of theory for the entrance exam to a college course. I'm finding it hard work trying to imagine life without keyboard skills (fortunately, they do know their way around the keyboard basics). We are having to start with music reading (note-learning), how to build scales, the stave, the bar lines!! - I'm quite daunted by this start from scratch process. We may only have until February to get it all in as well! Lots of lesson prep for me.

So, I agree - I think all instrument teachers should cover the basics, all the way through, and then it avoids this sort of panic when they decide to go on to a higher level with music.

I did have a spell of trying to do this but often if you are sticking to the syllabus the two don't match up even on piano. I don't ignore theory but most of it tends to be done less formally and in relation to the playing.
I can't comment on strings but with woodwind grade for grade theory and practical don't always match up too well. Understanding things like tones and semitones and scale patterns is not too complicated on piano but on clarinet it is far from easy.

You may not have encountered it but I've certainly seen how hard some students work on not learning things like note names, key signatures etc. even with a teacher who does integrate these things into the lesson. It can be quite frustrating and I find it difficult to understand why this happens. Then again my experience was that I waited a long time to get my precious piano lessons and was prepared to take on anything that learning piano required. Maybe it's partly to do with the strength of the desire to learn the instrument?

Then add in other things which don't have immediate relevance - I can't remember the last clarinet line I had to play from tenor clef or from short score - and I see why it's not always fully integrated right from the start. That said, I make sure my mob can at least name a particular note...

Same story for strings...A major is one of the first keys encountered on the violin, for example. While few people are likely to dispute that it's good practice to build up theoretical knowledge alongside instrumental skills, I'm sure it sits more naturally as part of a piano lesson than other instruments, not least because the main tool of demonstration and explanation is the one you're already sat in front of! Things like triads are much more of a tangible concept for pianists than other instruments.

Yup. I teach theory in violin/ viola lessons as it comes up - so I do my very best (despite the aforementioned resistance from some pupils) to make sure my pupils can read music properly, and I teach them about time signatures and key signatures (although as Owain says, the keys are learned in a rather different order from piano, and they don't get the hang of C major until grade 2). But, the violinists are only going to need treble clef in their playing, and the violists are only going to need alto clef until about grade 5, so if they don't play a keyboard instrument and they have a relatively short lesson, it's difficult to get them to see the point of the bass clef.

I find that relative major and minor scales also end up being harder to teach on stringed (and wind) instruments. You just don't have the notes 'laid out' for you in the same way that you do on the piano. This of course also applies to intervals, triads & chord progressions. Intervals aren't as visual as they are on the piano, and chords just don't happen until a lot further down the line (and not at all for wind and brass).

Honestly - a lot of us try with the theory, but if it's not obviously relevant to the pupil, they can be hugely resistant, and frankly, there's plenty of work involved in getting them to understand the bits that are relevant!

Wouldn't it be lovely if there was a theory path that was slightly less keyboard-centric? Surely there must be a way...?

When it comes to different clefs I don't see that it need be a big issue.
It's about knowing what the 'other' clefs mean. There is no need for anything like fluent reading, there is time in a written exam to write them out on the paper provided and/or count up and down lines or on fingers.
I start from the knowing what the clef they use when playing their instrument means then place the rest on the 11 line Grand Staff so that they can see that actually it's just using different sets of 5 lines from with that framework. This is also useful for seeing where ledger lines fit.

I have a pad of large manuscript which is spaced so that the gap between staves is exactly the right distance that you can mark in the 11th line between two staves. I usually do this with a felt tip pen.

Is it really unreasonable to expect a student approaching grade 5 level to start to have a little more understanding than is stritcly necessary for just playing their own instrument? We are mostly taking about players of orchestral instruments here so isn't it a good idea to start to get an understanding of other instruments they might be playing with?

Yes - of course it's a good idea - in an ideal world. But you try telling the kids that! It's one of those 'pick your battles' things in a lot of cases, and it's hard enough to get some of them to join in any ensemble / orchestral playing in the first place. I don't understand why (apart from the fact that they're all so busy doing conversational Mandarin, netball, judo and extra hockey) because, personally, ensemble playing was my reason for continuing for a long time.

I guess if we can get pupils singing routinely (proper singing, from notation), a lot of stuff about clefs, chords, intervals and so on could stem from that.

I'm completely with you on that. Apathetic attitudes towards ensemble playing, especially for those fortunate enough to have suitable ensembles available, drive me mad.

I'm with you over the 'proper singing'. If you were to talk to Cyrilla, you would find with Solfege every diatonic interval within an Octave can be explained and it also can be used to link chords and how keys work.

The idea is very old (dating from the 12th Century I believe) and can be adapted for aural training and all sorts of work.

