УДК 378.02:372.8    Горбунова И.Б., Хайнер Е.

 

 

Интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке в Школе цифрового века: программа «Soft Way to Mozart»

 

Звучание музыки воспринимается человеком как особое информационное пространство, являющееся одной из граней постижения духовной содержательности мира, его красоты, находящей отражение в звучании. Аудиальность восприятия музыкальной ткани связана с живым, непосредственным опытом человека, основанном на временнóй природе слухового переживания. Очевидно, что развитие музыкального слуха и музыкального мышления сталкивается с рядом проблем. Поэтому одна из основных задач музыкознания сегодня – осмысление на новом уровне функций музыки и как искусства, и как письменного языка, осознание современной культуры и культурных процессов, влияние информационных технологий на формирование творческой личности, способной осознанно воспринимать различные музыкальные явления и непосредственно, и аналитически, структурно. Исследования в области музыкознания, опирающиеся на ряд междисциплинарных связей (философия, эстетика, психология, акустика, нейрология, семиотика и др.) направлены сегодня, с одной стороны, на изучение культуры, веками сформировавшейся в истории человечества, с другой, – на изучение специфики современного восприятия музыки.

В музыкальной практике большое распространение приобрел новый класс музыкальных инструментов, куда входят клавишные синтезаторы, рабочие станции, мультимедийные компьютеры и др. Построенные на основе цифровых технологий инструменты отличаются значительными выразительными ресурсами, что открывает широкие перспективы их применения в музыкальном образовании [3; 5]. Новые возможноости позволили осуществлять с помощью таких инструментов не только звукозаписывающие, но и исполнительские задачи. Не случайно с развитием МКТ именно этот – аудиальный – опыт стал фундаментом для многих разработок дидактического направления. Создание музыкальных композиций с использованием новых возможностей музыкально-компьютерных технологий (МКТ) уже широко вошло в практику профессиональных композиторов. Пути реализации концепции музыкально-компьютерного педагогического образования, позволяющие качественно изменить уровень подготовки педагога-музыканта на различных этапах обучения, обоснованы в ряде научных и научно-педагогических исследований [7; 10 и др.].

Комплексная инновационная образовательная система «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии в подготовке педагога-музыканта», разработанная в учебно-методической лаборатории «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии» Российского государственного педагогического университета им. А.И. Герцена, опирающаяся на лучшие традиции отечественного классического музыкального образования, а также инновационный зарубежный опыт и современные МКТ, развивающая как собственно музыкальное, так и информационно-технологическое образование, не может не затронуть проблемы музыкальной письменности и социальных аспектов процесса информатизации художественного образования в целом [2; 8 и др]. Принципы, положенные в основу создания методической системы, являются базовыми для формирования новой предметной области в музыкально-педагогическом образовании, возможность появления которой обусловлена не только возникновением и развитием МКТ, но и сохранением откристаллизовавшихся письменных традиций музыкальной культуры. Их существование является фундаментом для сформировавшихся на современном этапе видов профессиональной деятельности не только музыкантов, работающих с МКТ (звукорежиссёров, саунд-дизайнеров, саунд-продюссеров, исполнителей на синтезаторах и MIDI-инструментах и др.), не только программистов — разработчиков в области электронных музыкальных систем, но и музыкальных педагогов, для которых современные технологии открывают новые возможности в решении дидактических задач [4; 6; 9 и др. ].

В программном обеспечении профессиональной деятельности современного музыканта и возможностях современного электронного музыкального инструментария наиболее полно и совершенно воплотились веками накопленные ИТ в музыке и искусстве музицирования. Формируется понимание того факта, что специализированный музыкальный компьютер становится новым многофункциональным политембральным инструментом музыканта. Музыкальному компьютеру, электронному музыкальному синтезатору и различным аспектам их функционирования в современной художественно-творческой среде посвящены работы (см., например, [4; 8 и др.] ).

Авторы статьи видят одну из основных задач педагогического исследования в том, чтобы раскрыть дидактические особенности использования МКТ, возможности их применения в музыкальном воспитании и образовании подрастающего поколения на основе классической музыки, традиционных подходов к способам трансляции многовековой музыкальной культуры. Важно, чтобы увлечение внешними, новыми, цифровыми эффектами и возможностями способствовало не только получению ярких и красочных «горячих» впечатлений в общении с музыкальным искусством [11], но и развивало критическое мышление, работало на развитие интеллектуального и культурного роста учащихся. Опираясь на исследования отечественных и зарубежных учёных, выделим научные работы А. Аракеловой, в которых рассматривается «в широком историческом контексте единство закономерностей функционирования музыкального искусства и образования в их взаимосвязи с государственной политикой, нормативно-правовым обеспечением и социокультурными тенденциями» [1, с. 4]. Отмечается также, что многие отечественные исследователи «вовсе не касались насущных проблем обеспечения всего комплекса необходимых условий для реализации тех или иных полезных инициатив. Кроме того, организационно-правовые и материальные факторы реализации образовательных программ, содержания и методов обучения-воспитания музыкантов никогда не исследовались с позиции музыкознания, что должно в наибольшей мере определять подход к функционированию музыкального образования как основы развития музыкального искусства и культуры общества» [там же, с. 5].

Сегодня становится совершенно очевидным тот факт, что в использовании МКТ таятся большие возможности для сочинения, исполнения, исследования музыки и музыкального образования и воспитания; что этого процесса не следует опасаться, а, напротив, нужно поддерживать и принимать в нём активное участие. Так, на часто звучащий вопрос: «Для чего нужно заменять одарённых музыкантов «машинами», отводить живое искусство на какой-то последний план и тем самым понижать эстетическую ценность музыкального искусства?» композитор и музыковед, педагог и учёный Ю.Н. Рагс, работавший в различных областях науки о музыке (среди которых: проблемы музыкальной эстетики, музыкальной акустики, исследования в области музыкальной психологии, взаимодействие композиторского и исполнительского творчества, исследование роли и места информационных технологий в музыке и музыкальном образовании, роль электронной и компьютерной музыки в современном музыкально–художественном пространстве и др.), отвечал: «Но в таком плане задачу никто не ставит. Известно, что компьютерное и электронное звучание заполняет уже сейчас рекламу, клипы, телевизионные и радиопередачи, кинофильмы и т.п. Их качество нас далеко не всегда удовлетворяет. Поэтому возникает необходимость готовить в этой сфере настоящих профессионалов, которые могли бы действительно поднять художественный уровень искусства. И учебные заведения должны не отходить от дела, а, по возможности, руководить им» [16, с. 202]. Призывая к объединению музыкантов, музыковедческих теорий, знаний о музыке, Рагс говорит и о необходимости объединения самих музыкантов: «Объединить по интересам музыкантов, работающих в общеобразовательных школах и в специальных музыкальных учебных заведениях по всем специальностям и на всех ступенях обучения (в ДМШ, училище или колледже, вузе)» и «использовать богатые возможности новых ИТ и в деле методического развития системы музыкального образования» [15, с. 65, 67], установить взаимопонимание между представителями различных направлений музыкально-научных исследований.

Нам бы хотелось подчеркнуть, что сегодня информационные технологии – это мощнейший образовательный и воспитательный ресурс. С помощью Интернета можно обменяться мнениями, общаться с людьми из любой страны, в любой точке планеты. Но мы еще не используем многие новые инструментальные возможности цифрового века в музыкальном образовании, среди них - преимущества интерактивного диалога с музыкальным компьютером для развития и совершенствования музыкальных навыков, применимых в повседневной академической практике.

Приведём результаты проведённого нами педагогического исследования, направленного на изучение возможностей использования как аудиальных, так и визуальных особенностей восприятия учащимися музыкального текста в сфере общего музыкального образования на примере интерактивной обучающей системы «Soft Way to Mozart», разработанной Е. Хайнер в 2002 г. и апробированной в музыкальных школах и студиях 52-х стран мира. Наряду с такими интерактивными образовательными программами, как «Музыка в цифровом пространстве», «Музыка и информатика», «Мурзилка. Затерянная мелодия», «Скоро в школу. Развиваем музыкальные способности», «Играем с музыкой П.И. Чайковского. Щелкунчик», «Играем с музыкой Моцарта. Волшебная флейта», «Алиса и Времена года», «Clifford. Угадай мелодию», «Музыкальный класс. Играй и учись», Ear Master School, Ear Power, Sight-Singing Trainer и др., программа «Soft Way to Mozart» также использует широчайший спектр медийных возможностей, ставя во главу угла фундаментальные принципы и научные достижения именно Русской Школы Музыки [17].

Особенностью системы «Soft Way to Mozart» является то, что она активно внедряется именно в музыкально-текстовое поле (индивидуальные навыки работы, прежде всего с музыкальным текстом), позволяя интегрировать непосредственный аудиальный опыт с возможностью «отстраненного» анализа музыкальной нотации. Это позволяет обогатить художественное образование и воспитание обучаемых, способствует их духовно нравственному развитию, позволяет активно внедрять способствующие здоровьесберегающие образовательные технологии в совокупности с принципами высочайших образовательных стандартов. По сравнению с другими школами мира, такими как Судзуки, Ямаха, Английская королевская школа музыки, Harmony Road, Kindermusik, методические школы Бастьена, Альфреда, Файберс и др., только Русская Школа Музыки базируется на разработанной и апробированной веками академической основе. Большинство вышеперчисленных школ и методических систем не основаны на академических принципы преподавания сольфеджио, которое только в условиях Русской Школы Музыки является краеугольным камнем музыкального и культурного развития начинающих (постепенное, непрерывное и системное развитие конкретных навыков, таких, как написание музыкальные диктантов, слышание и считывание музыкального текста, транспонирование, основы гармонии и прикладной музыкальной теории и др.).

Центральной частью системы «Soft Way to Mozart» является специализированное программное обеспечение, необходимое условие функционирования которого – связь с цифровым клавишным музыкальным инструментом, осуществляемая посредством MIDI-интерфейса.

Выбор именно клавишного инструмента – клавира, синтезатора, MIDI -контроллера или фортепиано (в системе «Soft Way to Mozart» мы используем цифровые клавишные инструменты) был обусловлен откристализовавшимися традициями классического музыкального образования. Именно клавир способен передать многоголосную палитру музыкальной ткани наиболее точно. Клавишные инструменты в течение нескольких последних столетий являются своего рода звуковым эквивалентом многоголосного звучащего пространства. Многие жанры музыкальной культуры, основанные на использовании партитур, переведены в формат клавира для более широкого применения в исследовании музыкального материала и обучении ему.

Важнейшей особенностью МКТ является возможность непосредственного и одновременного взаимодействия не только всех мультимедийных структур, но и алгоритма взаимодействия этих структур с восприятием человека. Цифровые медийные технологии подняли процесс как визуального, так и аудиального восприятия музыкального потока на новый уровень: уровень высокой степени взаимодействия. Интеграция «горячего», непосредственного переживания с «холодным», аналитическим стала возможной благодаря тому, что «живое» время и опыт работы в «живом времени» стало единицей управляемой, а не стихийной, как это было ранее. В условиях системы «Soft Way to Mozart» человек может быть в поле «живого времени» и вне его путем нажатия клавиши синтезатора. Это позволило обогатить опыт аудиального восприятия возможностями визуального анализа, а также переосмысления разученного материала и оценки его с помощью встроенного статистический анализа.

Возможности педагогики, откристаллизовавшиеся в повседневной музыкальной педагогической практике - регистрация звуковых и ритмических погрешностей, метрическая и координационная стабильность, скорость зрительной, тактильной и аудиторной реакции при общении с музыкальным текстом – были изначально учтены в разработке системы «Soft Way to Mozart». Апробированные медийные средства, присущие МКТ (компьютерная графика, звуковая и графическая карты, анимация, интерактивные способы общения и др.) также нашли свое место в этой компьютерно-дидактической системе. Выбор клавира как части медийной системы МКТ обусловлен также визуальным тождеством, существующим между клавишным и нотным пространством.

