Teaching at the Table

The method the motive and the musical benefits.

If the pupil is paying for a trumpet lesson then they should spend the whole lesson with Their trumpet to their lips right ?

If the pupil is paying for a piano lesson then they should spend the whole lesson at the piano. Right ?

Wrong !

Dont feel guilty about spending time away from the instrument with a beginner.

My piano is near our dining room table and for a few minutes at the beginning of every lesson time is spent with our backs to the piano learning to say the letter names out loud of the piece to be played.

A pupil has to learn two things every time a new note is introduced.

1. Where is it on the stave?

2. Where is it on the instrument in our case the piano?

These two processes are initially in our experience best dealt with separately. I find that a few minutes work at my dining room table at the beginning of the lesson saves a lot of work and confusion in the future.

It is advisable to introduce new notes away from the instrument John Thompson is well planned for this method.

To add variety you can make purchase flash cards of all the different notes. T hen the pupil can compare the position of the notes on the stave with the others that they already know.

Still at the table I like to make sequences out of the cards first using three then five then eight when the sequence has been made the pupil goes along the line reading the note names out loud as quickly as they can.

Still on the subject of teaching away from the instruments many young children take reading books home from school and parents listen to their children read. A good exercise for improving note reading is to ask the parent to put their music book under the reading book and when the reading practice is done to carry on with note reading practice at the same sitting. This is a good way of improving parents in their children’s musical education. The beginning of every lesson is spent checking that the letter names have been learnt.

It is only then when the note is easily recognised that the pupil should be allowed to go to the instrument and set about finding the note .

One of the most effective ways of mobilizing a lazy pupil into some serious note learning at home is to refuse to teach them any more pieces until the notes have been learnt, it works every time!

If you can enlist the support of the parents and make sure they supervise study then you are half way there. With a little effort and co-operation on the part of the pupil and parent notes will be thoroughly learnt and sight-reading will soon be possible.


For more articles for music teachers see my website at www.musiccorner.co.uk