minstrel: Happy New Year

[Baker, Mike]

For teaching the reading of modern musical notation, I strongly suggest 
beginning with at least a basic intro to a piano keyboard & how *that* 
relates to staff notation. And don't be afraid to include all the nifty 
little mnemonic devices (FACE, AllCowsEatGrass, EveryGoodBoyDoesFine, 
GoodBoysDoFineAlways, etc.) Add the concepts of intervals only after your 
audience grasps the above firmly!

Proceed next to whole/half/quarter note & rests, supplemented by a few of 
the more common performance notations (allegro, cresc., dim., ret.).

Don't go into chords until later in the process, after the intervals and 
note-lengths have made sense.

Background:  It helped me immensely when my 8th Grade Chorus class was only 
7 participants, and the teacher decided to go ahead and give us basic piano 
instruction. Allowed me to sight-read far better than I would have otherwise 
(at least for vocal parts). I can still plunk out the basic melody lines, 
although I never progressed past the simplest chord+melody playing. With 
time, I expect I could gain most of *that* back as well were I to devote 
that time to practice...

Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard)  s.k.a. Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri 
al-Amra
     currently residing in Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mike C. Baker                      mbaker at rapp.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated 
otherwise!
 ----------
From: Amy Wilson
To: minstrel at pbm.com
Subject: minstrel: Happy New Year
Date: Thursday, January 02, 1997 4:05PM

Happy New Year, one and all!

I thought the list had been _awfully_ quiet lately, and then I realized that
I'd gotten bumped somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Duh.

Danged twitchy mail server.

Anyhow -- here's a topic for the new year.  I'm contemplating teaching a 
group of adults how to read music, from square one.  I'd love thoughts from 
this group on best approaches, any good teaching aids on the subject, etc.

Cheers,
Catelin the Patient
(who is thinking that a B.A. in music would come in handy right about now, 
but
nooOOOooo, Mom & Dad insisted on something "practical" :P)





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