Для реализации рассмотренных ранее принципов обучения была разработана программа повышения квалификации «Интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке (программа «Soft Way to Mozart»)» для системы дополнительного профессионального образования преподавателей музыкальных дисциплин ДМШ и ДШИ и учителей музыки общеобразовательных школ. Одна из основных задач обучения по данной программе – определение уровня понимания роли МКТ и мультимедийного цифрового инструментария в обучении навыкам игры на клавишных инструментах, развитии слуха и чтения с листа. Тематический план программы повышения квалификации включает изучение следующих тем:

1. Природа музыкальных способностей человека. Роль мотивации в обучении музыке и интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке. МКТ. Анализ различных школ мира с точки зрения подхода к обучению музыке. Роль Русской Школы Музыки в мировом музыкальном образовании. Интерактивность как фундамент мотивации в обучении. Особенности когнитивных функций человека. Роль когнитивного запроса в развитии знаний, умений и навыков.

2. Основные принципы построения курса обучения «Soft Way to Mozart». Нейропсихологические и физиологические особенности развития человека в процессе обучения музыке. Роль голоса в обучении музыке. Применение вокальной природы музыки в развитии слуха и голоса с помощью системы «Soft Way to Mozart». Развитие «музыкального зрения». Особенности зрительного восприятия музыкального текста и пути совершенствования «чтения» музыки с помощью системы «Soft Way to Mozart». Статистический анализ развития навыков с помощью системы измерения «Soft Way to Mozart». Музыка и лингвистика.

3. Основные составляющие интерактивной системы обучения «Soft Way to Mozart». Составляющие системы «Soft Way to Mozart»: специализированное программное обеспечение, взаимосвязь компьютера и синтезатора. Особенности применения системы «Soft Way to Mozart» в различных условиях и с различными группами обучаемых.

Преподаватели, успешно освоившие программу, овладели компетенциями, включающими в себя способность (и готовность): применять интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке в учебной деятельности; разрабатывать учебные и презентационные материалы для проведения занятий с использованием МКТ и интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке; вести занятия, используя современные МКТ и интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке; владеть навыками обучения музыке людей с ограниченными возможностями на основе использования МКТ и интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке; уметь создавать максимально эффективную среду для развития музыкальных и творческих способностей детей; способность применять современные методики и технологии организации и реализации образовательного процесса на различных образовательных ступенях в различных образовательных учреждениях (ПК-1); способность разрабатывать и реализовывать просветительские программы в целях популяризации научных знаний и культурных традиций (ПК-19); способность формировать художественно-культурную среду (ПК-21) и др.; а также "способность и готовность применять рациональные методы поиска, отбора, систематизации и использования информации; ориентирования в выпускаемой специальной учебно-методической литературе по профилю подготовки и смежным вопросам, анализировать различные методические системы и формулировать собственные принципы и методы обучения (ПК-28)"[13];«готовностью применять современные методики и технологии, методы диагностирования достижений обучающихся для обеспечения качества учебно-воспитательного процесса (ПК-13)» [14].

В процессе обучения была выявлена необходимость того, чтобы преподаватели:
 знали многоаспектность и многокомпонентость понятий «интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке» и «музыкально-компьютерные технологии» в контексте современного образования; методологические, психолого-педагогические, организационные и технологические аспекты использования интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке и МКТ в современном образовательном процессе; возможности применении интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке и МКТ в области художественно-эстетического образования детей.
 умели определять проблемы, связанные с достижением нового качества образования, и предлагать способы их решения в опоре на современные интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке и МКТ; анализировать и критически оценивать особенности развития образовательных систем в условиях функционирования высокотехнологичной информационной образовательной среды; разрабатывать модели образовательной деятельности в опоре на современные интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке и МКТ;
 владели: индивидуальными и групповыми технологиями работы с использованием интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке и МКТ в современном образовательном процессе; приемами использования возможностей интерактивных сетевых технологий обучения музыке и МКТ для обеспечения качества управления образовательным процессом; технологиями интерактивного обучения музыке в сетевом пространстве, формами организация виртуальных классов, курсов обучения, конкурсов, академических концертов в онлайновом режиме; способами представления результатов деятельности в опоре на современные интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке и МКТ.

В 2013-2014 учебном году на базе учебно-методической лаборатории «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии» РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена были проведены курсы повышения квалификации для преподавателей ДМШ и ДШИ, а также реализованы элементы дистанционного сопровождения по программе повышения квалификации «Интерактивные сетевые технологии обучения музыке (программа “Soft Way to Mozart”». Также в УМЛ «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии» было организовано обучение музыке на основе образовательной системы «Soft Way to Mozart» для студентов различных (немузыкальных) факультетов РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена в рамках проведения педагогического эксперимента при подготовке магистерской диссертации на тему: «Информационная образовательная среда как фактор формирования общекультурных компетенций студентов средствами МКТ» (магистерская программа «Информационные технологии в образовании», реализуемая на факультете информационных технологий РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена). Специализированное программное обеспечение было инсталлировано при поддержке Ресурсного центра Управления информатизации РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена. В работе со студентами и педагогами были использованы зрительные, зрительно-анимационные и другие интерактивные модификации, разработанные для системы «Soft Way to Mozart».

Использование МКТ и программы «Soft Way to Mozart» способствовало широкому развитию интереса к осознанному прочтению и исполнению фортепианной музыки у 100% студентов РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена, принявших участие в пилотировании системы. Все участники научились играть на фортепиано двумя руками по нотам и наизусть музыкальные произведения в условиях групповых занятий от 5 до 10 человек (с одним преподавателем). Большинство студентов (91%) успешно исполнили выученные произведения на акустическом фортепиано, продемонстрировав высокий уровень самооценки и уверенности в собственных силах. Большинство участников справилось с разучиванием пьес начальных классов ДМШ и приступило к разбору более сложных произведений (98%). Выбор визуальной презентации нотного письма основывался на личном выборе, связанном с предварительным опытом каждого студента и варьировался: некоторые выбрали оригинальную нотацию (54%), другие – упрощенную буквенную(46%).

Занятия с группой преподавателей ДМШ показало, что программа «Soft Way to Mozart» воспринимается педагогами-профессионалами как мультимедийная система, потенциально способная обогатить палитру занятий, обусловленных школьной программой. Знакомство с основными принципами системы «Soft Way to Mozart» вызвало понимание системы как традиционного, но модифицированного подхода в обучении ключевым навыкам игры на инструменте, чтения нот с листа, запоминания музыкальных произведений на более технологичном, интерактивном уровне.

Результаты педагогического исследования были представлены также на:

 XII Международной ежегодной научно-практической конференции «Современное музыкальное образование – 2013», проводимой совместно РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена и Санкт-Петербургской государственной консерваторией им. Н.А. Римского-Корсакова (декабрь 2013 г.);
 Международном семинаре-практикуме «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии в Школе цифрового века», проведённом на базе УМЛ «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии» (март 2014 г.);
 Ежегодной внутривузовской научно-практической конференции «Непрерывное педагогическое образование в современном мире: от исследовательского поиска к продуктивным решениям. Реализация образовательных программ в образовательной среде вуза» в РГПУ им. А.И. Герцена (март 2014 г.);
 Международной научно-практической конференции «Высокотехнологичная информационная образовательная среда» (апрель 2014 г.).

Участники семинара «Музыкально-компьютерные технологии в Школе цифрового века» - преподаватели музыкальных академий и педагоги музыкальных школ из России, Польши, Беларуси, Казахстана, Израиля, Испании, Коста-Рики, США, Турции - отметили, что МКТ и система «Soft Way to Mozart» работает в различных странах мира и на разных континентах одинаково эффективно. Дети увлечены разбором музыкальных произведений, они соревнуются в том, кто и сколько прочтет пьес при наименьшем количестве ошибок; оказывается не нужным фальшивый искусственный фантастический мир (вспомним тот бум, который вызывали в свое время компьютерные игрушки типа ‘Guitar Hero’ и ‘Garage Band’во всем мире, когда дети часами совершенствовали навыки игры на искусственном, специально сделанном только для такой игры, инструменте); музыкальное искусство является неисчерпаемым источником настоящих сокровищ, которые действительно обогащают каждого ребенка. Любовь к музыке и желание уметь играть самим на музыкальных инструментах у детей не только сохранились, но и усилились благодаря проведенным занятиям.

Педагоги отметили также, что музыканты должны учить детей играть Моцарта и Баха на «настоящей» клавиатуре и с помощью» настоящего» нотного текста; если чтение музыкального текста и игра на музыкальных инструментах станут популярными и повсеместными, то из широкой массы любителей обязательно откристаллизуется достаточно многочисленный контингент одаренных детей, и специалисты в музыкальных и общеобразовательных школах получат больше времени для того, чтобы воспитывать талантливых слушателей с развитым музыкальным мышлением, способных к творческому саморазвитию, посещающих филармонии, концертные залы и театры.

На примере системы «Soft Way to Mozart» оказалось возможным проследить, как МКТ способны интегрировать устоявшиеся доцифровые психологические модальности с новыми мультимедийными возможностями. Новые мультимедийные модули в режиме живого времени легко интегрируются с процессуальной природой музыкального языка и позволяют представить музыкальную нотацию в новом, динамическом качестве. Непосредственное восприятие музыкального потока сочетается с аналитическим, что в значительной мере усиливает дидактические возможности и переводит познавательный опыт обучающихся на качественно новый уровень развития. Синтез МКТ и модифицированной музыкальной нотации открывает новые дидактические возможности в использовании нотной записи, актуализации её использования в условиях цифрового века. Цифровое обогащение нотного письма с использованием системы «Soft Way to Mozart» может содействовать решению ряда проблем музыкального образования XXI в. и способствовать новому этапу развития музыки как одной из важнейших граней постижения мира.

Многогранность, глобальная применимость МКТ дают новые, по сути, безграничные возможности самореализации, стимулируют стремительное развитие интеллекта, поднимая обучение на новый уровень; совместимость с традиционными музыкальными технологиями создает условия для преемственности музыкальных эпох и стилей, их взаимопроникновения и синтеза, укрепляя интерес к музыкальной культуре в целом.

Результаты использования системы за сравнительно короткий промежуток времени показали, что медийное использование МКТ в сфере подачи аудиального и зрительного материала в совокупности с возможностью непосредственного взаимодействия с музыкальным текстом на тактильном уровне является тем путем, благодаря которому возможна интеграция «горячего» – непосредственного и «холодного» – аналитического опыта человека.
Музыка развивает мозг человека, и ничто так не содействует развитию творческих способностей, как желание петь, исполнять музыкальные произведения и непосредственное умение играть на музыкальном инструменте. Авторам статьи представляется, что сейчас, когда мир переживает очередной экономический и политический кризис, именно музыкальная культура, музыкальное образование, опирающееся на высокую духовность, толерантность, межкультурную коммуникацию, способно повлиять на уровень общественного сознания, поддерживать и развивать контакты между специалистами в различных областях знаний и классическим музыкальным искусством (см., например, [12]).

Возможности МКТ, обусловленные функционированием высокотехнологичной информационной образовательной среды, благоприятствуют, как никогда ранее, объединению людей различных стран и континентов, обогащению и усилению процессов сохранения и развития многовековых традиций музыкальной культуры в педагогической практике.

Авторы выражают благодарность Михаилу Сергеевичу Заливадному за ценные замечания и полезные советы, высказанные при подготовке статьи к публикации.

 

 

Список литературы:

1. Аракелова А.О. Отечественное образование в области музыкального искусства: исторический опыт, проблемы и пути развития: Автореф. дисс. ... д-ра искусствоведения. – Магнитогорск, 2012. 50 с.
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13. Приказ Министерства образования и науки РФ №1464 от 06.04.2012 г. «Об утверждении и введении в действие ФГОС ВПО по напр. подготовки 073100 Музыкально-инструментальное искусство (квалификация (степень) «бакалавр»)»
14. Приказ Министерства образования и науки РФ от 17 января 2011 г. N 46 «Об утверждении и введении в действие ФГОС ВПО по напр. подготовки 050100 Педагогическое образование (квалификация (степень) "бакалавр")»
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17. URL: www.softmozart.com / www.softmozart.ru

 

Источник: Вестник Орловского государственного университета. Сер.: Новые гуманитарные исследования. Федеральный научно-практический журнал, 2014. № 4 (39).

