Discussing Music Methods: Fixed/Movable Do, Note Color/IMages, etc

[SoftMozart]

Hi, Tamsyn!

What a wonderful idea! Thank you very much for starting this thread!

Here is what I meant by referring to Alice in Wonderland :

I compare teaching (not just music - teaching in general) to medicine. When we go to a doctor with a problem, we have to pass certain tests to know, what is wrong with us. Doctors have to graduate school, to learn everything about our bodies, our physiology, chemistry etc, pass many exams, work as intern to be able to heal us and to give us correct medicine or suggestions.

We - teachers - have a lot to do with our students minds. Music teachers also have a lot to do with students' minds, but on the top of that with their physiology, psychology, neurology and many other features. Unfortunately, in music schools around the globe none of these subjects ever been considered seriously.

But without such knowledge our work is like doctor's treatment in Medieval times. You provide phlebotomy and some patience will get better, some will get worse and some will past away.

My point is: teaching can't be 'philosophy' any longer. It has to be based on specific knowledge about our own bodies and our own minds. Despite all the differences we all are built very much the same way. We hear and see things to our certain limits, our neurons have certain ways of connections, our motor skills are being developed in conjunction with many parameters.

If to take this important basic knowledge to consideration, every 'method' can be easily specified and measured. This kind of knowledge empower us to KNOW, where we want to go and where we want to be with our students from the very first lesson and in what direction first steps should be made

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I split off the topic from the original thread and then saw you guys also started a similar topic, as well. So, I merged them all together here for the sake of efficiency. I apologize it if caused anyone confusion, just keeping the boards tidy.

Carry on!

[Tamsyn]

Thank you, TMT.  The board is indeed much more tidy now.  We appreciate your moderating efforts.   

@SoftMozart.  That makes sense.  It was just a little out of context for me.  I am also wondering what you mean by  "eye focus in consideration with music notation".  I'm guessing (correct me if I'm wrong) it refers to gaining the ability to quickly "take in" the different notes, as your video suggests.  Many musicians get stuck and overwhelmed when they see all of the notes.  The picture of a boxing glove coming out of the piano is appropriately placed, and it made my husband laugh.     I admit that rotating the staff so it's vertical, with a computer program that gives instant feedback, is ingenious.

I don't think I'm like the naive Alice, not knowing that this is the ultimate goal.  SoftMozart may be a fantastic way to get there, like flying a plane.  It could be argued that way I mentioned of getting there, with practice and with time, could is more time consuming, like driving there by car, but I did, nevertheless have a destination in mind.  Learning to recognize patterns like triads and chord conversions, as well as finding the patterns in music, could upgrade us to a high-speed train.  I would be asking our favorite Cheshire cat how to get to a specific location.  I've looked a lot at your materials, especially this week, and I like the way you address this need to quickly take it all in.  My husband watched your video and said, "THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I STRUGGLE WITH!!"

@ Everyone, has anyone heard of "Simply Music"?  A lot of homeschoolers in my community are ranting and raving over this method.  None of them are from the Early Learning camp.  The premise of Simply Music is that we learn to talk before we learn to read (not in our home! ), so we should teach our students to play before before they learn how to read.  Students learn to play a few songs without sheet music, gain confidence of PLAYING music, and with that confidence, the need for learning to read music is created.  I'm not saying that I subscribe to this method, but I can't deny that it has helped a lot of people, and is probably superior to traditional lessons.  I applied this principle with my piano students by teaching them simple songs like chopsticks and Heart and Soul, because, let's face it, everybody plays those songs, and they wanted to be able to play what everyone else was playing, to "speak" the cool lingo, so to speak.  I know a few Jazz pianists that can't read music, but follow lead chart notation well, which was enough for them to get by in the band, and these two I have in mind played exceptionally well.  To be in the advanced band in college, however, he needed to know how to read music, and after one semester of lessons, he had picked it up.  Is that argument akin to saying that an 8-year-old will pick up reading eventually, probably yes.  It's a logical fallacy, and I'm not saying that we should leave it to chance.  Certainly not, I'm teaching my kids to read music!  My only point is that there is more than one way to become an accomplished pianist.  For this reason, I'm teaching my children to read lead sheet notation as well.  I don't think Simply Music is a Lead Sheet method, that's just how I envision myself applying the idea of playing the piano without reading a lot of black notes, with my children.  I loved playing Jazz piano when I was in college, and it's an entirely different animal compared to classical music.  Sadly, I'm very rusty with both methods now.  That's what happens when you don't practice. 

[Skylark]

Tamsyn,

I was following the discussion here, but did not had a chance to participate, as we just had our third baby few days ago 

But it is very interesting you've mentioned about playing music first and learning to read music later.

