In august I plan to be part of a research study on sore reading in young pianists. The hypothesis is that sight reading skills, and the learning of new music, can be greatly accelerated if time is taken to train the pianists to read by relative distances among the notes--not by mentally processing what line each note is on.

Does anyone have a suggestion for notation software that could be used to make flashcards? I need to be able to turn off the music staff, and only print out the key signature and the notes.

Thanks!

...I downloaded Finale Notepad, to no avail: it seems to be an option in Finale, but not Notepad.

Have you looked into the many method books available for piano?

Several now start with reading and playing rhythm patterns using the black keys. There is no stave and the students first learn to recognise steps, skips and repeated notes. Interval recognition is the primary focus of these methods. Other books introduce the stave at the beginning and tend to branch out from middle C. But even these books will gradually introduce new notes in a way which places more importance on reading by distance than identifying letter names on the stave.

I think as part of your research you could save yourself some time by looking at what is already out there before trying to design your own system. Many methods also have flash cards available to buy. I like the Hal Leonard flash cards in particular. Buy a set and see what you think. It might help you to decide if it's necessary to change or adapt them and how you might do it.

I'm afraid I can't help with the IT side, that's never been my strong point.

The intent is not to design a new system, or invent a new pedagogical approach. The intent is to ascertain whether a specific professional pianist's manner of seeing musical information on the page is relevant to the development in younger pianists. This pianist doesn't specifically read lines or note name, but instead sees the spatial relationships to know what notes need to be played. By seeing the staff as a ruler, with the key signature as a reference to where notes are located, it is then a non-issue to play in various clef and transpose. More importantly, the thought is that this way of seeing in music--while more complicated in the early years--might actually force pianists to notice musical patterns more organically; they should be able to visually "grab" onto more musical information at a glance once the patterns and relationships are identified.

In oder to test the hypothesis, we need to be able to diagnose their current recognition of note relationships in terms of proximity. Getting rid of the staff is the control method to being able to test this ability--hence the need for software.

...oh, BTW, this could turn out to be a completely irrelevant thought experiment.

Just because a pianist is a world-class sight reader, doesn't mean that their way of seeing/understanding music would also produce a similar result in a younger pianist. It could be completely irrelevant; it seems logical there could be a connection?!?

That's why we need to be able to remove the staff from the equation: in order to train the ability to detect notes and distances based on patterns and relationships--outside of the context of music, rhythm, staffs, time signatures, measures, etc. If the isolated recognition skills are transferable to piano, then we should note an increase in sight-reading ability and/or future rate of learning. That's what we are going to be looking for...

Have you tried Sibelius?

Well he can try anything, almost all the notation software can hide the staves.

I use Noteworthy Composer, which is free (though I paid for the full version as I use it so much).

I'm pretty sure you can set staff to invisible. I'll try tonight and let you know.

How does your ability to read this sentence parlay into useful 'technique' for a four year-old's efforts to master the alphabet? There is your answer.

Learning is in stages, of course, and an olympic runner does not have the same concerns of a child learning to take his first steps. There is nothing the child can learn from the running techniques of an olympian. One step at a time is the maximum for that child, not bouncing off the ground in carefully choreographed motions in conjunction with carefully controlled breathing patterns.



Who is "this pianist" that your refer to? Are you referring to yourself or a student?



The key signature indicates the tonal center, and various notes to be flatted or sharped, but it is not a "reference to where the notes are located". It is the lines & spaces on the staves that locates the notes in relation to the keyboard - not the key signature.



Repeated chords, or an Alberti bass, are pretty easy to pick up visually. Musical patterns in a Bach fugue are much tougher because the fingering can be instantly convoluted in particular measures if not carefully strategized in advance.

I would say that for beginners, "more complicated in the early years" is something to be avoided at all costs if the student is not to run away in frustration.

Also, eyesight is an issue: the eyes of a five year-old do not focus and recognize spatial relationships the same way a 15 year-old does, neither do they have the same muscular control to manipulate those differences. Developmental issues, I think, would be front and center with the issues of reading if children are to be included in the study.

I don't know if I agree completely with this. Occasionally I am given photocopy that is missing one or two of the bass clef staff lines at the bottom of the page, or some of the lines are indistinct. I am always confused when reading these poor copies even if the note heads are distinct. So it seems I see the spatial relationship between the notes, but I also rely on the spatial relationship of the notes with respect to the lines.

Finale Notepad does not [seem] hide the staff (i.e., and continue to show the notes)...

I'll look into the other two suggestions next; thanks.

I don't think counting/naming lines is a good way to learn to read music. Professional level musicians don't count lines when they read. If they did, they would have to process to much more information in the process. This information processing overload is what I think slows down the learning process in the early serious student. Besides, counting lines doesn't lead to the ability to read other clefs and transpose; reading by pattern and relationship, however, does.

Often is the case a student learns either a bass/treble clef instrument, then has reading problems on the piano when they must do both. If they were processing the information on the page effectively, this shouldn't be a problem (i.e., I believe it demonstrates the flaw in the pedagogical approach).

A443 I think you are forgetting the fact that professional musicians DO START OUT reading and counting lines ... but with time they get used to seeing particular patterns and it becomes a natural automatic process.

Various music learning approaches used in Japan specifically avoid line counting; it is not a fact that all professional musicians start out as line-counters. Hence, my interest in the topic.

Ah, I think that is a key point - the "counting-naming". In my teaching practice I have recently reconsidered the value of naming notes during the initial lessons to beginners. Now I focus on lines-to-keyboard identification and leave the letter-naming for later. I am getting better results now.