 

by Hellene Hiner

Because you go to a gym and use a stationary bicycle for cardiac exercise, does it mean that you can ride a real bike?  Of course not!  Because riding a bicycle involves a complex set of skills.  You do not learn how to balance on a stationary bicycle, yet this is a missing but necessary link in training to ride a real one.

What would happen if you try to ride a real bike after training on a stationary bike?  If you are an athletic type with a good sense of balance and coordination, it is less likely that you would be afraid of getting hurt if you fall off.  Someone less skilled, however, could be afraid of falling, or fearful of even trying.

This is exactly what has happened for many centuries with piano learning, because there is a missing but necessary link in music education, just as there is in the example of training for a race on a stationary bike. This link is the visual perception of score and keys.

Learning a complex set of skills requires that all the components be developed together from the very start to build a strong, unified network.  Losing any of the separate parts of the network, even for a short time, complicates the learning process for many students, except perhaps the most structured players.

Piano playing is about the relationship between the piano keys and musical notes – with plenty of looking and little actual seeing.

What is the difference between looking and seeing?  For a moment, imagine yourself for the first time looking at a sheet of piano music and knowing that it is in a language that you do not know.  Or imagine yourself standing in someone else’s kitchen looking for the saltshaker among all the spices on the shelf, but you are unable to see what the hostess could find with closed eyes.  When a student of any age first stares at the piano keys and a music score, he/she is blind in the same way you would be looking for the salt among all the spices on the shelf.  When a person cannot see, he/she needs to develop the skill to see, not the textbook knowledge about how to see things. Most piano students are constrained by music education that keeps them blind.  Many well-known schools try to deal with problem of music blindness differently, but all the approaches have the same foundation – bondage on muscle memory. This is exactly how we teach blind people.  How do the blind learn?  They learn by touch.  They also need assistance. 

Russian music educators deal with blindness by endlessly playing scales and finger exercises and studies.  Method books creators all over the world deal with blindness by offering 'hand position' curriculum, when hands and fingers are fastened to certain keys.  Some schools have declared that reading music is not necessary at the beginning, and that playing “by ear” is a more fruitful approach.  Some schools present beginners' sheets with finger numbers.  Some inventors create systems of training muscles by blindly chasing lit keys or moving colorful objects on a monitor screen.
Some inventors use interactive computer programs to try to teach the eyes the knowledge of what they need to see.

These methods are like the stationary bicycle! They all overlook one important component of the complex skill to play piano: visual/spatial integration. Therefore, if we want to make piano lessons more effective, our duty is to let people SEE the music notes and their relationship to the piano keys from the very first steps.

How to do it? It is not as hard as one might think!  I can be accomplished in the same way that we do it in day-to-day life.  When we deal with something that we have trouble seeing, we MARK it, underline it, or we add highlights and labels!  This helps our eyes to see.   But it is not enough to use colorful markers and color music notes. We have to do it in a logical and organized way, in a way that makes sense for our students!  When we classify similar looking things, we have to consider their outstanding features in order to add visual support for eyesight.  Look at shelves of spices in grocery stores! There are hundreds of the same looking jars, but they are organized in a way to help our eyes to get what we want: each jar has a name on it, a picture of the spice and they are placed in alphabetical order.

Many kids are capable of learning letters before they even go to school, because people created brightly marked alphabet letters for them. Remember, how we teach children with cards or blocks?  Each letter is presented in large print with pictures and colors that help children to see the connection between the abstract letter, picture and phonetic pronunciation. For example, kids see a picture of an apple, say 'apple' and figure out the letter A!

The same strategy could be used with music notes!  But when we chose, for example, 12 different colors for 12 different piano keys we miss the whole point of visual support in learning.   Can these 12 colors add to the fact that 12 different keys have 12 different sounds? Not really.  They simply add confusion.

Each music note has outstanding features. We have to determine all of them and make them obvious for the beginner's eyesight.

Each music note has outstanding features.

1. If spaces and lines are the same tracks, why don't we present them with the same width on elementary level? Kids won't think, that white track is a 'break between lines' any more!
2. If music notes are all either on spaces or on lines, why don't we color them in two contrast colors for beginners eyes to instantly catch the difference?
3. If Treble and Base Clefs are mostly for different hands, the best way to present them –is to give them different colors, too, but colors of let's say, a tree. It would help to explain gradual changes in pitch – from dark to light, from trunk to crown.
4. If music notes go up and down and corresponding keys – right and left, why don't we turn the Grand Staff sideways in elementary presentation to line notes with keys and to help beginners to SEE a straight link between them right away?
   
   
   
   
5. If music notes have only seven names for all the keys and sounds, why don't we place a label of these names on each note and a key? This way a beginner will SEE the relationship easily, not struggle looking for information.
   
   
   
   
6. If it is so hard to shift eyesight along all lines and spaces, why don't we use computer interactivity to support focus at the elementary stage and then moderately develop its ability to shift?

Many teachers and many parents are afraid to give beginners too much support, because they think that they'll become dependant upon them. But street signs didn't ever spoil any driver, especially when an area is unfamiliar and the road is shrouded by fog. Don't you remember your own frustration that the signs were too small and blurry, when you badly needed to see where to go?  But we never even look at the signs, once we know way.

Today is a time to decide whether we give our students a better tool to see music notes and piano keys and to learn effectively - or to keep them in darkness just because we learned by a different method.  For many former piano students it is so obvious what should be done!  But this a is very difficult decision to make for major music educational institutions, music publishers and music teachers. There is a lot of money already invested in method books and music sheets, all which attempt to explain to eyes what they ought to see and present the traditional Grand Staff from the very start. The major question here:  in whose best interests do we have to decide – in the interest of people who have  personal/financial reasons to maintain the status quo, or in the best interest of our kids?

By continuing music lessons in 'blind mode' millions of parents not only waste a lot of money in very slow and ineffective ways of teaching piano, they invest in ways of teaching music that could completely change their kids lives for the worse… by introducing frustration and failure at an early age.

This article was published in a book for educators How to Teach Solfeggio in the 21st Century by Moscow State Conservatory in 2006.

“Soft Way to Mozart” ® 

"Without music life would be a mistake" – Frederich Nitsche

The language of music is an international one, but its elements are not available to most people. Common methods of teaching music are in desperate need of reform. In the era of science and technology, less and less interest is being paid to advanced forms of music and music education. Technological progress calls for a progressive approach to music education that can both regenerate this interest and make it universal. This article is dedicated to the above mentioned ideas and to reformed ways of teaching music through computer technology.

Some ideas regarding social and historical preconditions of total musical ignorance

Throughout history, music education has been failing to reach the majority of people. Musical illiteracy, the inability to read and write music, has plagued human society for centuries. However, until recently, regard for music skills such as mastery of a music instrument or control and clarity of singing voice was generally very high.

Nevertheless during these “golden” centuries of the development of the professional branch of music education, music pedagogy was not the most popular subject when learning music. In scoffing at students’ lack of talent and their dilettante attitudes, music professionals beat the hands of their negligent pupils.  These rigid methods of music pedagogy focused on raising “new geniuses” and disregarding amateurs. Even well known composers in their memoirs have expressed irritation against the “hard of hearing” dilettanti they had had to teach to earn their living.  There was no other reward in their teaching.

Remember one of the “Small Tragedies” by Alexander Pushkin – “Mozart and Salieri.” There is a scene in which Mozart brings home a fiddler and asks him to perform “something by Mozart.” Salieri is indignant at the sight of such “mockery of an object of worship.” This is a very indicative scene in which keen Pushkin’s eye noticed the difference between genius’s and artisan’s attitudes towards the problem of dilettantism in music.

From today’s perspective that scene has a deeper more elaborate meaning.

The point is not only that Mozart was tolerant of the fiddler’s mistakes, but also that he had a wise attitude to music in general. One needs to be a genius in order to understand that a music composition is alive only while it is being performed, even if imperfectly.

Until the emergence of adequate sound-recording devices, human society needed gifted, bright performers, and as a rule there was no lack of listeners. Therefore, most of the music schools in Europe and later all over the world concentrated on training future virtuosos.

Music pedagogy, preoccupied with the problems of improving performers’ techniques, created entrance contests that were to eliminate the “hard of hearing” ones; it was not particularly interested in universal competence in music. Because of the methods of teaching students to play instruments, reading and writing music were so difficult for ordinary people that they would give it up early and join the army of ignorant dilettanti. As to gifted learners, they stood the test of the first steps in music not because of the existing systems of initial training but in spite of them.

This can be the very explanation for such a great amount of nonsense, mistakes and bad habits that have remained in music pedagogy until now.

The neglectful attitude to the vocal nature of music language is accepted in countries with a literal system of naming music notes. Music pedagogy in general is not able or willing to develop a student’s ear for music and the singing voice of people who do not possess a marked music aptitude (in spite of discoveries in this field made by some well-known pedagogues who could teach even hard of hearing persons to sing clearly). Music schools have a tendency to turn any beginner into a performing artist. Often there is no tolerance for mistakes and imperfect playing even at the very beginning of music studies.

All these drawbacks apply to both pro-western countries where the government does not support music education and the countries of the former socialist block where professional music training is supported by the state.

However, it should be mentioned that while in Russia and the other republics of the former USSR music schools, colleges and conservatories aimed only at perfecting professionals, at the same time there was a wide net of public music schools easily accessible and affordable to everyone. These circumstances contributed to more wide-spread music education than in countries with a capitalist system. Thus not only exceptionally gifted learners but also children with average music aptitude could attend music schools in the former USSR. In addition, the number of classes a child had in his/her schedule at a music school gave a much better chance of building a better foundation for music development. This, in turn, encouraged professionals to keep searching for new methods to improve the initial stages of music education. Gradually some of these attempts resulted in music classes being introduced into education programs of regular schools.

However, the division of music education into general (as a part of general education) and specialized (music schools and studios) as well as a selective approach to enrollment for music school did not encourage music pedagogy to create methods that would be aimed at teaching each child how to read music.  Although there are certain advantages to the Russian system of music education with its time-proven structure and methodology, even Russian music education has not managed to overcome the problem of overall musical illiteracy.

With technical progress, extracting music sounds by means of pressing the “Play” button on a record player or a tape-recorder has quenched people’s thirst for enriching their own lives with music. At the same time, their common musical ignorance has raised the demand for producing music that meets a lower level of expectation.  New standards were established in society as Chuck Berry succinctly his hit “Roll over, Beethoven!” when he said, “If they can’t teach us, then we can do without it.”  At the present time, this is the gist of the general public’s attitude toward music education.  Now a new generation of music performers and “composers” has appeared on stage.  Despite not being able to read or write music, these musicians are gaining popularity.

This is the reason why today interest in studying music in the USA is much lower than the popularity of sports or martial arts. The profession of a piano teacher is one of the least secure partly due to the high drop-out rate. According to the statistics printed in a Houston newspaper, publishing houses that issue materials for piano classes (materials  designed for several years of studies), sell 100 books for the first-year learners vs. 10 books for the second year and only one book for the third.

Any US federal or state program has rarely subsidized education for those studying professional piano and other music instruments. The low effectiveness and high cost (an average American cannot afford more than one individual lesson per week) bring about a further loss of interest in the subject. At schools, kindergartens or nursery care centers as well as in households of common Americans, one can hardly meet people who are able to play the piano or especially read music.

Children in Russia also have little possibility to learn the language of music during the lessons in non-music schools. Outdated methods of training at music schools make the majority of graduates only partially literate with added the aggravation of feeling extremely negative toward playing music for the rest of their lives.

As a result, both approaches to music education (self- or government-supported) still end up dividing society into a small stratum of talented professionals and the musically ignorant masses who are not even able to appreciate the skills of the former.

Thus, the essence of the problem is not just in the structure of financial support for music education but also in the lack of effectiveness of its methods. We will be able to save music only by the means of highly effective systems of teaching music at public schools and free access to knowledge for any child, no matter how musically gifted.  Furthermore, the survival of language of music in the world depends on that drastic measure.