My husband plays music professionally, he played in bands, on TV, for video productions, etc

He is incredible guitar player and vocalist, he is nit just able to play any melody (regardless of how complex I t is) after hearing it once, but he is able to join in playing lead guitar in a band, improvising, etc, even if he neve played with them before. He started playing when he was 6 years old, and performed on national TV when he was 11 and up.

An incredible thing is - he never learned to read music, not until teaching our LOs with LMs  , he is enjoying teaching with LMs, and feels it is the perfect start for kids music education and development.

He also feels from his personal experience that the approach you have described in Simply Music is more natural one and makes it easier for the kids, rather then the one of having to teach children read music before they can perform anything at all.

On the opposite side of spectrum - I finished music school, was able to read basically any piece of music, but I can nt play anything if I do not have music sheet in front of me ( or if I have not practiced or memorized certain piece) and I definitely can't improvise

So obviously my husband and I are two direct opposites as far as music concerns, and personally I think there should be sme kind f a happy medium there. So having LMs as fun, easy effective Way to give my young children basics of music theory, and providing them with lots of opportunities for improvising and trying their musical ear and imagination is my plan at this point. I am not interested in limiting them to learning just one music instrument, but rather train their music ear, appreciation and understanding and letting them to chose instrument later....

Just thought to chime in with my little comment

Kindly forgive me for typost - doing it with my left hand while holding our new LO 

[Tamsyn]

Congratulations Skylark!  Yay!!!!

What an interesting contrast between you and your husband.  I was like you all through high school, and luckily my piano teacher gave me a very good overview of music theory that prepared me very well for theory in college- that was my easy A course thanks to her.  The only reason why I learned to improvise and do Jazz is because my family moved and I went with them and attended a small university that was desperate for a pianist for their jazz ensembles.  I would never have looked into it except the professor heard about me, sought me out, and offered me a scholarship if I would take a crash course.  Between the private lessons he gave me and the two jazz ensembles, I picked up a lot that semester.  I was incredibly lucky to have that experience (although I'm not sure I believe in luck.  ).  I worked really hard that semester to gain that skill.  Later I took jazz improvisation and was in the lesser of two jazz ensembles at a bigger university where I got my degree.  I only bring that up to point out that learning to improvise and read lead-sheet is a skill that can be learned later, it's never too late!

[SoftMozart]

Tamsyn,
Our software is not just a learning tool, but also a digital device that provide most accurate measurements of skills' development.
We have 2 numbers on the right and left corners of the screen that count precise amount of correct notes played and time delays that any players make. We also have different system embedded into the software to be able to switch from Do Re Mi to ABC. We even have some colors and fruits assigned to 7 notes of octave at the very beginning stage in some theory/ear training games.

I was collecting the data with kids of different age and music aptitude, with adults beginners and with kids with special needs. This data helped me to understand that our skills are going through the same stages of building and development,  each individual has his/her own pace, BUT  it also helped me to understand, what works better, faster and what's not. I won't write all the research here. I wrote many articles and book about it.

The bottom line is: our eyes built the way it built and teaching how to read music in a blind mode is not productive task.
Playing before reading, hand positions, method books, Suzuki tapes and parents' engagements, Russian school of music with tons of hours of education simply CAN'T help all the population to read music score fluently like we read books.

When people enlarged each letter and placed the picture phonetically connected next to it, when they developed picture books, chapter books and novel formats for different readers, table turn around for literacy. They simply stopped to fight with the nature of human eye and now nobody can say: I am great writer or actor, but I can't read. Nobody! But it happened a lot in the past.

Soft Mozart is exactly the same! Instead of trying to adjust human's eye to 'user unfriendly' Grand Staff, we adjusted Grand Staff to human eye.

Unfortunately, this invention has a name and a patent unlike the invention of ABC. But yes, it is ONLY effective way for anybody to learn to read music and play piano.

Here is the video of a girl with cerebral paralysis, who develop her left hand. I feel like Soft Mozart was underestimated way too long and under appreciated, because millions of people still miss opportunity without the invention. This is why I come strong and want to get my point across.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wtl-EzdzFEo&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/wtl-EzdzFEo&rel=1</a>!

[SoftMozart]

PS
The goal of music education suppose to be music literacy. We lack listeners, we loose culture. Talented musicians learn despite, but they need educated audience to enjoy their talents.

[Tamsyn]

Now I'm going to change my focus.  Since the thread title has "Fixed/Movable Do" in it, I'm going to feel free to share more about why I have chosen "Movable Do".  Let me preface this by saying that fixed do works fine too, and that if you know little about music and are doing LMS and/or SoftMozart, with Fixed Do built in to the software, I'm not trying to talk you out of just using that. 

