I have a girl (I've mentioned her before) who aged 6 struggles with reading music. I gave up on letter names and now the pressure is off she often volunteers the names of C-G note names. Although never when asked directly. But while reading the music she still cannot work out if something is going up or down and whether it's a step or a skip. She also can't tell me if a note is on a line or in a space. (I've been teaching her 18 months). We're approaching the end of My First Piano Adventures Book C.

Teaching singing by interval using solfa we talk about golden rules. If so is on a line then mi is on the line below. If so is in a space then la is on the line above....

So, inspired by this concept I tried something new. Abandoning letter names, I drew a large clef-less stave and sat it on it's side and we put our fingers on the lines and spaces. We talked about fingers 1,3 and 5 being finger friends and if one is on the line then so are the others. After she grasps that I want to do the same but with spaces. Hopefully leading her to notice line-line could be fingers 1-3 or 3-5 or 2-4. Then hopefully she'll be able to spot 3rds and 5ths by sight.

Does this make any sense! I'm getting to the end of my tether.

I just want her to be able to read by interval. I know by anchoring fingers to this concept I may be making a rod for my back later but for now I think it's worth it. Whatever I do she seems to look at me blankly.

What I want to know is, how do you teach reading by interval. How do you get students to recognise a triad chord and therefore intervals of 3rds or 5ths without having to count each time.

I teach quite a few children aged 4-6 and the rest of them have no troubles in this regard. One 5yo after 6 months of lessons is pretty much sight reading the end of Book B.

I only teach by interval. I discourage the use of letter names, referring to refer to interval or finger number.

I do encourage note learning but for playing I teach reading by interval.
Confusion with up and down is not uncommon even when they recognise the sound. This is more problematic with the left hand where finger numbers go up (numerically) when the notes go down.
I've started to allow younger children to look at the left hand if necessary as sometimes they are not fully able to take on this concept.
I play a game where they place a hand over any five notes on the piano and close their eyes. I give a starting finger number then direct them to go up or down in steps (2nds) or skips (3rds).
We look at the music before starting to play to spot the intervals and look out for any 'traps' (places where stepwise movement changes to skips for example).

To expand on my earlier post - we do cover what the notes are called for studying music theory. But like you, for playing I teach by intervals. My pupils all end up as seriously good sight readers.

(I didn't want people to think note naming was banned altogether in my house )

I have a 9-yr old who really struggles with reading concepts. My approach lately has been to go back to basics and try all sorts of games that focus on these basics, in the hope that the penny will eventually drop; There are all sorts of ideas and flashcards available free online - one of the best sites is Susan Paradis - but there are others.

So if there's a problem differentiating between line and space notes, for example, I would try handing her a pile of flashcards to sort into 2 separate piles of line and space notes. I often use an eggtimer for this sort of game, so that they don't take forever. maybe record how many she got right and see if she can improve next time.

Or you could use a giant staff (drawn on the back of a child's playmat in my case) and use it to reinforce lines, spaces, up, down, steps, skips... by getting her to move around it like a note. Or turn it into a twister game: Lh to line 1, RH to a step above etc

With note-naming, I've used a flyswatter game focusing on 4 notes at a time that you can find on one of the sites. Again a race against the eggtimer.

However I have to say the note-naming activities I've done in the lesson only had partial success. When using Susan Paradis' Notes in the fast lane worksheets (which you can find here), in the lessons she was still guessing quite a lot of the time. So I eventually sent the first worksheet home with her and asked her mum (who I was fairly sure would know the 5 notes it used) to help her with practising naming the notes by using an eggtimer and giving her 5 lives and seeing how far she could get before she ran out of time or lives. And amazingly she came back a week later and made not a single mistake. I was astounded. So sending children home with flashcards or worksheets of one kind or another is definitely worth considering if there are cooperative parents or siblings at home.

