Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Showing how to play instead of teaching how to play.

Which brings us back to the root/tonic. The OP certainly appears to have some expectation for the child. Whether the expectations become realised or not is another aspect.

For a child learning piano, learning to read music is mandatory (as soon as possible in his early years), as is ear training. Without them, all the kid will end up doing is 'learning' by rote, and little else. What's the point of having a teacher? He might as well be given videos to watch and told to copy them.

By learning to read music and developing his ears, he can then go on as far as his talent or inclination will take him, in any direction.....yes, all the way to concert pianist even. Or else change tack and follow the Elton J/Lady Gaga route etc. He will have all the tools he needs to go any direction in the years to come. Even if he gives up in his early teens, he will have sufficient musical and reading skills to restart piano very easily in adulthood, should he so desire. (In the past decade, I've observed (and occasionally helped) several adult restarters on piano, and frequently been surprised at how quickly they were able to regain their musical and technical skills - often within a few weeks of restarting. Just like cycling or swimming or skiing, once properly learnt in childhood, never forgotten.)

Depriving a child student of that learning with spurious excuses ('oh, he can wait to learn to read music when he's ten, when he's able to read Shakespeare and do algebra') is like depriving a child of the same age of basic language skills - learning the alphabet, followed by reading and writing. It's much harder for a child to start learning to read music from scratch after he's been playing by rote (or even by ear) for several years, than it is for the same kid to start learning the alphabet and then basic reading & writing, because of the nature of music learning compared to language learning and usage.

For an adult beginner, he can choose for himself what he wants to do. But the same applies - if he decides to start 'learning' songs he likes by copying Synthesia videos, it's highly unlikely he'll ever learn to read music....and in fact, will almost certainly give up piano within less than a year, unless he's somehow able to learn to play pop or jazz by ear. But not classical: see what I mean about depriving oneself - or a child - of options?

I am not a piano teacher but I have several questions and thoughts for you (the OP). My first take is that from several things that you’ve written, it seems to me that you are not a musician. Please let me know if this is not the case.
I think there are two issues here, which may or may not be related.


The problem you see is that your son likes lessons but doesn’t want to play at home. You next identify what you think is the reason for this:


To me, it is not at all clear that this is the reason he is not playing at home. It’s certainly possible, but there could be any number of reasons why your son likes going to lessons but doesn’t play at home very much. But if we accept that this is the reason your son isn’t playing at home, I don’t think the answer is music theory instruction. To me, this is sort of like saying: ‘my kid doesn’t want to read books on his own; this is because he is not confident reading by himself. The solution is that he must learn to diagram sentences.’ I can’t think of any kid for whom this would actually encourage/promote independent reading.

There is also something I’m not understanding, because you say your son can read music (as evidenced by being able to pick up lots of songs quickly) but you also say that he is not confident reading music and that you feel he needs to be taught to ‘read music intensively.’ It is certainly possible to learn music quickly without being able to read. My 4 year old niece has memorized and can sing many many songs. She knows her alphabet and can recognize her name. But she doesn’t know how to read. So I think it’s entirely possible that your son just doesn’t know how to read music, or does so at such a basic level that he can’t actually use that knowledge to approach an old or new score.

BenNevis gave you a link to a pdf that might help sort out the issues. If your son can’t begin to approach this piece, then I think your take about discomfort with reading music is probably correct but reflects a fundamental problem with reading, not with theory. And I’d say that the remedy for that would be for him to work on reading… at the piano, with his teacher, as long as this is done in a way that he enjoys and doesn’t overly frustrate him. I certainly learned to read music at the piano, with a book on the music desk, not at a chalkboard or in a lecture hall. The remedy is not to talk a lot about abstract musical concepts. Things like time signatures and counting and phrasing and key signatures etc can all be discussed while reading music, in a manner that is integrated with the material. rather than in abstract discussion at a chalk board.

But first and foremost, I’d remember that your boy is 6 going on 7. Very, very few kids who learn piano end up as professional musicians. But if your boy learns and retains a joy for music and music making, this is absolutely something that he can treasure and enjoy for all his life. My biggest concern is that by insisting on something like chalkboard discussions of music theory, you could extinguish the enjoyment and fulfillment he gets from his time at the piano.

I suggest that you to step back and view your child's musical education within the perspective of the overall goals you may have for his whole life. I hope you aspire for him to become a decent human being.

Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.

I'd like to thank everyone for their input especially those teachers for not judging me.

No I'm not a musician myself other than teaching myself how to play a sub level of the saxophone by myself about 10 years ago.