Many musicians, myself included, are not entirely happy with the notation system we have inherited. There have been some attempts to reconfigure the notation system from time to time, but none have yet succeeding in replacing the status quo.




Our eyes take in the notes on the staves much more quickly. We no longer count up or down slowly and painfully as when beginning as children, true, but the eyes are able to scan more easily after years of reading. I think this is an eye-sight issue, not a musical issue, but the lines remain the reference point.



Yes - I agree, and as I mentioned above, I think the letter-names are slowing down the process, not the line-to-keyboard identification. These are two separate issues that published mesh together, and I think that is mistake in teaching. Learning to match up lines/spaces with their place on the keyboard while simultaneously learning all the letter-names is an information overload for most students. Letter names do not help us read music in any way. In fact, their only value is in the discussion of music, but not in actually reading.



I agree that this is a problem, but it is the 'fault' of the publishers who print elementary instruction books that way, and teachers who in good faith follow the publishers page by page.

There are little problems that compound the matter: the hands are the mirror image of each other as is our entire anatomy from head to feet. But the music staff is not constructed that way, it is entirely unified in horizontal progression: for instance (be patient with me here..) go to Bass G, the bottom line, and count up the lines to middle C and continue up to the top line of soprano F, then back down again. It all makes sense and is easily identifiable on the keyboard.

Comprehension of this is not difficult, but adding note names, and then again, adding hand structure (with its finger-numbers as well) is information overload for most students. One finger, let us say the 2 finger of the right hand, playing all the line-to-keyboard notes up and down will clarify the matter quickly. Students often become confused trying to decide which finger to select and that slows down learning greatly.



Yes, exactly. But the lines of the staff are not 'at fault' - they will not change any more than written language will change - the way we teach those lines in relation to the keyboard must change. I have recently changed my approach with improved results. On these forums I have found my fellow teacher, Gary D., to be very insightful and helpful about these matters, and is someone well worth talking with.



Send me a link if you have one with regard to these Japanese approaches you write about. The only musicians who do not start out learning by line-counting are those who begin by playing by ear, but if they are classical musicians they will definitely be counting lines to gain basic literacy in score reading. After the initial stage, nobody who is paying attention is actually "counting" up and down a staff, "line one, line two…" etc. anymore than someone reading this sentence counts through the alphabet to construct words.

My source: informal interviews with c.dozen professionally trained Japanese pianists. I was curious as to why they all seemed to excel at sight-reading, dictation, theory, etc.

It would seem that they were all taught first by ear (i.e., melody+rhythm), which was later matched up with note patterns on the staff. They were taught a simple melody, and then shown how to write it down. This forced them to think about the relationships between the notes from the very beginning. In other words: reading came after writing, which came after singing.

None of them were taught line names, as the names change depending on what clef is being used. This seemed to be a common theme, in their background. I found that rather intriguing, as too the fact that they all developed perfect pitch.

From my teaching experience (here in NYC I get teach many nationalities constantly) the discipline of Japanese and Chinese students is seldom matched by Americans or Europeans I work with. My Asian students generally do not analyze the directives I give - they simply DO as commanded. The work ethic knows no self-pity. Parents start their children's lessons very young and hammer away at it - children's complaints are brushed aside in favor of greater mental focus. The competitive factor is fierce, and personal anxieties are sublimated to ever more work work work. These cultures (as I experience them through my students) are very aggressive about acquiring technical skills.

As for "perfect pitch" - Japanese has a pitch accent of high-low, or low-high, and it is very possible that this interval emphasis in the language unconsciously tunes the ear to pitch differentials in music. I found my Japanese students very adept at picking up interval relations when I teach ear training. So the answer may not be in musical training per se, but linguistic-auditory habits.

The simple reason why those Japanese pianists do well at those particular skills is that they were taught to practice them, as opposed to not being taught at all, as is the case elsewhere. I think there is nothing mysterious with this at all. Practice gets results, and I find that very few teachers insist on sight reading as part of their curriculum. That is something I insist upon at all levels of training, but I gather that most teachers do not.

The flip side is that the best sight reader I currently teach is Japanese, and he can pretty much read his way through a Beethoven sonata quite well. But that is all he can do - sight read - he cannot memorize, and never refines very much, and eyes are rigidly glued to the score at all times.

However, sight-reading is not necessarily matched with excellence at producing a finished product. Japanese orchestras are never regarded among the best, and that may be because they are trained to sight-read well, but not to polish superlatively, and that is where Western musicians excel. Elliot Carter was adamant about that issue, insisting that Japanese orchestras only sight read, and the more that Japanese orchestras rehearsed, the worse and worse the music got with every reading, not better.

Finale Notepad doesn't hide the staff...
NoteWorthy is not available for Mac...
Sibelius is $600...!

Any other ideas?!?

Try MuseScore freeware. Pull down the menu Edit-preferences-colors, set the foreground color to white and click Apply. Then click on any note in the score, select all similar elements and set that color to black. Print out the score on normal white paper and the staff will be "white" or invisible, the notes and other elements black or dark grey.

I would imagine that other programs can do a similar trick, setting the main foreground color to white then setting the notes and other elements to black.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, another idea is to output to JPG format and use anti-aliasing in a photo editing program to edit out the staff lines, but that would be more work.

That is where the hypothesis is self-contradictory and pointless. The only way to measure relative distances among notes is through the lines since they are the only visible reference of relative distances.

Quickly differentiating an augmented 4th from a perfect 5th is not going to happen without the lines of the staff. How will flash cards address that?