HI all

I have a student who is a very slow learner and has recently been diagnosed as been a slow learner. He has a problem recognising and learning the lines and spaces etc.

However, he is really musical, a lovely singer and can learn things off by heart but it is the initial learning of the piece that is the problem.

ANy of you had this problem and what did you do - any material that you would suggest that I use.

The child is 7 and has completed John Thonpsons First book and we are working through some pieces of the standard of the second book.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

As far as I know I don't have anyone who has actually been diagnosed as a slow learner - although I have one or two that I find really slow ... they take ages but like your little boy they usually get there in the end.

You might find Fun for Ten fingers would go down ok - it stays in the middle C position but adds #s and bs and has lots of reinforcement and some quiz and games pages.

I'm not so familiar with the plan of John Thomson - is he still in "middle C position" or have you branched out yet, and is this what he's finding difficult?? If he is struggling with FACE and EGBDF etc I sometimes find these get in the way with the slower ones, rather than help. Got to dash - back later!

Hi Maggie - if you find pupils struggle with FACE and EGBDF what alternative methods do you use? I have a couple of pupils who never really seem to get the hang of that!
Carol
(Sorry to slightly hijack your topic adelecom )

Well - I find different things work with different students. But quite often, pupils transferring from other teachers know the "codes" but spend ages remembering what to do with them, or how to use them - or worse - they half remember them, or haven't a clear picture of which octave they need - so they don't remember for example that for ACEG you need to start an octave-plus below middle C.

This made me think there had to be better ways than this. In any case, I've tended to use just the two space ones (FACE and ACEG) rather than all four, which gives you less to memorise: you have four landmarks for each stave and work out the others as you need them.

But I 've also started to use letter names less with some pupils (not avoiding them of course - they need to know the letter names anyway) but to help them see that when you hop along alternate notes to the right you are hopping up the lines from middle C up to the top of the treble stave, (middle C, bottom line, second line etc etc ) and the same from middle C down the bass stave.

Once they've gone through this drill a couple of times and get the idea, they can work out any line note on the two staves as they need them, and don't even need letter names at this stage. It's been a good confidence builder for one or two who suddenly seem to have seen the wider picture. It's early days to say if it works better than any other system - but a couple who have struggled to learn notes (and who still sometimes mix up some of the note-names) seem to be developing a much better picture of "keyboard geography" than before. They find it fun to work out how many "extra lines" you'd need to write the top or bottom note on the keyboard - this concept made sense to a few well before they had actually played any leger notes outside the main two staves.

(Another of my young pupils found notes difficult to remember - but has latched on to the fact that treble clef is G and bass clef is F, and when she is stuck she just works out from there.)

I don't know if this helps - or even if I've described it clearly. It sounds much more complicated to explain than it is to do. It's important that they see that lines and space notes alternate on the keyboard and on the stave in order to do it this way. That might sound obvious, but it's surprising how many don't automatically realise that - or don't immediately see middle C as a line-note!

Let me know if this makes sense - it's something I'm still kind of working on and I'd be interested in your comments.

Maggie, I wish I had tried your method last term with a girl who came to me from another teacher. She could hardly read any notes at all, although she told me she had a distinction at Grade 1 (she's 14 yrs. of age, not a 'littley') but I was never shown the mark sheet. It just shows that we all learn something from this forum, however experienced we are. BTW the girl has not come back this term (no phone call or anything) and I feel I should have helped her more over the two terms I had her. She may well have understood a little more if I had tried the method you describe, which is so logical.

Well - I'm delighted you find it logical Nannyjay - I must admit reading it through I thought it sounded anything but!! I don't know how it came about really - I started exploring lines and space with someone about a term ago, and it grew from there. It seemed to click with a few and I was kicking myself I hadn't experimented sooner.

Sorry to hear about your student though.

I remember once reading methods of remembering the notes going up from middle C and down from middle C (the opposite way to usual for reading the bass clef) and they were great sentences but unfortunately I can't find them now and don't remember where they were to start with. In a sense it seems to make more sense than reading the bass clef up from the bottom especially as pupils tend to learn the notes moving outwards from middle C in opposite directions anyway as the usual learning progression followed by tutor books.

Maggie

Thanks for your extremely helpful and thought-provoking suggestion. It's seems so obvious but not something I'd really engaged with before.

Thanks again - I shall use it with my reluctant readers. Maybe you should "market" it

Thanks Oboist - Hope you find it useful. I don't know why I thought of it when I did - maybe just increasing frustration with EGBDF etc.
Maybe I'll write a book!

Reading this thread has just made me think of something quite worrying (not accusing anyone here of course) but I wonder how many teachers get so concentrated on the FACE etc. things that they foget to mention the obvious if it's one higher up the stave it's one higher up the piano (or a note higher on any other instrument, perhaps not so intuitive on, say, a flute). With this a child could 'learn' any note on the piano without having to be taught explicitly. It's interesting to notice sometimes how the simplest things can be overlooked because they seem obvious but children don't infer them, again this doesn't particluarly relate to this thread so please don't think I'm accusing anyone here of this.

With what's happening on the boards at the moment I'm starting to feel like a 'slow learner' having been learning for 4 1/2 years and taking grade 5...

Interestingly, an Alexander Technique tutor on my flute course last year said that 'higher' and 'lower' are just labels. There's no physical connection between 'high' as in height, and high notes. They are higher on the stave, but that does not correspond with anything going on in the body. The only instument I can think of offhand where higher means literally higher is the cello (or double bass).

If you think about the piano, high notes are to the right, and low notes to the left.

The Alexander tutor said that we unconsciously often stand on our toes when trying to reach high notes (flautists, that is). And if you look, often we do.

Some interesting points, it's quite humerous watching YAP's mum play 'air piano' whilst he plays (she doesn't play the piano) when the notes are higher she not only plays them further to the right but higher up in the air as well .

I do think though that it's still important to point out the simple things, although as you point out further right might be better than higher in the case of pianists; and indeed this must be quite useless to beginner flautists....

I do that, and also do it when singing!

Thanks for that maggie - my internet's not been working for a day so only just read your answer! I like the idea of only memorising the two instead of four. Counting out from middle C would work well for beginners but I think it would take too long for some of my GR1ish pupils whose note reading is still a bit rubbish as they use a much bigger range of notes.
Carol

Hi Maggie

He is still with middle C been played with 1st finger on the right hand in the book. However, he has used 1st finger on other notes as I write out little tunes from time to time for him. But that isn't really the problem - its actually getting him to see the connection between the notes on the staves and the notes on the piano. I taught him a song by ear and he picked it up so much easier. SHould I continue like this perhaps?