However, human society is still strongly and dangerously convinced that music competence is available only for the talented.  And therefore, the problem of universal music education is assumed not to be very urgent or vital.  Somehow we don’t see a connection between empty philharmonic halls and packed stadiums with a frightening spiritual ignorance in most people.

Similarly, we fail to notice the causal relationship between teenage violence, drugs, and depression and music has a primitive connection with all human beings, so we shouldn't ignore its power

Even when people understand the catastrophic situation in music education, their efforts to “save music” are very often in vain.  For instance, the progressive community of the USA shows sincere concern for the state of music. Institutions, funds and associations are founded with the main aim of “saving music.”  However, the salvation of music in the opinion of these funds and societies consists of purchasing music instruments, manuals and notes. Most of the people running these organizations believe that all methods of music education have already invented been and do not need any revision.

However, there are no universal methods that will teach everyone (independent of their talents) to read and write music, so the resources to save music are spent without many results.  The salvation of music is out of the question without reforming music education, without close to universal music competence. The art of music can be saved and supported only by an army of competent listeners who have a highly developed music memory, ear and thinking, and who can read and write music texts.

Is it possible to love a language passionately without understanding it?

We often ask the question, “Is music education really necessary for people without music talent?”

Music in our opinion adds another dimension to our lives. This is a language that can connect people of different cultures and backgrounds, a language that opens up new horizons for everyone using it. This language becomes a great part of our life; it forms our consciousness and ideology. Recent research at the University of California, Irvine, conducted by now deceased Gordon Shaw has scientifically proven that music and piano studies develop the human brain and, above all, spatial and temporal reasoning.

Psychological discoveries have also verified a fact that is more incredible: there are no people deprived of an ear for music. And it is only natural.  A child is exposed to the language of music, like the spoken one, even while still in his/her mother’s belly. Human speech has a music component – intonation.  A newborn baby responds first of all to the intonation (the music part) of speech and only much later he/she begins to comprehend the meaning of words. It is natural to conclude that a child begins to understand the language of music much earlier than spoken language. Plato once said: “Music training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.” Why should we deprive anyone of the greatest tool in developing one’s soul and mind?

Where do the people who sing out of tune come from?

Scientists of the Moscow State University guided by A. N. Leontiev along with English scholars have discovered an interesting fact. There are two main mechanisms of sound perception: tonal perception – which basically allows us to differentiate between sound pitch— and timbre perception which lets us determine a sound’s timbre.  (More information can be found at http://yurpsy.by.ru/biblio/leontev/25.htm Leontiev, A. N. Lectures on general psychology. Moscow, 2000. Lection 25. Pitch hearing.)

Leontiev’s team tested a non-musician audience on its perception of two sounds of the same frequency but different timbre. For the English-speaking audience, they used “u” as in “boot” and long “ee” as in “beet.” Amazingly, 30% of people could always answered that “u” is a lower sound even though in reality it was sometimes an octave higher that the corresponding “ee.”  They took the tone-deaf group and made them do simple exercises on tonal perception then continued experiment. For 10-15 minutes a day that group practiced vocalizing a given sound produced by an electric device (in order to take the timbre out of the picture). The outcome of the experiment was sensational – previously tone-deaf group showed highly significant improvement. That led to a hypothesis about the way our perception is developed.  Early on, most of the interaction a child is involved in comes through speech. Perception that is being developed is mostly timbre based, rather than tone-based, particularly in Indo-European languages. The development of the tone-differentiating apparatus is very minimal. This is also supported by the fact that individuals from cultures whose languages use tone modulations in their speech (like Chinese Mandarin) have a better ability for tone recognition.

Thus, the human voice is not only an organ of perception but also an important instrument for the development of an ear for music. Even D. E. Ogorodnov (a famous Russian music teacher) argues that the human larynx is as sensitive to sounds as human hearing. By improving the voice with the help of a music instrument, we can infinitely perfect the learner’s capacity to perceive absolute pitch. It is impossible to cultivate music memory and music thinking without this ability.

Singing without notes does not help in developing music literacy. It does not assign any constant “names” to sounds and does not stimulate association between perceived sounds and the written language of music. Solfeggio is the basis of music literacy in children. Without it, more rigorous music development is impossible.

However, in today’s world, Solfeggio is not generally used in either public schools or private professional music studios.  This observation is particularly true in the countries with a so-called “literal” system of teaching.

“Solfeggio”?  But what is it?

The majority of people in the USA do not know what the term “Solfeggio” means in its first, classical meaning. Even modern English-American dictionaries spell this word differently: some of them with a single “g,” others – with double “g.” Music teachers are still discussing if one should say “Solfeggio” or “solfege.” Solfeggio is not a compulsory subject at American music studios and schools; Solfeggio training is not used in the classes of most private music teachers.  Actually, one can officially attend a Solfeggio class only at music colleges and universities.

However, the level of such classes is barely adequate. For example, students from the former USSR who have come to the USA by exchange complain regularly that the level of teaching Solfeggio at the universities is extremely low. Professors usually select repertoire for individual lessons in accordance with a student’s proficiency. At the same time during group studies at music colleges and conservatories, students are forced to write dictations of a complexity level corresponding to what 10-year-old fifth-graders of the average Russian music school have to deal with. Even the understanding of “Solfeggio” itself is different between Russia and the USA.

In Russia, Solfeggio is an important part of work with a student not only in the area of ear development and perfection of intonation but also in acquiring skills of music writing and sight-reading. In the USA and other countries with the “literal” system, “Solfeggio” is mostly based on the system developed by Zoltan Kodaly. That system amounts to nothing more than to training students the skills of singing in a chorus and using seven Italian syllables and seven hand signs.

Thus, sometimes during the first years of music study in grade schools in the USA, children are taught to sing simple melodies using the names of the notes of Solfeggio. The first sound of any key can be called “Do.” Kodaly used slightly modified syllables for his relative system (Jo, Le, Mi, Na, So, Ra, Ti) to separate it from the traditional notation, but this distinction is regarded as inessential in the countries with the “literal” system.

Using so-called “movable Do” has become the alpha and omega of Solfeggio training at American public schools. It is considered that the relative use of “Do” as the major stop to all the other major keys would lead to the development of stop-harmonic hearing. But at the same time, one’s ear for music is in no way connected with the inexhaustible source of music information – music’s written language. Students are limited to the repertoire learned from a teacher’s voice or hand signs. Without the ability to read new music material aloud or to oneself, learners’ music thinking is not developed properly; it is closed into the confines of a limited repertoire.

The unification of Kodaly’s system with Solfeggio into a single whole did not improve either one of the systems, but it definitely had a detrimental effect on Solfeggio as a training system.

Since music singing and intonating are part and parcel of training, teachers at music studios of the “literal” system try to sing music using alphabet letters. It is inconvenient, but they do not see another way to go about it. Professionals got used to believing that Solfeggio with “absolute Do” is excessively difficult for students to understand because there are no mnemonic associations connected with the logic of the verbal language. They think that it is more difficult to keep in mind names “Fa, La, Do, Mi” than the abbreviation “FACE” because it is generally accepted that we can build words of letters but Solfeggio syllables are no more than an abracadabra for human memory. I will discuss the validity of such speculations below.

During our presentations of the latest achievements in music education, music teachers often ask me questions concerning “fixed Do.” Many music teachers consider that the aim of using traditional, classical Solfeggio with different keys does not go beyond the development of a perfect ear. Most teachers in the USA know little about the vocal nature of the music language and about the intonation basis of music perception. Very few of them are able to cope with writing music dictations or singing music fragments at sight.

The literal naming of notes, popular in the USA, has divided music training into “singing” and “playing an instrument.”  As a rule, those who play an instrument read music texts using the above-mentioned mnemonic techniques of visual-logical learning. For example, to memorize the notes of the treble clef they use the phrase “Every Good Boy Does Fine”; to learn the notes between the staves they employ the abbreviation “FACE.”  The notes on the staves in the bass clef are learned with the phrase “Goofy Babies Do Funny Acts” and the notes in between – with “All Cows Eat Grass.”

Many “innovative teachers” in the USA create more and more fairy-tales and manuals as though they were competing with each other in inventing stories, which could draw a parallel between the world of notes and the world of letters. They believe that such linguistic discoveries can help beginners learn to read and write notes.  All these attempts look like works by medieval alchemists who were trying to find the formula for transforming stone into gold.

Music pedagogy restrains the development of note reading while trying to interpret the language of music by the means of a logic of verbal language. Although these devices seem to be attractive, simple and suitable for memorizing separate notes on the staff, this approach is one of the main reasons for the ineffectiveness of training to read music. It also delays children’s music development overall. This situation is caused by the following facts:

1.         First of all, literal note naming makes it impossible to teach children of younger preschool age to read and write music. Children’s ability to recognize letters and read is considered to be a necessary condition for studying music. It follows that it is not music that prepares a child’s brain for successful studies of other sciences, but quite the contrary.
2.         Secondly, sounds [ei, bi:, si:, di:, i:, ef, dзi:] are very unsuitable for singing and hardly help to develop the ear and voice while training to play an instrument. Singing a music fragment using letters is inconvenient for the voice and does not contribute to the connection between “singing – hearing – remembering.”
3.         All the other syllables in the literal system lean on the vowel [i:]. Though it is one of the basic speech tones, it is also one of the tensest. While pronouncing the vowel [i:], singer opens his jaws only 15 %. A voice, trying to sing the alphabet, cannot “rest” on any one of the syllables, five of which are [i:] and two – [e]. It is no wonder that teachers stay away from singing music texts and prefer regular music performance.

From the standpoint of comfort for vocal organs, the sounds of Solfeggio are more suitable for the larynx. They include different basic vowels – [o] (opening the jaw 50 %), [e] (opening the jaw 50 %), [a] (100 %). The vowels alternate with each other to provide a strong phonetic basis for the vocal cords. They require using different muscles of the larynx when singing. Uniqueness of pronunciation of each sound “name” helps the student remember the sound pitch both on the hearing, timbre level and on the muscular one.

Linguists consider the vowels [a, o, e, i:] to be fundamental and basic for human speech organs and the main vowels in all the languages. The sound [є] is regarded like a secondary one. Usage of the vowel [e] in the syllables [ei] and [ef] is unsuitable for singing not only because of the tension that pronunciation of the sound [e] creates in the vocal cords and only a partial opening of the jaws but also because the syllable itself is cut short by the consonant endings [j] or [f].

Studying the language of music in a literal system neglects the tonal nature of music and excludes the human larynx from developing. Such disregard can be considered among the greatest and the most destructive mistakes of modern music education in the countries adhering to the literal music system.

The literal system does not stimulate the development of music thinking and music memory. Sounds do not correspond to signs due to “translation difficulties” because signs are perceived with eyes and sounds – with ears and larynx.

People’s speech memory is much more advanced than their logical memory. Every child begins to assimilate and memorize his/her mother’s speech from his/her birth. Free command of Solfeggio language on the speech level – solmisation – allows beginners to read note texts easily. Attachment of notes to some artificially invented words and phrases minimizes development of music thinking.

To render justice it should be said that Solfeggio in its full variant, which is adopted at music schools, colleges and conservatories in the republics of the former USSR, is not a rule but an exception in the world of music pedagogy. Up until today, music has been taught in the public schools of the whole world as a superficially informative subject. For the most part, it is lessons ABOUT music, during which teachers do not usually train students in the command of the language of music.

However, even if lessons of Solfeggio or piano would be introduced as general classes in public schools, it is unlikely to improve something today. Nowadays, popular methods of teaching music are not able to effectively teach beginners with varying levels of music aptitude.

Primary music education without the “point of support.”

Well-known Moscow grade school teacher S. N. Lysenkova once wrote, “One does not simply like to study. One likes to study WELL.”  The methods of all successful teachers are based on the main common sense principle – respect for human ignorance.

Self-control, self-evaluation of each movement, decision and conclusion, and the possibility of seeing one’s own mistakes—these form the point of support in teaching any type of activity.