You String players have the edge over Perfect intervals and harmonic series. Clefs... well yes that is partially us singers, but it is also consort instruments too.

Personally I find theory fascinating, but then as a singer, interested in maths married to a physics graduate and who majored in historical musicology it is hardly surprising. I see lots of ways to drag it kicking and screaming away from the piano, and that is an instrument I play!

I find it sad and ultimately shocking that it is possible to get to quite a high level of playing ability without having a basic understanding of the nuts and bolts of music and notation .

Yes, Owain (and jod), you're right, you can learn pretty much all the theory (and aural) side of music through singing - well, 'proper singing' !

Solfa is SUCH a brilliant tool for understanding intervals, chords, harmony, scales, tonality..I sometimes feel I'm bashing my head against a brick wall trying to convince people of this!

Interesting to read the issues that woodwind and string players have with the fact that the theory exams don't mirror the practical side.

I find the same problem with the piano.

Grade 1 and 2 theory are useful and, arguably, reasonably well-planned.

But after that it all goes pear-shaped.

Does it make sense that for G 3 theory you have to know harmonic and melodic minors when you don't need to play them until G 6 ?

Actually, I'd quite like students to have to play both - or indeed all three - minors quite early on but in far less keys - I think that would be more useful. So, it's not that G3 theory is wrong, just that there's no correlation with G3 practical.

The alto and tenor clef stuff seems utterly mind-numbing - I think knowing what the clef looks like, where middle C is on it and which instruments use it is reaonsably interesting. But having to write Fsharp minor tonic triad in the tenor clef is just a circus trick - a good, methodical pupil can work it out but a lot just have brain seizure at the very idea.

Nor is knowing every obcscure italian (french/german) music term anything more than a memory workout just like all those law cases at law school - if you come across a term you don;t know, look it up!

Anyway, my little rant over. I have actually been pushing theory hard this term because I realised that I'd slipped way too much the other way, but only on a selective basis.

Still far perfer aural though . . .

This is where the approach over here of solfeo classes, like solfege in France, can be useful. We do little pure theory - not that I would mind, as I find it interesting - except for students at a "proper" music school. It's woven into actual practice in the solfeo (aural) classes. We do a lot of singing, which helps exactly as owainsutton suggests. I am very lucky as my solfeo teacher (of a small class, all of whom are of approximately similar levels on different instruments) is also my instrument teacher and our wind ensemble conductor, so there's usually a pretty good fit between all three.

When it comes to minor scales, if your starting point is the relative major, it's much easier for a lot of people to get to grips with the natural minor first. But it doesn't seem to be taught in practice, although I think I remember barry-clari or sbhoa saying they do.

I'm a woodwind player too but find lots of the theory useful. I do notice, though, that some of my younger colleagues do find some things like recognising chords, understanding inversions, rather hard to grasp. I think it helps that I learned piano as a child and that makes some things easier to understand. Even though we don't put some musical theory directly into practice on our instruments, it does help to understand a lot about other instruments in our bands/orchestras and how we fit together.

As a practising amateur musician I find this an interesting topic. If you've read some of my other threads, you'll know that I played a bit of cello at school, but not very well (G2/3????). However, I did do music O Level as an optional 6th form subject in 1977, and passed (B I think). I have been able to read bass/treble clef fluently since I was about 11/12 (early 70s).

Fast forward to the 90s and I started singing lessons and after a year or two I start singing in choirs. In 2004 I took the OU A214 music theory course. In 2004 I started to play the bass viol and in 2006 (I think) I started on the tenor viol (which uses C3 alto clef). I've just re-started on the cello in recent weeks after 35 years.

I suppose I'm a bit old-fashioned, but I expect people to understand the music they're reading and performing - I don't see how you can really perform a piece if you don't at least understand some basics such as the different types of cadences and key relationships / modulations.

I get frustrated with people who say 'oh I don't read the dots....'. One very good 2nd bass I know says he 'doesn't read music' (slightly disingenuous - he does to some extent). His life would be so much easier if he just spent a little time to iron a few things out. In choirs, I find sops are the worst in this regard - they probably get away with it since they generally 'have the tune' - altos, tenors, and basses have no such luxury!

I had a cello lesson tonight - he's a professional cellist. Looking at pieces to play, we were working out things like where the cadences where, a proliferation of D# indicating a modulation to E minor. We discussed the tuning of the E on the D string and how a G - E 6th needs to be tuned differently from a E - A 4th (joys of equal temperament). He says it makes a change to have an adult "learner" who is fluent in reading music and who understands theory.

It must be very hard to be an adult beginner in both practice and theory!