Every reply made a good contribution and I was more or less able to come to a conclusion "Bennevis" and "sgisela" your replies resonated with me although both slightly different and I think there's a good middle ground to be had between them.

I guess the main thing I got out of this is that as long as he loves going to class and freestyling at home that's the main thing and wanting to read more at home will come in time.

Thanks to all.

Most welcome. If the son's future 'career' is going to depend on it, then absolutely - we understand the urgency. But if career or life etc doesn't depend on it, then just take things naturally. The son will certainly learn enough to read music and do well in that area, with time and continued piano lessons. There was at least one post that I recall - where somebody was claiming that one piano student was doing lessons over the many years (or something) - and came out having no knowledge of being able to read any music at all. This highly unlikely happened - and I reckon it's 'fake news' - as they reckoned that the student was simply copying the teacher's hand movements for every piece of work. My opinion of that ----- nobody is going to believe that the teacher wouldn't know that somebody sitting right next to them is always looking down at the teacher's hands, and never at the score sheet.

Sorry, you're quite wrong.
Perhaps you should re-read that post, then look up the actual thread by that teacher, before making silly accusations of "fake news".

bennevis -- the bulk of us ungullible ones weren't born yesterday, if you know what I mean. We are not 2 year olds (or even 3, or 4, or 5). No intelligent and ungullible person is going to believe one little bit that a teacher has zero awareness of the student right next to them, as the student is getting taught. This is of course if the teacher is legally blind or something ----- in which case we could believe. But we must all assume that the teacher is not legally blind.

Why do you persist in arguing about something you know absolutely nothing about?

I repeat: look up that long thread. It's in this forum.

To start with, there was nothing about looking at hands. Plus, one can copy by hearing rather than looking. The story as I recall is that the parent tried to be helpful by finding examples for the child to listen to, and so the child came to lessons playing assigned pieces well. A teacher can catch this by having the student read a random measure out of context, and by assigning sight reading during the lesson of unfamiliar material. But if a piece is assigned, and the student simply practises at home and comes back playing correctly, it can remain undiscovered.

Something similar but different happened to me as an adult student, where it took three years to discover that I didn't really know how to read music, but could extrapolate a lot from the typical predictable music one gets as student music. It was violin music, where notes are less complicated, but still. The particular way in which I absorbed or related to music made it hard to detect that I had not learned to read music in any normal sense of the word. It was ear - and piano as a self-taught child was also ear, not hands.

Thanks Keystring for telling your story

I know what you mean KS. But the story is too far fetched. A student that is learning music from the beginning - with a teacher - will -- at least some of the times (at the beginning) begin to work on reading. Reading from a new piece - that the student hasn't seen before. And the teacher will watch the student and the notes, and everything. This is the beginning. It is stage 1. If the student hasn't even learned to read anything at all, then the student wouldn't be able to learn any notes that they hadn't even heard of before. That is, you can't get to stage 2 - or not consistently, or reliably, or even at all, if you haven't even got to stage 1. And also - one can't predict from a sheet of music if one doesn't even know how to read the notes of it.

I don't want to re-hash past things about teachers in this forum (especially as the person involved is probably still around), but the teacher was teaching by playing the complete piece for the student, then 'teaching' it, seemingly note by note, much like one would teach by rote. The child wasn't playing by ear, though undoubtedly a good ear helps if one is learning by rote. (Children rely much more on visual cues than auditory when learning, as all primary school teachers know in the past two years, when they had to discard their masks while teaching. Young children (need to) watch their teachers carefully when learning to pronounce words.)

The parents' involvement in the 'teaching' were minimal, if any.

The story is from a real teacher who is a respected member of this forum. You’re continuing to insist it is not true is not only disrespectful but is now laughable.

Also, it is too far fetched to believe that a teacher is going to have zero awareness about a student that is right next to them, copying by hearing. The sequence will not always be that way. That is, anybody would expect that the teacher is going to be watching - and not be some sort of 'mindless robot' that plays notes for the student to follow along. Too far fetched. The teacher will be watching. Awareness.

It's certainly not disrespectful to not believe what they claim, especially when something is obviously ultra far-fetched ----- not believable.

It’s believable to everyone — but you.

Says you. But there is actually uncertainty about that. You can't be sure of what you just wrote - the accuracy of it that is. I'm highly confident that many people will have the same thoughts about it -- as I do.

Why don’t you go read the original post and count the number of people who did not believe the story.

A quick question. Have you found the post where the teacher wrote about the problem, how it came about and so on? Are you finding it unbelievable after reading the original thread, or without having read it?