Teach beginner staff notation

Question

I'll be teaching an adult musical beginner piano. I've never taught [music] before though I've taught programming and math for decades. [And I don't remember too well how I learnt!]

I am asking specifically about reading staff.

I remember learning EGBDF-FACE etc and then laboring over it for each note. I don't remember how and when I stopped laboring and sequentially counting. It was probably when I started hearing more music way beyond my pianistic abilities eg Beethoven sonatas, and following with score. But I don't exactly remember...

Wondering if there are new teaching techniques that at least partially bypass EGBDF so that there is a straight visual-to-motor translation without the laborious intermediate verbalization

Answer 1

Intervallic approach

The closest method I've seen, and which I've used successfully both for myself and for students, is Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner by Frances Clark.

The approach teaches three "landmark" notes (Bass F, Middle C, Treble G), associating the staff position with the piano key such that the note name is unnecessary (except for ease of verbal communication).

After the landmarks are established, the book teaches to read seconds above and below the landmarks. The next chapters introduce thirds, fourths, and fifths, with no mention of letter names.

Other notations — like rhythmic values, rests, and accidentals — and theory constructs — like keys, scales, and chords — are also introduced at logical points along the way.

FACE groups

A second approach, also interval based at its core, but making use of an easily remember mnemonic, is to teach where the FACEs are on the staff and keyboard.

In essence, this is teaching the student to read in thirds and octaves (octaves, since after the E in each FACE is the F of the next FACE).

What's nice about this approach is that there's only one mnemonic, easily remembered, and consistent regardless of clef.

Answer 2

I like @Aaron’s answer and would like to offer a few more suggestions.

The idea of starting from middle C is good because it establishes center point between the staff and is equidistant from the identifying notes of the treble (G) and bass (F) staffs.

“Every good boy…” is ok but it is better to memorize and internalize the continuous pattern of every other letter, which gives you either all lines or all spaces: A,C,E,G,B,D,F,A,C,E,G,B,D,F, etc. That pattern uses every other note on the keyboard which is easy to see on the keyboard. Also, recognize that any letter will switch from space to line in the next octave so no letter is always on a line or a space.

Another useful visualization is that consecutive lines (or spaces) create chord shapes such as triads, 7th chords, etc.

Answer 3

The other answers are really pretty good.

I would just add one note if caution: fluency is the ability to utilize an idea easily enough that it doesn't cognitively interfere with other, more complex ideas. In music, this is fairly easy to see. Learners who are not fluent with intervals do not easily master chords. Students who are not fluent in chord identification and construction have difficulty with simple tonal analysis, and so on and so forth.

So my word of caution is, while I appreciate the idea of making the note-reading easier at the start, do not entirely eschew the difficult (and rather rote) aspects of simply naming notes. Without serious note fluency, later skills remain locked up and out of reach.

I often have my piano students literally name notes, bottom to top, left to right. It's boring, it's rote, but it is also effective. They get much faster at it, and this fluency unlocks higher level understandings as soon as the note reading itself begins to get out of the way.

Good luck with your piano student!

Answer 4

Reading and playing interval changes, rather than pitch letters, is a way to approach it.

The worst thing is literally writing the letter names on the white keys, going over mnemonics like FACE and (E)very (G)ood (B)oy (D)oes (F)ine, and finding the labeled piano key. Even if you don't literally write on the keys (some people do!) thinking this way is a problem.

Instead of seeing...

...and then thinking middle C is in the middle of the grand staff, every Good, fAce, Face.

It should be start on C in C major, up a fifth, up a second, down a third.

When reading the intervals from staff there are some short cuts you can develop like fifths and thirds move from line to line or space to space and fourths, sixths, and octaves alternate lines to spaces, spaces to lines.

On the motor skill side of things you should learn basic fingering positions and patterns in terms of intervals. Five finger position, scales, full octave chords, playing double notes in one hand, repeated notes, playing scales in broken intervals, etc. provide the techniques for movement around the keyboard, but they also should be understood as intervallic movements. Depending on the requirements of a particular passage you can select from that bag of technical motor skills to execute the interval changes.

In terms of five-finger position, my little passage might be executed like this...

...where (5)4 is meant to show a silent finger change to shift the five-finger position up. So, 1 is on C and in five-finger position going up a fifth would just hit 5, but we don't play 5 and instead replace it with 4 to shift position up, then the descending third is executed by simply putting down 5 adjacent to 4 and next hitting 3 both in normal five-finger position.

We need to start with finding C, but after that we don't need to know anything about pitch letters to sight read the notation. We only need to know how to play fingering patterns in C major with awareness of intervals.

Of course the particular details of a passage might require playing a particular interval, ex. a perfect fifth, in various ways. You could play this little passage using the fingering for octave chords. Here would be the basic fingering material and application of the two options...