The point of support is the “zero” stage of teaching, which contains an impulse to the first step in subject study. This impulse is more intuitive than logical. As a rule, the point of support is based on knowledge and skills that have already been assimilated, and it serves as a “lever” for “lifting” the unknown material.

Remember, for example, the teaching aids of Maria Montessori, in which one can always check up one’s answer on the flip side of the card. The anxiety of some teachers that such prompting would “relax” students and would not teach them to “use their brains” does not stand up to criticism. There cannot be the first step without support. There will not be any trip without the first step. The point of support gives students reassurance and motivation to set themselves onto more and more difficult tasks. If there is no help and nowhere for it to come from, confusion and the inability to find the solution give rise to disappointment, diffidence, low self-esteem and an unwillingness to study further.

One of the striking examples of how we study with the help of the point of support is alphabet blocks. Take, for instance, a block with a picture of an apple. There is an abstract symbol near the apple and child knows that it is a letter. He/she also knows what an apple looks like and how one pronounces the word “apple.”  In most cases, he/she might know that there is the letter “A” in the alphabet as well.  All these things have already been heard and absorbed by his/her consciousness. In order to “pick up” new information – to learn the name of the abstract letter near the picture of an apple—the child must take only one step. The picture of an apple in this situation is the point of support, the link between the image of the letter and the pronunciation of the word that begins with this letter. As a result, the child’s consciousness copes with the unknown (the letter name) and assimilates new information.

Unfortunately, the world’s music pedagogy still has not worked out a training system in which there would be a natural point of support for developing the ability to read and write music. Many children who are reaching school age already know some if not all of the alphabet, and some of them can read fluently. However, we have never come across a single case when a child entering a music class was able to fluently sight read music compositions, because he/she had learned it from children’s sheet music. This situation demonstrates that the point of support in reading music has not been found yet.

Is it possible to create such a point of support or is music language too esoteric? Is it possible to explain the rules of the abstract music language to a completely inexperienced person–with the help of training material? Is it possible to learn the elements of reading and writing music without a school? How deeply and effectively can one study the language of music in a general school? How early are children able to learn to read and play music?

All these questions have been the subject of our research for more than 25 years in the area of music pedagogy in Ukraine and the USA. As a result of this work, we have created a new system of music training, which got its name – “Soft Way to Mozart” ® – in 2002. Today this program is already being used at tens of public and private schools and music studios is the USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Costa Rica, Mexico and Russia. Interest to this system is rapidly growing because of effective results of training.

The system “Soft Way to Mozart” ® is based on all the remarkable achievements of the world’s music and general pedagogy, which we have collected and systematized.  We tried to take into account the main laws of the psychology of music perception and the physiology of formation, necessary for the development and perfection of music skills. It is based on the classic Russian music school, on advanced concepts of outstanding teachers of the past and the present, and on the systems by Montessori and Suzuki. Computerization of the method has considerably improved sound and graphic possibilities of the training course and added interaction to further promote effectiveness

The ways of solving the problems of general music education

While working on our program, we tried to address the above-mentioned challenges of modern music education and also:
1)         Allow for effective group training
2)         Make the training course easily understood for pre-school children, in order for each child to be able to read and perform music using both hands, sing and write notes at the same time prior to learning the alphabet
3)         Create ways of developing the visual perception of music script in addition to singing Solfeggio and the ability to write music by hearing; to develop muscular coordination in order to perfect a student’s piano technique, which is necessary for forming a “music mind” (it will be discussed below) and for developing finite motor skills altogether.

“Soft Way to Mozart” ® may seem like a commercial computer game, just another fun training program for children and grown-ups, but it is not so. “Soft Way to Mozart” ® is a well thought-out and thoroughly systematized program aimed to fight against musical illiteracy. It is a system of teaching the language of music to people of different backgrounds and musical talent, the point of support in music education.

Role of the piano in formation and development of “music mind”

Drivers always remember the road better than passengers. One of the main theses of the system “Soft Way to Mozart” ® is the importance of the piano in the formation and the development of an ability to read music, to possess a musical ear and to think musically. As music is first of all a language, the most optimal organ of its “pronunciation” is a combination of voice and piano, but not the voice by itself.

This premise of this system is related to the fact that to develop thinking in any language (including music), one needs to get used to its elements, absorbing them into one’s consciousness. Until now it was generally accepted to consider singing a melody sufficient for developing musical thinking. However, when limiting the pronunciation of the language of music solely to a voice, we disregard the polyphonic nature of music. Moreover, we are filtering out people who are not able to produce the correct intonation.

In our method, the piano is the most important component of primary training. By “piano” we mean first of all the new generation of digital keyboards from five octave ones to grand pianos. We regard the piano as the point of support for developing a music mind because playing this instrument does not require an outstanding music talent and sound extraction does not demand any physical effort.

The piano is also the only instrument available to all, which unites reading the treble clef and the bass clef simultaneously. It also enables learners to develop a melodic and harmonic ear, a sense of rhythm both in class and at home. Certainly, this instrument was and still is the king of music education.

Electronic pianos are not really very inferior to acoustic instruments. They range in size, cost and sound quality. These instruments, like picture books, have unlimited tonal, meter and technological potential. But the main quality of this new generation of pianos is the possibility to link them up to computers to create an interactive element for teaching music.

Is it possible for a computer to teach the language of music?

After all it is only a machine, not a human!

The idea to connect a computer up to a music instrument and create a training program does not belong to us and it appeared in the 1980’s. For decades, manufacturers have been making electronic music instruments with MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) – a communication protocol between an electronic instrument and a computer. Several computer programs were developed, some that were integrated into electronic pianos and some that were computer-based. Most of these programs are electronic manuals for a self-directed education, using a few elements of interactivity. As a rule, computers are used in them mainly as the “interpreters” of music theory.

Our goal was to create an educational program for developing basic vocal and piano skills on the intuitive cognitive level. In our program, the computer became a learning partner rather than an interpreter. In order to achieve this goal, we integrated:
1)         speech memory
2)         the ability to distinguish colors and drawings
3)         ambidextrousness—the ability to use the fingers of both hands (Any two-year-old should be able to do it.)

 

A key principle of deduction (moving from the simple to the complicated, from concrete to abstract) was used in our system’s core.  The piano helped connect vocal, muscular and vision skills and build a basis for the developing the vocal, auditory, and music reasoning of every child.

Do you know music alphabet? Then read it back to front!

We believe that teaching the music alphabet is one of the fundamentals of music education.  However, the world’s music pedagogy has not yet decided what the music alphabet is and which symbols must represent it. It is often accepted (by analogy with the verbal language) that the music alphabet is seven basic notes in a Do-major key: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti.

However, music language has its own logics, different from the verbal one. There is no single direction in it. Therefore, the music alphabet should rather be: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do, Ti, La, Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, Do.

1) The language of music consists of modes, and the seven steps of these modes form seven systems of order notes. So, knowledge of all these seven basic systems and the ability to read them fluently in direct and reverse orders is a necessary basis for music literacy.
Practice has shown that it is useful and possible to teach pre-school children seven systems of the music alphabet in direct and reverse orders. (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do, Ti, La, Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, Do; Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do, Re, Do, Ti, La, Sol, Fa, Mi, Re; Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do, Re, Mi, Re, Do, Ti, La, Sol, Fa, Mi, etc.)

2). Notes can be ordered sequentially with none missing at every step, with every other one missing (Do, Mi, Sol, . . . ), with two missing (Do, Fa,Ti, . . . ), etc.
Knowledge of these regularities in direct and reverse orders starting with any of the seven sounds is as important as the skill of spelling.

At Russian music schools and studios, children sometimes memorize the music alphabet when they study the scales, the chords and the intervals.

For any child of preschool age, it is very important to learn the music alphabet on the articulation level because speech memory is being trained from birth. Music text learned on the articulation level is the first step towards developing an ear for music and a musical voice; it is the point of support in understanding the music organization of sounds. Our long-term experience has proved that learners, while memorizing a music composition, rely mostly on their own articulation. They begin to pronounce the memorized material correctly even though they might still be confused with the keys on the muscular level or they do not always reproduce its pitch clearly.

In regard to this, I would like to analyze the mnemonic device popular in the USA of memorizing the notes’ places on the grand staff using the alphabetical system. As I have mentioned above, there is no preferred direction in music language. Therefore, any attempt to attach the logic of the note sequence to the logic of phrase construction can as a whole decelerate reading music. For example, the phrase “Every Good Boy Does Fine” used widely in the USA is a witty prompting for recognition of the five notes on the staves of the treble clef.  However, this phrase also carries unnecessary meaning, which is likely to confuse students every time the association is used.

Memorizing the music alphabet must be based on pronouncing scales and learning note successions like verses. One does not need a bright music talent and a special music education to learn such material. Still it is as important as learning the alphabet. In “Soft Way to Mozart” ®, we use different games, songs, manuals and computer programs that help beginners learn the music alphabet on the level of automatic performance. This helps to considerably accelerate sight-reading while playing the piano and singing Solfeggio.

“Music vision” is an essential component of music literacy.

We consider that the development of people’s music vision is the next most important basic stage of primary music training. Music vision is the main instrument of “acquiring” new information from music literature. It is the ability of learners to perceive visually written note texts as a whole, not one note at a time. That’s why we have created a so-called “elementary presentation” of music texts. While developing the system, we tried to take into consideration the basic note writing problems of beginners and find ways around them with the help of stimulating graphics.

Beginners’ problems of visual perception of written notes and the ways of their solution.

Traditional notation is the alpha and omega for the beginner. It is usually accepted that children should be able to read music after they can read books.

There are very few methodologies of music education that do not rely on the ability to read as a requirement. Probably Dr. Suzuki Shinichi developed the most famous one. That methodology is mainly based on students’ hearing and their motor memory. Exercises that require visual perception of music text are introduced much later.

Partially, this plan is attributed to the fact that traditional music staff (as well as traditional music writing as a whole) is unfit for teaching music to little children. It is the carrier of purely music information. It could have been a very entertaining training tool indeed if in addition to note signs it used colors and pictures. The ability to recognize colors and shapes and the ability to recognize sounds complement each other in mastering new information – music writing.

How to incorporate these concepts in music methodology? Whoever is starting to learn music, first of all looks for cognitive associations from previous life experience. For example, many refer to learning how to read. The majority of beginners consider sheet music to be “books” with sounds instead of letters with most of the rules of reading applicable.

However, each letter of the alphabet is unique, and recognizing a letter happen by comparing it with other letters. But in music, note signs look very much alike, and it is much easier to remember them as part of the system. Book lines are parallel to one another and so are the note lines. However, the space between the lines of text is simply to separate one from the other while the space between the five lines of the music staff contains information. While reading, we typically shift our focus laterally from letter to letter. When reading a music part, we scatter our attention between several note lines with no breaks between them.

A beginner’s vision is not prepared for such an operation and needs some special training. Finally, rhythmic notation in music is more vivid and recognizable than the pitch notation. Nevertheless, for a person just starting to master the instrument the most important goal is finding a proper key, making the proper sound, and not worrying about the rhythm.

In order to help our students overcome these “visual” difficulties we decided to use some additional graphical presentation.

Color and sound?  Should we look for direct analogies?

How many colors should be used for the optimal coding of the staff?  This is a central question to using color as an educational tool in our system. Some teachers have tried to use color to differentiate between sounds of different pitch. This approach does not seem rational to us. Physiologically, we perceive sound and color using different senses: hearing and sight. An attempt to use sight to recognize sounds is unnatural which confuses our perception. That’s why we are using color only to aid in developing recognition of note signs, not sounds.

How do we decode music notation?

As already mentioned, one of the problems of reading music text is the similarity of note signs. In order For the beginner to understand the organization of the notes, we decided to systematize note shapes based on their position on or between the lines of the staff. Based on the association lines of the staff - “hard”, space between the lines – “gas”, we chose to contrasting colors: red for notes on the staff lines and blue for notes between the lines. Considering that most two-year-olds can tell a difference between the sexes, we called red notes “girls” and blue notes “boys.”

As anyone who reads music knows, notes are equivalent even though the lines of the staff and the spaces between them are not represented equally (lines are thin and white spaces are thick).  We emphasized their equivalence by making lines and spaces the same size.  This tactic helps beginners understand that white spaces are not spaces per se but equivalent lines for music notation.