LOVE this idea! Will definitely be trying that one. (Thanks!) I use various games with a timer too, both in the lesson and as homework - some which need parental help and some which they can do on their own. I also sometimes ask children to think of a way to describe how a note on a line/in a space looks to them - no wrong answer possible, just say what they see - so that we can use descriptive language that means something to them, rather than just me! It also can give me an idea of where any struggles are coming from (i.e. is it more visual or verbal or conceptual etc...) Or have a big stave, and a note they can hold, and ask them to place the note so it fits in a space, then so a line goes through it etc (starting with semibreves, so those stems don't get in the way and confuse things!).

With playing, I find that using as few finger numbers as possible at the beginning encourages children to think about intervals right from the start, and they seem to be happier with the concept that way.

In the end though, like with any concept, often it just takes longer for it to 'click' with some students than with others. I've been in the position where it's felt like I've tried everything I can think of and still get blank looks (which can be pretty disheartening), then one week suddenly their eyes light up and everything starts falling into place. Sounds like you're doing all the right kind of things ExpressYourself, and it may just be a matter of being patient until the lightbulb moment comes! Perhaps it may also be that - as seems to be the case with her note-naming - she knows more than she's willing to volunteer, maybe out of shyness/lack of confidence?

Sometimes the way we express lines and spaces can be confusing: children are taught to write ON the line, meaning resting on it. In musical terms this would be a note in a space...

I now talk about notes with the line going through the middle, and notes sandwiched between the lines (kebab notes and sandwich notes )

I wish there was a tutor book which taught by interval - does anyone know of one?

Not sure if it's any help, but I had a teacher once who , when I admitted I wasn't as confident reading bass clef, told me to put my thumbs on the D below middle C and place the fingers on the notes either side. Then he said to play all the notes on fingers 1,3 and 5; then lift these fingers and play the notes on fingers 2 and 4. We alternated this a few times, and he explained that these were the lines and spaces of the bass clef. After dong this a few times I found I could play the bass clef notes much easier.

There are adult book that do - Alfred's Adult Piano is one. For young children I like this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Piano-Lessons-Book...8816&sr=1-2 which teaches by hand position and finger numbers. Note names get a mention halfway through the book but are not really part of the instruction.

I like the kebab and sandwich notes.
Piano Adventures is one which teachers intervals.

Alfred Premier Piano course does a mix of letter names and intervals, but gets rid of finger numbers asap....

Thanks for all your ideas. I'm using Piano Adventures and it does work with intervals. It's just that she doesn't seem to be able to recognise any!

We've tried pushing pennies round a large stave. I haven't actually tried the masking tape on the carpet (not much room!)

I like the idea of covering up fingers and asking her to play by steps and skips. Since she's having trouble with steps and skips I've been tempted to try saying 2nds and 3rds instead but I fear it's a complication too far.

Sigh.

If you are trying that I'd break it down if she's having trouble and start with steps (or seconds depending on the language you've been using) up and down first. Add the 3rds once she's ok with that.

It took me a while to figure out why so many children confidently told me a 'sapce' note was on a line...

I also now talk about notes with lines going through the middle and notes sandwiched between the lines...no kebabs though! (Hmm...marshmallow notes, perhaps?!)

I've always pointed out from the beginning that a line note has the line going through it and restate it often.

I like this! I sometimes describe line notes as beads on a thread.





I hate to be the boring nelly who comes up with a syndrome for everything - but could she be dyslexic and unable to distinguish between notes on a line and notes in a space?

Can you show her a card with a note on a line and ask her to pick out ones that look like it on the music. Try with very large sized music and then with her ordinary music. With small notes they can all blur together. Six could be too young for it to have been picked up at school - they usually test for it at about 7, I believe.

Have to say that I really like to teach sight-reading by interval reading as well. I have written myself some little sight-reading exercises which have notes on lines, then notes in spaces, then scale patterns and finally a mixture. There are some great tips in the answers above.

I've found that some children who have difficulty with "up" and "down" have no problem when I say "up to make a higher sound" or "down to make a lower sound". Odd, but true.