I think this is how motor skill technique gets linked with reading notation for performance (sight reading.) The language to describe it is then not pitch letters but interval changes, and much more conveniently various relative motion types: broken chord/arpeggiation, conjunct/scalar motion, parallel thirds, etc.

If the purpose is to read staff for pitch letters, identifying chord, etc. then the proper thing to do is learn how staves are aligned to staff and then learn to recite pitch letters by thirds and fifth, ascending and descending.

It's probably hard for some people to get past FACE and EGBDF, because it's taught to so many at so young an age, but the various common clefs - G, F, and C are aligned by the "swirl", "double dot", and "little c" on to line so those lines are identified respectively as G, F, and C. From those reference points you can move up/down by thirds or fifths (an extensions by single steps) to identify the rest of the lines and spaces. ACEGBDFAFDBGECA and AEBFCGDADGCFBEA should be automatic patterns.

I'm not a music teacher. I'm self taught for most everything in music. But what I've written summarizes my reading from a lot of teaching material.

Answer 5

I wouldn't obsess on letter-names, but I equally wouldn't obsess on AVOIDING letter-names! I don't think anyone's ever had a problem in recognising Middle C, either on the staff or on the keyboard (though with today's instruments we may have lost the 'just over the keyhole' landmark :-) Step up from C, step down. Jump by a 3rd etc. Mention the letter-names, but don't make them the main identity, focus more on position on the stave, under the hand, on the keyboard. And it's never too early to start on aural skills. Sing the note before playing it. (Did you get it right?) This may sound a bit disorganised. But it works. (And don't forget to point out that you can spell, sing and play CABBAGE etc. That's fun too.)

To be honest, I've rarely encountered a talented beginner who required any special pedagogical approach to notation. You just show them how it all works then start playing stuff. And the un-talented ones are going to give up anyway.

Answer 6

With all these answers, I see a need for one more.

Wondering if there are new teaching techniques that at least partially bypass EGBDF so that there is a straight visual-to-motor translation without the laborious intermediate verbalization

Yes. Sort of. This will seem like a direct contradiction to Divizina's answer, but maybe we actually agree but from opposite directions.

The most effective way to learn staff notation is in conjunction with learning to play, just as the best way to learn a written alphabet is in conjunction with learning to speak and write, and the best way to learn a language is while learning to speak it.

And like learning written language, the best way is to scaffold the learning. A child's first reader starts with "Cat, mat, hat," etc., a small number of vowels and consonants. Similarly, there's no need to tackle the entire grand staff, or even all five lines of a stave. Instead, start by playing (not just looking at) songs that use just a few pitches. This can be frustrating especially for adult learners, whose ability to cognitively connect the dots can jump ahead of their "fluency." "Okay, okay, I get it; every pitch is on a line or space, okay, I can count up or down from C to anything, now let me play Chopin." But instead they need to play not just one but dozens of pieces spanning no more than a tetrachord, so that they complete a chain from eye to brain to hand to ear to brain that can skip the conscious analysis, just as at some point we stop saying "C-A-T spells cat," and start recognizing the entire word at a glance. Play a dozen pieces using C, D, and E, and we eventually stop counting lines and recognize the actual graphic shapes as those pitches.

Then gradually expand the range and introduce more notes above and below, as at the same time you introduce other technical skills.

To clarify, I think I and many of the other answerers are actually saying the same thing. I don't suggest skipping an explanation of the basic lines-an'-spaces system, and you should frequently "drill" the letter-name recognition (from multiple angles. Point to a note, "what letter is this?" "Play me a G." "Write an F.") But I do suggest that it's both unrealistic and unhelpful to have a single ten-minute explanation of the musical staff, and then expect the student to work with the entire grand staff or even entire stave. For instance, drilling with flashcards to simply look at the written note and say "that's an A" isn't without merit, but the learning is much more useful and permanent when it comes through playing, and heavily reinforces and re-reinforces a manageable selection of pitches before moving on.

Answer 7

Just a note — I remembered how I was taught (after I posted the question)

• Pieces in '5 finger position' ie C major with hand on C-G in both hands. No A B notes.
• Teacher marks out each note with finger number
• Some later pieces in other 'easy' keys, and some with lh contrary downward ie C downto F. But always 5 finger position.

Pro: Got me off playing quick

Con: Delayed even bare minimum sight reading ability by years!

Answer 8

Doubt it. That seems like asking, "Is there a way to learn to read without needing to learn letters?"

I think the first notes I'd readily recognise without needing to count it were C on the ledger line below (where everything started because, beginner), G on the second line (where you start when writing the treble clef... do you also nickname it a G clef in English?) and then C in the third space (because that was a C). The rest... came with practice.