Having said that, I'm doing LMS with my children, and will soon need to put in a lot of work to adapt it for Movable Do.  It would have been much easier for me to just use Fixed Do.  I shudder when I think that I almost didn't buy LMS, thinking it would be incompatible with my desired approach.  That would have been a costly mistake, as my children are thriving with it.  Frankly, I'm now looking into SoftMozart again too, now that I know I could use letter-names and skip the fixed-do aspect of it.  We'll see if we can afford it early next year when we are out of debt.  Anyway, it would have been much easier for me to just go with Fixed Do, so I did some "soul searching" and read everything I could on the topic.  If you want a more exhaustive look at my reasoning, I refer you again to the post I did on the subject.  http://www.teaching-children-music.com/2012/10/movable-do-vs-fixed-do.html.  At the bottom, I referenced a few other articles I loved for further reading.

Allow me to summarize my perspective here.

For me, it's not about whether I teach my children with Movable Do or Fixed Do as much as that we have a solid system for teaching absolute pitch and relative pitch.  Have a quick look at this article, with his pictures: http://www.perfectpitch.com/perfectrelative.htm#Both.  I'm not endorsing his product per-say, I haven't used it, but I love this analogy.  Perfect pitch (or at least a solid understanding of absolute pitch) is similar to seeing in color, and relative pitch is similar to seeing clearly.  You need both to get the whole picture.  His article doesn't touch on solfege at all, which is valuable for my argument.

We may take for granted the acquisition of relative pitch, since this seems to be the skill more musicians develop, as well as the general populace, but it's not a skill that a fairy godmother comes and bestows upon the musically inclined.  It has to be learned, and especially in an early-learning environment where they have no past experience to draw from, I want to make sure that I teach it.  I'll illustrate this by sharing the story of a little girl (I can't find the link) who had perfect pitch but not relative pitch.  Look at these two examples,

"C,C,G,G,AA,AA,G,  F,F,E,E,D,D,C".
"D,D,A,A,B,B,A,  G,G,F#,F#,E,E,D".

Do they look similar to you?  If you play them both on an piano, the first one is "Baa Baa Black Sheep", and the second is the "ABC song".  This young girl was told that "Baa Baa" and "ABC" both had the same melody, isn't that neat?  She had learned one in the key of "C", and the other in the key of "D", and she adamantly contended that they were nothing alike.  This girl had perfect pitch, but she had a poor understanding of relative pitch.  Luckily for this 2-year-old, she had plenty of time to develop the skill.  I only wish to point out that developing relative pitch isn't a given, especially for an early learner.

Without digging too deep into music philosophy, theory, and pedagogy, I assert that it is vitally important for the musically literate child to develop both absolute and relative pitch.  The question should not be "which one is more important?", but rather, "How can I most effectively teach both?"

How then, do we teach each of these skills?

For Absolute pitch, the most common methods are:

• Letter names, such as C,E,G
• Fixed Do (C is always Do)
• Music notation on the staff (there are many musicians who read music and play, that don't understand the "ABC" or "Do Re Mi")

Little Musician uses all three, as does Soft Mozart.

For Relative pitch, the most common methods are:

• Movable Do
• Numbering systems for the scale degrees
• Complex theory references that describe function, such as "Tonic", "Supertonic", "Leading Tone", and "Dominant"
• Musical analysis of the scale, such as "whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step"
• Listening exercises
  
• All too often, leaving this skill acquisition to chance, which often works for a singer, but rarely works for the instrumentalist.

Take a look at these lists, add too them as you will, it's not exhaustive, and make sure that you have a good system in place for teaching both relative and absolute pitch.  That's the ultimate goal, the final destination if you will.  Do you have a map?

My map looks like this (again, not exhaustive):

To teach absolute pitch, I am using "ABC", and, obviously, music notation on the staff.  These systems are precise, effective, and well integrated into my culture.

To teach relative pitch, I am using "Movable Do" and listening exercises for my beginning students, although I do have a plan for incorporating the others into their education later (all except leaving it up to chance!).  Numbering systems work up to a point, but sight-singing numbers becomes very tricky when accidentals come into play, just as sight-singing with letter names becomes tricky for the same reason. 

Sight-singing is easiest for the vocalist when solfege is used, whether you are in fixed or movable do.  Enunciating "one, two, three, four, five, six, and sev" (seven is usually shortened for sight-singing purposes) is more difficult than "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti", and likewise, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G can also be tiring for the voice since they all rhyme with "ee" (not the most comfortable vowel), except for "F", which ends in an unvoiced consonant.  Solfege ends with a vowel, and the singer gets to sing different vowels, which is much easier for the voice.  For this reason, I applaud the use of solfege, whether with fixed or movable do.

