5-Minute Piano Lessons

“How to…” essays are critical for piano accomplishment

Most pianists know they will have to learn to read piano music if they wish to accomplish their goals. Playing by ear is fine – IF you don’t mind being musically illiterate. Knowing and reading chords is critical but you will still need to be able to read the treble staff in order to play from a fakebook. Thus, here are my three most successful actions in helping piano students improve their reading.

Step 1: Realize that “reading” music is both a poor term AND specific to your instrument.

Too many piano students think that “reading music” is sorta like reading a book. Your eyes see the symbols and your mind supplies the ideas associated with them. Yes, written music has symbols but “getting the idea” is NOT their purpose. Instead, these symbols are actually commands to DO something, not just think about something. You have to actually play those notes. This is why learning to “read” in band or choir has only some benefit to learning the piano. Certainly you know that the rise and fall of the notes on the staff equates to the rise and fall of pitch. Also, you know that the shape of each note explains its duration. What you do NOT know is where to find those notes on the piano so you can sound them.

As an example, I can read and play some pretty tough piano music. Most students are somewhat surprised and even confounded by it, as I play the pieces they have worked on for days off the top of my head. However, give me “Twinkle, Twinkle” and a violin, trumpet, or flute and I’m lost. Yes, I could place a letter next to each note as fast as I could write, but I can’t actually make any notes on instruments I don’t play.

Thus, your first step is to understand what you are trying to accomplish when you try to improve your reading of music. You want to know WHERE those keys are, make an identification of their locations based on the location of the note symbols on the sheet music.

Step 2 Memorize note locations without associating the notes with letters.

You will always read too slowly if you have to think of a letter name and then translate that letter name to a location. Such rote memory is the same memory we use for multiplication tables. Why do we sweat memorizing these nasty things? Simple – it’s so much faster than adding things up multiple times. Quick: 6 X 6? Now add 6 6 times (6 +6 = 12 + 6 = 18, etc.) You get the same result, only painfully slowly. Calculators are even faster. However, there is no sheet music calculator other than our rote memory.

Rote memory is an unusual way to learn for adults. Many adults have come to believe that problem solving, the use of brainpower, is the route to correct action. This is one thing kids often have over adults when learning piano. They more readily utilize rote memory.

Now do you see why learning “Every Good Boy Does Fine” and other silly methods fail miserably? Too slow! Teachers of languages know this when they use “immersion” to teach the language. Instead of teaching so that students relate the new foreign words to the familiar English words and only then to meaning, they immerse their students in the new language so that the new set of word symbols immediately produces meaning. This is even more critical with the symbols of sheet music. You must go directly from the symbol to the action. Otherwise you won’t keep up.

Step 3: Memorize by repeat and repeat and repeat…

Human memory is, unfortunately, “leaky.” With a perfect memory, you’d see something once and remember it always. That almost never occurs in humans. To memorize the notes you must first do the two things above, which clear away the common mis-understandings of your task, and then apply this final third action.

The two ways to repeat the notes adequately are by seeing them used in music many times or by drilling them with good flashcards or a computer programs (a more modern and happier option.) The easiest way is to simply play many, many pieces. Unfortunately, this is slow and often the student succeeds in ruining any memory work by penciling in the letters next to the note. Some students find they can’t readily The downside of the exercise approach is that some students are bored by it, as no music gets played.

Whichever approach is appropriate for you and your personality, repetition is the only route I have ever found to achieve real reading ability. Yes, you can find various “methods” on the Internet that claim to improve on this. I’d love to see one that actually worked. If you find it, let me know so I can pass it on and help other pianists. For more advanced coverage of  this topic and many others see the ebook “Dan Starr’s Big Book of Adult Piano” available here.

Tags: Accomplishment, Better Music, Duration, Fakebook, Notes On The Piano, Pianists, piano music, piano students, Pitch, Playing By Ear, Reading A Book, Reading Music, Rise And Fall, Sheet Music, Those Keys, Top Of My Head, Treble Staff, Trumpet, Twinkle Twinkle, Violin