To discriminate between the areas for the bass and treble clefs, we colored widened lines in contrasting colors. The choice of the actual colors: brown for the bass and green for the treble clef is not random and is based on the visual experience of the student. The composition of green and brown colors became the graphical point of support for understanding the very nature of music notation. The natural association of a tree helps children understand the principle of distributing sound between the registers. Sounds of the lowest register are written in the bass clef on additional lines, which we can compare to a tree’s roots. The lower register is known for its depth and richness of overtones – a tree’s trunk. Air is gradually filling the middle register – most of tree’s branches, and finally the high register is a tree’s crown – the additional note lines above.

Color-coding treble and bass keys helps graphically discriminate between the two different systems and prepares student’s sight to differentiate them on the subconscious level when reading.

Because simultaneous reading of tens of note lines is impossible for the unguided eye, we also numbered the lines. In contrast to the widely accepted bass clef enumeration system from bottom to top, we suggested a reversed one, from top to bottom with an additional line for the “middle C” – “Do” of the first octave marked by 0 and coloring it partially brown and partially green. The note staff started looking like a coordinate system.

Our system is also symmetrical (Pic. 1), and because “Do” of the second and third octaves is between the third and fourth lines, we used less intense blue-grayish color to shade it. This practice visually divides the field of the staff into four parts and helps a student find a point of support in each one of them.

The music reasoning of the child is tied together with the development of speech. Similarly to letter blocks we introduced pictures which help children to remember the notes. Whatever is drawn on the picture is phonetically associated with the name of the corresponding note. “Do” is represented by the picture of a door, “Re” – rain, “Mi”-mirror, “Fa” – farm, “Sol” – salt, “La” – ladder, “Ti” – tea. (Pic.3)

A picture is worth a thousand words; it can be not only a link between the note sign and its name, but also a link between pronunciation and singing a pitch. If we put a picture on each of the piano keys, the corresponding piano sound will help our voice find the correct pitch; if we also put the same picture next to the corresponding note sign, then it will become a link between sound, sign and pitch – a point of support in our methodology.

As a result, the modified staff became an abstract learning system in itself. All the necessary information for playing and reading music is contained in it. To unify music notation and the piano in one visual system, we devised green and brown piano key stickers, numbered them and placed a corresponding picture on each piano key. (pic. 2)

About the importance of “turns.”

When sight-reading at piano lessons, students experience a problem of different directions – right/left and up/down. Before playing the music test, a beginner should go through the following preparatory stages:
1.         Learn the placement of notes on the note staff (I see)
2.         Learn the placement of keys on the piano (I find)
3.         Build an association between the notes and keys (connection between I see and I find)

If we reverse the note staff 90° clockwise so that 5 green lines (treble clef) are to the right and 5 brown lines (bass clef) are to the left , we can visualize piano keys like the continuation of the staff and movement top-to-bottom will be associated with left-to-right. This elementary presentation of the note staff helps build the third stage of the learning process (connection between I see and I find) faster and more effectively. The advantage of such a presentation is difficult to overestimate. The graphics of the note staff become associated with the visual of the piano keyboard. Consequently, we have all the conditions for visual, motor and audio- perceptions working in unison from the first steps of studying music.

Especially important is that the reversal of the note staff 90° and its basic presentation promote the development of music vision. The speed of developed sight-reading allows hearing to recognize music thoughts without diverting attention to decoding a music score. The voice finds its point of support in the sound of the piano, which it uses to navigate itself to the right frequency.

All the above makes our senses work together to achieve the ultimate goal – developing music reasoning. By allowing students to concentrate on developing proper balance without deciphering music notation, this elementary presentation of the note staff also helps to get rid of one of the most detrimental problems in studying piano – a stiffness of the hands.

From the elementary music staff to the regular one.

We have tried to make the move from the elementary note staff to the traditional one as gradual and as understandable as possible. We have also tried to adhere to the golden rule of learning: a problem should have only one unknown. Thus, 6 versions of the note staff have been designed:

Version 1: A vertical note staff with red and blue notes, green and brown lines of the same width and pictures associated with the note names.  Unknown: placement of the keys corresponding to the notes. (pic. 4)

Version 2: The same but without pictures. Unknown: key names (pic. 5).

Version 3.
The same, but the note staff is horizontal. Pictures associated with the note names are placed on the notes to help the student get used to the reversal of the note staff. Unknown: note staff is not aligned with piano keys. We need spatial correlation. (pic. 6)

Version 4. The same, but again without pictures as in 2. Unknown: note. (pic. 7)

Version 5. A black and white note staff, thin lines with large note signs and simplified rhythmic notation. Unknown: sound longevity. (pic. 8)

Version 6. A traditional, black and white note staff.  Unknown: metric ornament and pauses. (рiс. 9).

The transfer from color-coded keys to the traditional keyboard is also done in stages:

1.         Learning the piano keyboard and developing coordination. Stickers are attached to the corresponding keys. (pic. 11)
2.         The piano space is almost mastered and coordination is improved. Special reminders behind the keys replace the stickers.
3.         Students play the piano without the reminders.

This methodology helped effective education of students of all ages at home and in school with a teacher or without. However, it was most effective only when translated to the language of computer graphics. Interactivity and computer visual capabilities became so natural to the system that it is hard to imagine it without them.

Development of fundamental music skills with the system “Soft Way to Mozart” ®.

Developing Coordination:
The system develops the manual dexterity of learners by means of constant interaction of hands and fingers with the keys of the instrument (and in theoretical games – with the keys of a computer). Learners themselves create their own training process when they extract visual and acoustical images by pressing the keys and following the visual signals on the monitor. These images and sounds develop their capacity to recognize notes, to read and sing Solfeggio at sight, to “cut” complicated fragments of the composition in order to learn the music text in parts, to perfect their playing technique and coordination of both hands, to learn the composition by heart and to work at rhythm.

In the system, there are elements of developing coordination of the hands even in mostly theoretical games, made only for a computer. In our methodology, the computer keyboard is used as a predecessor of the piano. Interaction with several computer keys is a preparatory way to playing the piano.

Thus, training on  reading rhythm on the basis of identifying a note’s duration uses only one computer key at a time, allowing learners to concentrate on reading and memorizing visual information (note’s duration) and to minimize coordination difficulties. That way, learners “play” a number of melodies with different rhythmical patterns by pressing down a single key. While working at perfecting theoretical knowledge (learning the music alphabet, connecting the music alphabet with the elementary presentation of the grand staff, learning the notes of the treble and bass clefs), the students are required by the program to use simple coordination of both hands; at the same time attention is concentrated primarily on memorizing, developing logical and spatial thinking and training the ear.

However, part of the suite of our programs designed for developing coordination is “Gentle Piano” – the principal program that teaches students to play certain music compositions. “Gentle Piano” is based on the elementary presentation method described above. Computer technologies make the program animated and interactive. In addition, we created a whole series of visual images that help in developing hand-eye coordination.

When users press the key corresponding to the note on the screen (in colored presentation the notes are drawn as flower buds), the buds blossom out quickly or slowly – depending on the duration of the note, which this flower represents. If users release the key earlier than they should, the blossoming-out stops and a dwarf peeps out of the flower and expresses his dissatisfaction. This graphic is devised for learners to develop the skill of using their hand weight in playing the piano and learning to follow the note’s duration intuitively, guided by their already acquired ear experience. The note’s ending is demonstrated on the screen by the appearance of a butterfly waving its wings. The butterfly shows the location of the finger pressing the key and helps determine the direction the melody moves with the next note appearing to the left of the butterfly, to its right or directly under it. With the help of butterflies, children should establish legato playing (“not losing butterflies from eyeshot”) and also foresee the direction the melody moves, reading notes as a unit, not one by one. Little spiders appear on the screen when the wrong key is pressed, identifying a mistake; they also indicate where fingers should be located on the keyboard (the grand staff).

With visual symbols, the computer program tackles all the difficulties of synchronizing a student’s hands. For example, there is a triad of whole notes in the left hand and there is a melody of quarters in the right. The chord looks on the screen like three blossoming flowers, which one must keep pressing (until the flowers have opened completely); at the same time, the flowers in the right hand blossom out four times more quickly, and butterflies appear on the screen, which is an indication for new notes to come.
It is very important that the program helps children learn music compositions with separate hands. While students are playing with one hand, the other is accompanying automatically. That allows children not only to perfect their technique for each hand, but also provides necessary visual and acoustic information. The technique helps a child’s consciousness keep the whole composition in sight while working on the particular parts.

Music Timing

We pay a special attention to music timing. All the games included in our software suite are based on the movement of objects, which represent different music sounds (objects with note names, fruits, flower buds, note symbols). By choosing the appropriate sounds (by pitch, visual qualities, similarity or difference, etc), a child is gaining the skills necessary for translating audio information into phonetic syllables, and then into notes, trying to stay within certain time intervals.

Time is calculated in our program with mathematical precision and plays an important part in skill development. Only upon achieving the fastest speed, can a student finish the game and become a “master.” While the student is learning music pieces, the system uses “chess” time. Real time is pictured as a ray of light. When a note is highlighted by it, an immediate, appropriate muscular response is required. The actual number on the tableau indicates any mistiming of the response.

More on graphics

The program is designed to gradually replace the color images of the “crutches” with the black and white ones. The replacement of colors or their hints provides additional information for focusing a child’s practice on the appropriate skill areas. This simplifies the education process, by concentrating it on the solution of specific problems. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of visual effects in memorizing music text. The traditional process of memorization is sometimes difficult due to a lack of self-discipline or motivation. With this program, the interactivity and entertainment of the computer graphics make memorizing much easier. Also, each hand’s animations are removed from the child’s field of sight and are shown only in the case of the correct reproduction or as a reminder when pressing the wrong key.

Solfeggio

As noted previously, the vocal nature of music leads to solmization. That’s why we introduced Solfeggio into all parts of the music activity – from the theoretical exercises to learning piano repertoire. The presence of note symbols in the 1st and 3rd versions of the note staff allows beginners to sing Solfeggio during their playing using the piano as a sound reference. Singing music fragments significantly improves the quality of playing and accelerates the memorization of music fragments. Accompaniment during singing develops harmonic hearing and improves music memory. Any task in our suite of programs is oriented in one way or another to help develop the user’s music hearing. However, some exercises are specifically designed to train music hearing. For example, in Solfeggio training, the user has to sing several melodies, memorize and write them down, and then find proper accompaniment. Computer animation helps students correct themselves.

On the verge of music literacy

Creating the elementary staff is, in our opinion, a breakthrough in music education. Beginners of any age can use it to quickly become musically literate. Notes with note staff and stickers should be used in nursery schools and kindergartens. Games for learning the music alphabet should be introduced at the same time. This elementary note staff can also be used in both public and music schools. That way, music literacy will enter every house and will be accessible to anyone.


Conclusion

The ability to translate educational methodology to the language of computer games turned our view on human music ability upside down. It showed that teaching a five-year-old to play a simple piece with both hands is not a matter of several months, but a matter of 15 minutes. It showed that three- and four-year-olds could freely read and write music, sing Solfeggio, play by heart Bach’s minuets prior to learning how to read and write. All you have to do is to get an electronic piano, connect it to the computer and voila – thirty elementary public school students in 45 minutes will learn more than music school students learn in several months. The dream of many outstanding music teachers about global music literacy can come true. A computer’s interactivity, objectivity, and unlimited audio and video capabilities can solve a multitude of problems from coordination to sight-reading and memory development. In “Soft Way to Mozart” ®, music education is not segmented in “Specialization,” “Solfeggio,” “Music Theory,” “Rhythm,” and “Music History.” All these disciplines are closely connected and make a universal system.

The program has been developed in the USA, although it is based on the achievements of world music pedagogy.  The knowledge and experience that the author has acquired during studying in Zhitomir’s Music College and Kharkiv University of the Arts, her experience in teaching piano, Solfeggio and theory of music in Ukraine and United States are all reflected in this software.  Our confidence that such a system is badly needed has been growing through the years. We hope that “Soft Way to Mozart” ® will help the next generations of teachers find optimal and fruitful ways of working with students, so that language of music will become universal and music art will continue flourishing, developing and becoming perfect.