Pushing pennies around a big stave is helpful. Pushing pennies around a sheet of paper or card with simple horizontal lines and spaces is good too, as it becomes like a board game

I also make Interval Dice: the first dice works with 2nds, 3rds and 5ths. Each face of the dice carries an instruction (eg. "up a 2nd", or "down a 5th"). The second dice has a letter of the musical alphabet on each face. Throw the two dice together and find the notes on the piano eg. play a D then go down a third and play the note you land on.

This is something they are happy to practise at home as well as in the lessons. It can be applied to making intervals on the piano and on the stave, so pupils can become really familiar with simple intervals: how they look on the stave, how they look on the piano, how they sound, how they feel, how many notes you miss out to make each interval etc.

I like this idea and feel the possibility of some new games for September! I will experiment over the summer.

The very first thing I do on the piano is to establish which end is which. Sometimes they aren't yet understanding that high doesn't mean loud, so I play trills on the high notes, and ask them what it sounds like. Maybe I even have to flutter my wings before they decide it's a little bird. So that is the "birdy end" of the piano. Then I go to the other end and by using all sorts of clues we then decide it's the "wormy end" ("that's what worms probably sound like when they're singing underground")

Just occasionally I've had one - not necessarily a child - who has a problem with the fact that a run of notes upwards moves from left to right on the piano and the notes move from left to right on the page, but a run downwards moves from right to left on the piano, but the notes still run across the page left to right. It doesn't last: the one who had a serious problem with this is doing grade 5

I like the 'beads on string' analogy - nice to have something new!

Regarding the potential 'on a line' confusion, I draw a line and ask them to write their name on it - that's what 'on a line' means in just about every other context. Then I draw a new line and demonstrate the 'music' terminology by writing my name so the line goes through the middle. Yes , it does look strange - as though the name's been crossed out. Then they have a go (sometimes I might need to remind them not to try this at school - it's just for music notes ) . There are a few puzzle pages in the Hal Leonard Theory books on this, as well as in PA Writing Books, of course.

Hal Leonard and P Ad both focus on reading by interval - much more reliable than over-emphasis on letter names, as seen in Tunes for 10 Fingers and several others.

Yes, the 'beads on a string ' is a useful one. And the 'on the line' handwriting / notes anomaly is one that does need addressing pretty early on.

For those with very young (or perhaps very slow) pupils, there is some useful written work in one of the theory books by Ng Ying Ying (book recently referred to on another thread).

Page 26 of Music Theory for Young Children (book 1) has an oriental picture of a bridge over a stream. Over the bridge is a string of round 'lanterns' strung between two bamboo poles. Inside the stonework of the bridge is an empty stripe with round stone shapes, between two lines of tiles.. The pupil has to trace over the 'notes' in each case.

There are other useful pages too, including ones with stickers, so the ideas are pretty well reinforced, though I particularly liked the lanterns and stones. Nb this is of course one of the preliminary 'baby' theory books.

Doesn't that depend on how the teacher uses the material.
I teach reading by interval regardless of which book I'm using.
I also change fingering and include playing the same thing with different fingers (with 2 and 3 note tunes). And would anybody really play G with LH finger 4 if that's the only note the LH is going to play? I change those...

I have just taken on a family that have been using Piano Time...and they found it so hard to place their hands out of the 5 finger position. I got them to whizz through the first book of Alfred and already they are far more confident readers, using skips and steps - and the one that was putting finger numbers on EVERYTHING has realised she doesn't need to!

My daughter, who was later diagnosed with dyslexia, couldn't understand the difference between notes on a line and notes in a space. But several years before she was diagnosed with dyslexia, she had her eyes tested and once she had glasses to correct her short-sightedness, the had no problem telling which was which.

After years of thinking I was a good sight-reader, I wondered why I was suddenly finding it so difficult, playing a viola at music-stand distance. After all, I could see those notes clearly enough... After a while, I realised that I really could not see the stave. I was looking at a grey stripe.