The performance by student A below may seem rosy, but like the image on the left, only both of us know how far and tough the journey to success has been.
When I first taught her, I was quickly made aware of her strong dissociation with note reading. Aged 4+, this girl was exposed, on a higher frequency, to short pieces using pre-staff notation. For pre-staff creations, the only guidance of each key location was by the finger numbers above or below each note head.
One benefit of pre-staff notation is to allow young musicians to cultivate and foster a rhythmic sense, and enhance their knowledge of notes' time names and values. She could differentiate a crotchet from a minim very easily and even add the number of counts for each. However, she was extremely weak in note recognition, which is a visible drawback of using scores with pre-staff notation.
To bring her up to speed, I quickly fished in a theory book that solely specialises in note letters. After teaching A the notes, I would test her memory and revise regularly with her. The Alfred book also sent a clear and hard truth that it was time this young musician got serious in learning all her note names when we turned the page to discover a significant change in the score structure. Goodbye pre-staff notation, hello staff. The young lady was lost and my "teacher-spidey" sense told me it was a good opportunity to capitalise on in emphasising the importance of learning her note names.
The strong-willed and motivated girl invested effort in ensuring she recites every letter correctly, and would pause to seriously contemplate to refrain blurting the wrong answer impulsively. Just last night, we finished our first duet on the conventional score structure.
Gee, are we so glad! Now onward to conquering more songs and notes on the bass clef! :)
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