 

Source: http://www.mosconsv.ru/ru/publication.aspx?id=122574

 

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The commonly accepted traditional methods of teaching beginners to play the piano are about as dangerous for the mentality of our children as throwing them alone into the middle of the ocean to teach them to swim. They are as painful as pulling teeth without anesthesia. Even though we love music and have an endless desire to learn the music language, the majority of the existing methods of teaching music instruments is a waste of time, money and energy for most people. This is because they were primarily designed for the low percentage of musically gifted people. As for the average person- these lessons aren't only useless, but may cause incurable wounds, and as a result could negatively affect the character of the learner and his perception of life in general.

This is exactly why there is an abundance of different systems and methods of teaching music, but only a little amount of people who can actually play and sight-read. Our society is sharply separated into the small stratum of music experts and all of the illiterate masses that can't read music at all. Piano lessons have been associated with so many disappointments passed from one generation to another that the amount of people that still want their children to study music decreases every year. This has had a negative impact on the development of music as a language, on music as a performing art and on the music industry in general. For example, according to the Blue Book of Pianos, since the year 1956, the total number of piano sales has dropped to half as much. Music publicists, performers and music teachers greatly suffer from a lack of interest from the general public to study music. However, the greatest damage that music illiteracy brings to public education is its impoverishing of our perception, limiting our imaginations, and weakening our minds and creativity. Currently, the crisis is being worsened by music recording technology, which has weakened the motivation of people to receive a music education at all. Why struggle, if in order to hear music all you have to do is push a button on a CD player?

The currently existing systems of teaching music are as absurd and ineffective as the teaching of literacy in the Middle Ages. Then, scholars learned in the Latin language, which was extraneous to their perceptions, by memorizing large texts from the teacher's drills. This is why teaching one to be literate was selective, individual, and was offered only to the most mature adults and teenagers. Only prodigies with extraordinary memory and analytical abilities were able to advance from mere acquaintance with a bunch of senseless sounds to their comprehension and structure. In the Middle Ages, it was also commonly believed that literacy was just for a selected few people and that global illiteracy wasn't to be questioned.

Luckily, today the methods of teaching children literacy have improved so drastically that we are able to teach every child to read and write from as young as 6 years old in a group setting in public schools. We've forgotten how literacy was earned in the Middle Ages long ago. More than that! Even recent existing methods (for example, the popular method in which children were required to memorize the shape of letters, rather than the sound, developed by Scott Foresman in the 50's-60's) are considered absurd.

However, music education is still based on the blunders related to the ignorance of the most important psychological rules of human perception. This throws us back onto educational traditions from several centuries ago, and puts the mentality of contemporary people in danger. The errors of music pedagogy are not as innocent as we used to think them. They contribute to the low self-esteem and disappointment of our children, and kill the desire to study music at all. This is the real reason for the total music illiteracy of people. The cutting of budgets in public music education is the only material proof of the general catastrophe.

Piano as a starting point for learning music

Piano could and should be the starting point of the music education for every person beginning from the age of 2 years old, because the piano is considered to be the 'king' of all instruments. I truly consider the piano to be the most important instrument of intellectual training for young children. The piano is the perfect tool for children's development at the preschooler's age.

• To produce a sound on the piano (for very small children, a keyboard) is not as hard and challenging as on other instruments.
• It doesn't require an established music ear to produce a correct sound, like the violin, but it is able to develop the music ear.
• The linear and regular placement of piano keys helps one to understand the rules of music notation.
• To play the piano, a musician has to use both hands equally, and every finger has to work as hard as the others.
• The necessity to apply the verticality of music notes to the horizontal layout of the piano keys promotes spatial thinking in the piano player.

Playing piano has the ability to develop symphonic thinking, like in an orchestra of multiple sounds. Because our perception of a chord is the perception of space in sounds, and vice versa, melody gives the feeling of time.

Considering all of these advantages, the piano could become a tutor for every child learning the music language from early childhood. All it takes is looking at the existing methods of teaching music with the eyes of men in the 21 century. We have to try to improve the way we teach music as soon as possible, because we have to stop the constraint on the mentalities of our children first.

I hope that you will be interested in reading the observations that I have managed to collect during the last 29 years of my music-pedagogical career. Perhaps, you will use this insight to decide: "Is it worth it to continue to defend the established principals of teaching music, or not?"

"Practice makes perfect" - what exactly is improving our existing music pedagogy

"Practice makes perfect" is a very popular saying among music teachers. This phrase is repeated so often that nobody realizes the teacher's meaning of it. You could perfect the act of plowing a field as much as you like, but if you forgot to plant any seeds into it, all of that work would be worthless. If we want to teach a child to swim, he'd have to spend a large amount of time in the water to learn. This is the only way to build swimming skills. If we teach a child to read fluently, he has to spend most of his time reading - not listening to our explanations of how to do so. Yet, in music class, children are still forced to study theory before they can even touch an instrument. For a beginner, music theory is something absolutely new and absurd. The child is unable to rely on his previous experience, since he has none. The 'practice' in this case results to nothing but mechanical drills. In most cases, the traditional pedagogy has had this exact drilling in mind when using the word "practice" - the most frustrating, laborious and ineffective work, with results that don't fairly reflect the time and energy invested.

Every child collects enough audio, visual, and tactile experience by perceiving sounds, images, and feelings firsthand. This experience can be used as a reliable basis for learning music and playing the piano. In order to learn anything, the person's active thinking process must be involved, based on his life experience. Yet traditional systems of teaching music cross all of the student's experience out, starting from a white page. The student is then stuffed with new and strange theory information and coded abstract images, which are alien to his perception. We all hate Spam and we put signs on our doors that say 'No soliciting'. Yet in music class, the teacher constantly solicits the minds of our children with needless theory Spam, which their perception does not require without any experience of reading music.

"Practice makes perfect" in this context sounds like a spell, like the only way out of a dead end situation. Cramming without the support of a child's established practical experience is the only help he has in handling new information without really understanding it. In order to properly understand and memorize, the student must find regularity and a principle of organization in the material. This is the reason children learn grammar rules in any language only after they've learned to speak it, and are capable of reading and writing comprehensively.

As a result, the memorization of music pieces is similar to memorizing a French poem by imitating the way it sounds while actually having no idea what it means. Children are not reading music, but drilling it bar by bar. When music is learned this way, it is more easily forgotten and doesn't build a solid enough base for the future music development of the child. This causes irretrievable damage to the mentality of the children, because they see that they put forth too much effort for only a tiny result. When learned with this much labor, the 'right' movements of the hands and fingers promote a 'perfectionism' complex. The students are horrified to play something new 'incorrectly' - with the wrong fingers, wrong hands and with no 'dynamics' approved by the teacher. After such tremendous inputs of time and energy into this kind of activity, the result is rather negative in the long run. The mechanically learned piece of music does not contribute to familiarity with the music language and does not help the student to understand it. The child is unable to see the whole picture because he gets too caught up with the minor details.

Does Every Good Boy really do fine?

The system of teaching theory brings more chaos to our children's minds. For example, the mnemonically based formula 'Every Good Boy Does Fine' slows the development of the recognition, differentiation and reading of music notes. The sounds of music move up and down in the forwards and backwards directions freely, and the preset sequence of English words (FACE) or sentences (All Cows Eat Grass) loses impact when flipped around. In fact, it prevents the development of fluent reading in beginners' minds. 'Good does boy every fine', 'fine every does good boy,' or 'ECAF,' just does not make any sense to students, who are aligned to the logic of speech.

On the other hand, it is absolutely necessarily for every beginner to know the order of music sounds and music keys back and forth, from any point on the Grand Staff the way we know our own room's plan enough to move through it in total darkness. We need to know this sequence in order to possess an awareness of music space and to be able to freely move in it. This is exactly why even when pressing only one key, a beginner has to picture which keys are around, in one step or in 2 steps, etc., in order to feel free to deliberately move in any direction and group the hands' muscles before the fingers can hit them precisely. But 'Every Good Boy Does Fine' does not give the child freedom to shift freely because it ties the child's mind to the short leash of the English phrase. This ploy is like a single, unstable rope over a precipice that music teachers use as a bridge for students who never developed the ability to balance.

How the 'traditional' way of teaching piano damages the development of the fine motor skills of beginners

People's skills are such a vulnerable area of their development that forcing progress could cause permanent damage. It is the same as forcefully opening a flower bud's petals before it is ready to do so itself. Despite the fact that the official motto of piano education is "Do it right from the very first," this pressure contradicts the very nature of the formation, development and perfection of skills. It is very sad that this dangerous outrage upon the nature of human muscle development is so welcomed in music pedagogy and maims one generation of people after another.

First, a child must learn to stand firmly on his feet and to keep his balance, before he can feel confident and strong enough to make his first step. Only after learning to walk is he capable of running and jumping, and only when all of these skills are developed is he ready to learn to dance with rhythm. No adult in his right mind would ever decide to teach a barely standing and bouncing toddler to perform ballet.

Considering the analogy of walking, there are certain stages of the development of piano fine motor skills:

• Finding the correct keys using any fingers
• Finding the correct keys with the proper fingers
• Playing keys with different duration (rhythm)
• Playing in consideration to the tempo and pulse
• Playing in consideration to the quality of the sounds (dynamics, character, etc.)

Under no circumstances should the child be pushed to the next level before he accomplishes the previous stage!

Another important rule is that in accordance with the nature of skill development, each person has to walk - not study the theory on how to do it. He has all the rights on earth to walk the way he can. A majority of people understands that at the first performance, any skill will reflect some clumsiness. For music pedagogy, this rule of nature is just a ligament. Most piano teachers demand even sounds, precise rhythm and an expressive performance with ideally rounded hands from even 3-year-old toddlers, who have just learned to find themselves on the piano keys!

When a child is learning to walk, he should be able to see the ground and to know where is he going and where he is located. It would be extremely cruel to cover the child's eyes in order to teach him to walk in the darkness and 'to feel' the ground without even getting a good look to begin with, forcing the child to imagine the road in his mind. However, during piano lessons, children are not allowed to see what the names are of the keys that they press. Instead of this, teachers demand that their students project the order of the keys in their minds. The coordination of the development and assimilation of the keyboard as a walking space for the fingers is offered to students with no support of vision.

Consideration of all of the additional demands leads to an overcharging of the child's perception and pushes his muscles to work under terrible stress. It is fraught with irreversible consequences not only for fine motor skill development, but also for the nervous system in general.

In order for you to understand how this exactly happens, imagine what life would be like if our city authorities had decided to take all of the street names down. Try to recall your own nerves' sensations in an unfamiliar neighborhood while trying to find a certain address, especially if you were running late. Children's nerves stay in that condition during piano lessons most of the time! A pain in the neck, lifted shoulders, clamped hands - all of this is a consequence of forceful treatment of muscle development with no consideration to the child's health.

It is a fact that the fear of getting hurt and the fear of uncertainty can often enslave our muscles. This defending reaction, given to us by nature, is used to free our reserves to solve the most urgent problems using analytical comprehension first. The griping muscles and injuries of young players are due to the stress of an informational overload. Thus, the abundance of analytical problems blocks the assimilation of coordination skills, causing the muscles to become rigid. This could cause many injuries to our children, from physical to spiritual, and could fasten many complexes, which are very influential to the formation of their personality.

How 'traditional' ways of teaching piano hold back the music ear development of children

Music was born from the human throat. Scientists, with the help of electronic devices, have proved that the throat participates in the process of music perception. More than that: the ear's and the voice's development are tightly interrelated. With the help of voice exercises, it is possible to develop one's music ear. In fact, even people who could not carry a tune before can earn the capability to sing and write advanced melodies by ear.

On the other hand, without voicing notions, it is impossible to develop an adequate thinking process. Saying new words and sentences out loud is the most natural and common method of mastering any language. This is why teaching children to read with phonics was a real break-through in public education. This smart approach helped our children to rely on their formed audio and vocal experience and it increased the effectiveness of reading by several times. With the help of phonic teaching, it is possible to teach even preschoolers how to read.

Bearing on the Alphabet system in music class is an obstacle to music education indeed, because it does not rely on the human voice and on articulation, but instead tries to thrust abstract symbols into sound. It creates artificial difficulties in the forming process of the music ear and thinking of children, because the very important organ of music perception is not involved in the process of study. In this scenario, a child is forced to learn with a skill that he never mastered - the skill of memorizing abstract symbols, which do not have anything to do with music sounds.

As a result, the formed system of music education produces 2 types of musically 'handicapped' people - the first type is capable of sight reading, but is unable to play by ear and improvise, and the second type can play everything by ear, but cannot read. The gap between musical sound and the child's perception of it with time becomes a disaster in the human mind, and half-educated musicians are very common.

Many teachers, however, understand the importance of singing during the process of learning music. They try to use the letters of the Alphabet as syllables for singing. But this is a very bad idea that can damage the underdeveloped and vulnerable vocal cords of children. Judge for yourself: 'Ei,' and 'Ef,' are two 'locked' syllables, based on the vowel 'A', which is one of the most uncomfortable for singing. Other syllables - 'Bi', 'Ci,','Di" 'Eee,' and 'Djee,' all use the same vowel 'E,' which is one of the most tensed, and come out through a clenched jaw, giving 5 notes out of 7 the same timber 'color.'

The most convenient and time-proven system of names for music notes is Solfegio, known as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol etc., created in the 10th century by Gvido from Arezzo (an Italian monk who also invented the Staff and notes). These syllables were developing and in use for 11 centuries. Solfegio offers the most balanced and comfortable vowels for the human throat. They are extremely helpful for vocal, ear, and music memory development along with the music perception of every individual, regardless of his music aptitude.

Without 'voicing' music the way children 'voice' words at the beginning of their study, they are being deprived of the opportunity to develop their music ear, memory and thinking. The alphabet names for notes were specially designed only for those who have an inborn talent, giving others little chance to succeed in learning the music language.

The 'Traditional' Grand Staff - is like 'War and Peace' for beginners

It is very easy to tell a children's book from a novel by its bright and colorful appearance, and large fonts and pictures used to help to understand the meaning of the writing visually. These 'hints' help the child to rely on the established skill of the visual world's perception with an opportunity to develop his abstract thinking and imagination. The texts for children who are just learning to read usually consist of small sentences, not volumetric paragraphs, and as a rule, do not have more than 5-7 lines of words on one page.

The amount of lines is sometimes crucial to the visual perception of any written material. Everybody knows that. This rule is followed by all people with common sense - teachers, editors, parents. Music pedagogy managed to ignore that rule also! There is nothing more complicated in understanding and comprehensive learning than the 'traditional' Grand Staff.

The Grand Staff's appearance is not just intimidating to children, but also to adults - beginners, too. The Grand Staff consists of a minimum of 10 lines and 12 spaces. Completely, there are 22 graphically similar lines of music text. For fluent reading, the beginner's eyes have to see and operate through all of these lines at once. According to the research of Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), the founder of memory psychology, the ability of our memory is limited and can't keep up with more than 7 new elements at the same time. In order to operate more elements with no stress, you have to gather them in-groups and systemize them. At the heart of any memorization (especially visual), if there aren't mechanical drills, one has to organize the materials. The art of memorization is in the ability to see and to think systematically.

However, it is very hard to understand the lines and spaces of the Grand Staff, because the graphics of it are not literally what they represent. In fact, the black, thin lines and white, wide spaces are equal stitches, like in chess. The beginner's mind sees thin black lines and thick spaces and gets the wrong impression: that the black lines are important stitches and the spaces are just breaks between them, like in books. The traditional black and white graphics of the Grand Staff hold meaning to professionals who have experience reading music. However, there are no hints for the eyes of beginners to determine what is most important and how to focus on it. More than that: the note duration graphic is more expressive than the note's pitch. But to beginners, who have an underdeveloped coordination and are busy looking for the correct keys, rhythm is not their top priority.

I don't know of any 'classical' method that's ever created learning materials capable of training the eyesight of beginners to determine each line or space on the fly. I never saw any flash cards or software meant to develop their vision to instantly recognize space and line notes with the help of a subsidiary graphic. I didn't see the use of colors and images that are capable of attracting the vision of a beginner as a decoder of abstract rules, as with pictures in children's books. Reading lines and spaces, however, is a crucial task because music notes share a similar appearance, and their difference in pitch can only be determined by their place on the black and white 'roads'.

Only the experienced eye of a musician has the ability to 'catch' all of the 22 tracks of coded music writing accurately, having enough of an attention span to see the lines of the Grand Staff volumetrically, in a system, and in graphical correlation with each other. For the vision of any child-beginner, though, there is no difference between the notes on the second or third line, or between two adjacent notes, whether they are on the same track or on a different one. Without this kind of 'music vision,' the human eye is nothing but useless dead weight, which can only confuse a beginner perceiving the music text.

The 'solution' to the blind situation described earlier- memorizing the notes with the help of words and phrases, places the entire load on the student's brain, rather than his visual perception. Along with all other loads, this is too much to handle for the child's mind, stretching its responsibilities to inconceivable limits.

If you find a music textbook with cheerful and fun pictures and colorfully presented 'rest signs,' Clefs, or other symbols of music writing, do not jump to the conclusion that it is a good book. Whimsical music notes disguised as people, animals or other creatures, and music lines colored like a rainbow aren't always able to teach your child to read music. First of all, colors CAN'T explain sounds. All of these attempts to color each note in 7 different ways to 'explain' their differences are nothing but a mess that is not going to help your child. Secondly, before you get too excited, try to analyze what the graphics are exactly about and to what senses they are applied. What is this book trying to explain? Is any of this visual 'fuzz' actually helping the child to 'decode' the Grand Staff principals, or is it only another element that 'stuffs' him with even more theory information? If so, all of these cute characters will only overload his mind. Please remember that this is only more 'Theory Spam,' which can lead to future disappointments.

The arrangement of notes on the Grand Staff constitutes a harmonious 'mirror' system, but the majority of students have no idea about it. This system is so vivid, simple and understandable, that it can always solve the question of memorizing and finding any note of any octave on the fly. The system per se is a music visual combined with an articulate alphabet, and to know the system is as important as knowing your multiplication tables in math, or the table of elements in chemistry. Thanks to this system, it is possible to find any key related to any note and to understand the logic of music space in general. But the majority of the 'traditional' methods prefer to teach music notes and music keys separately, one by one, without any reliance on the music system, denying our children any prospective.

"Playing with sheet music," or the apotheosis of struggles

Everyone knows that playing with sheet music is one of the most important stages of music education. In fact, that is the exact reason - to be able to play by reading sheet music - that the majority of people take piano lessons. They envision themselves being able to open any book and to fluently read it. This is the ground breaking difference and misunderstanding between the wide masses and piano teachers. For the masses, music is a language that they want to learn to play for themselves. For most music professionals, music is an art meant to be performed on stage for others. No English teacher will ever dare to make every child that is just beginning to learn how to spell words and read to do so while acting and using theatrical expressiveness. Maybe because when the whole world gained some literacy, it brought the realization to us that everybody should know how to read and write, but only the gifted can master these skills to the artistic level. In the music pedagogy, the idea that students should play artistically or not play at all is still cultivating. This puts all musically inclined and artistically gifted children on a podium and precipitates all others into the abyss of blame, making them ashamed of themselves, hurt and disappointed, and losing confidence.

The ways of teaching to play with sheet music itself are the most nonsensical in the world of pedagogy practice. All of the student's senses and skills, such as coordination, vision, ear and voice, are developed separately by the piano teachers while using theory and explanations as a major tool! Thus, the piano teacher practically explains to the child's hands how they are supposed to move and look when they touch piano keys. The child's ears are told what they are supposed to hear. The eyes are instructed on where they have to look and what they have to see, and the head is advised on what it has to think during the process. The child's voice does not get any attention at all most of the time, because it is considered unimportant.

If, after all these hours of explanations and incredible struggles, the child actually starts to play exercises and to guess the right notes, it does not bring him any closer to fluent sight reading. This is because he doesn't know how to do everything he learned separately at the same time. I do not know any nutritionist that would recommend feeding a child an enormous meal once a week. Yet, almost every piano teacher tries to shove all of the skills and knowledge into a child with total impunity, never stopping to ask, "isn't this too much for the child's comprehension and mental health?"

One of the oldest skills a child has ever developed from birth is copying. Through imitation, children learn to talk and to move by looking at adults and 'mirroring' them. This is why the direction of the lines of text and the writing of them is the same. 'Monkey see, monkey do,' is the smartest way to teach kids new tricks and to perceive the world. When it comes to playing the piano with sheet music, things aren't done this way at all. Music notes are placed on the music Staff vertically while the corresponding keys sit horizontally. This is the last drop for many beginners, leaving them completely lost and frustrated. Already overloaded with way too many puzzles and abstract theory information, they just can't handle any more!

Developed separately, all of the child's skills start to conflict with each other, rather than work as a team to handle the task. They hold the progress of reading (which is not already fluent) even further down. Previously learned piano exercises provide absolutely no help for note reading and theory, while knowledge of theory alone has nothing to do with hand coordination. The music ear can't participate in this activity at all, because while producing one note at a time, it is hard to hear any music. As a result, the child, 'prepared' to play with the music sheet feels like a puppy with a huge boulder of information tied to his neck. Struggling to make it from one note to another, and trying to find the corresponding key to each note, beginners aren't left with too many choices: either quit all this unpleasant business, or start to drill music text while cramming. In both cases, they lose the inspiration to study music and to love it for the rest of their lives.

The vision, coordination, hearing and thinking of any person must interact in a rational and healthy balance. Any educated professional should understand that while focusing on one thing, you cannot equally focus on another. But whatever the plan is, skills have to be at the heart of every lesson, and especially piano lessons! There are two very important rules of didactics: '1. You have to move gradually from the simple to the more complicated and 2. You have to move gradually from the specific to the abstract.' These rules were selected by the world's pedagogy centuries ago, and following them is essential.

Every system of teaching music that is offered to our children to play with notes using the traditional black and white Grand Staff is in fact violating these didactic rules. It makes the balance between the development of coordination skills, vision, and abstract thinking practically impossible. The demand to develop coordination skills in conjunction with music reading at an equal proportion is the same as downloading modern, advanced computer games on a Pentium I.

The only solution to this dilemma is to find a healthy balance that could be a simplified presentation of the Grand Staff, with as many visual hints for the beginner's eyes and coordination as possible. The more we develop these basic skills, the more room we free for a more advanced level of education - the thinking process and the ability to analyze all of the information. The skills of playing piano by no means can conflict with each other or to get in each other's way. It is very important to move beginners to the more advanced steps of the regular Grand Staff gradually, and to keep the balance between mental thinking and motor and visual skills in a stable and healthy proportion. This is the main principal of organizing the smartest and stress-free curriculum for children and beginners of any age in the world's pedagogy.

The Suffering, that became a law

Children love to learn new things successfully. Otherwise, they do not like to learn at all. Traditional music pedagogy, for most of its long existence, has lost several generations of people and has contributed to the total music illiteracy in the world. It has cultivated musically illiterate presidents and governments and it didn't accomplish anything better than a tricky explanation of its failure. According to this explanation, the struggles that our children go through by dealing with the absurd teaching of music fundamentals are the only right and legitimate way of learning. As any dentist would say, that it is as professional as pulling teeth without anesthesia.

For the long time that people have existed, we've gotten used to thinking that the aptitude to study music is a God-given gift. God is much more generous than people used to think of Him. The ability to hear and differentiate music sounds, sing and play with sheet music and to write music down by ear can be earned by every average person. It is possible to learn all these skills in group settings in public schools. I understand this is hard to believe. Yet, once upon a time, it was hard to believe that you could get to New York from Houston in only a couple of hours, to speak with a friend in another part of town through a tube, or to have a box that shows movies. It only takes desire to fix the problem with music education now, and music literacy will become a part of everyone's life. Most importantly, we need the motivation to make it happen, and the courage to understand that these changes are for the better.