The instrumentalist can be precise on their instrument without having to stumble through awkward syllables.  They see a "B-flat" on the staff, they play it, and can quickly move on to "A" without the stumbling block of having to sing "flat".  Letter names work well for the instrumentalist for establishing absolute pitch.

The vocalist can be precise with solfege, using movable "Do", no matter what key they are in.  It is easier for them to transpose "Twinkle Twinkle" into different keys while keeping the same syllables, "Do, Do, So, So, La, La, So".

The tricky thing about using fixed do for the vocalist is the need to decide what to do with accidentals. 

With movable do, the most common syllables will be 'Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti", with "Fi" for "Fa-sharp", and "Si" for "So-sharp" trailing close behind.  The interval between "Mi" and "Fa" is always be a minor second, and "Ti" smoothly resolves into "Do".

For the fixed do crowd, you can either make every "C", whether it be "C#", "Cb", "Cbb", "C##", or just "C" be "Do."  The singer doesn't have to switch around with "Di" and "Me", but now now has to intuit what the accidentals are.  "Mi" and "Fa" are not always a half step apart.

To compensate for this shortcoming, the "fixed do" musician may alter the syllables, as LMS does.  "Mi" is always "E", and "Me" is always "Eb", and so on.  This works to a point, especially as you stick with the easier keys of "C", "F", and "G", but ultimately you need to branch out, and this alteration can become incredibly tricky for the vocalist.

The movable "do" singer will sing the A major scale, and the Ab major scale as follows:  "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do".  The fixed "do" with altered chromatics singer will sing those scales as "La, Ti, Di, Re, Mi, Fi, Si, La", and "Le, Te, Do, Ra, Me, Fa, So, Le", respectively.  That's tricky.  Likewise, playing those scales on the piano works well when you think in terms of "whole-step, whole step, half-step" etc, but it is very tricky for the sight-singer to analyze that process while simultaneously assigning the syllables "Le, Te, Do".  It's much easier to teach and use "Do, Re, Mi", having already established and internalized the intervallic relationship between each of these scale degrees.  For the sight-singing user of Movable Do, "Do" to "Fa" is an effective short-cut for internalizing how a pitch relates harmonically to the music.  In other words, "Do" is easier to sing than "Tonic", and "So" is faster than "Dominant".  "Do-Mi-So" will always be a "I chord", and "Fa-La-Do" will always be a "IV" chord.

Of course movable "Do" isn't the cure all for music analysis, I'm not saying that it is.  However, my reasons for using it are solid, and are not just based on my geography.  I want "Movable Do" enough to put in a lot of work to adapt LMS semester 2 to help my children develop this skill, so it's obviously not the path of least resistance for me.  Life has been crazy lately, but I will soon be making those files to help me reach this goal and sharing them here on the forum, so if I've convinced anyone else to go this route, I'm here to help, and I'd love to have a little support group to work on this goal together, so let me know!  If someone needs help with that now, it might motivate me to get those helping files done sooner, but right now I feel no rush since we're only on lesson 50 of LMS.

[Tamsyn]

I way typing that that while SoftMozart posted her comments.

I appreciate your perspective.

The goal of music education suppose to be music literacy. We lack listeners, we loose culture. Talented musicians learn despite, but they need educated audience to enjoy their talents.

I agree!!!

I agree that SoftMozart makes learning to read music easier for the eye, especially one that is trained to read from left to right.  For the Chinese, who read up and down, I'm not convinced, but I haven't done any research on this subject like you have.

We will have to agree to disagree about SoftMozart being the "ONLY effective way for anybody to learn to read music and play piano."  I didn't use SoftMozart, and I am confident that I can read music and play the piano.  I'm pretty sure there were a lot of musically literate musicians around before you developed your product too.  Truly, I'm not trying to be cynical, but "only" is an absolute that is hard to prove.  Even 2+2=4 isn't true when you use in base 3.     In truth, I am very intrigued by your research, and I've spent a lot of time these last couple of days looking over what you have produced.  I have a lot of respect for what you have done.  In fact, if you argued that SoftMozart was "THE MOST EFFECTIVE" way, I might just venture to try and prove you right.

[SoftMozart]

Tamsyn,
I understand what is the main confusion better now! Here where I am coming from: I started my education in former USSR. We had and currently have state music schools that supported by our government. Parents pay some amount, but the rest is covered.

We have to go to music school for 7 years. There we have twice a week 45 minutes private lessons, 1 hour of Solfeggio ( ear training, music dictations, vocal sight-reading), 1 hour of music theory, 1 hour of music history, 1 hour choir and other subjects. If you take violin or trumpet or any other instrument, piano is a must from the 2nd grade.

Through all this training we 'think' in Solfegio with fixed 'DO'. We never sing # or b, but assuming them by default. It is simply imprinted in our minds. We sight-reading by voice very advanced pieces with a lot of modulations and key changing, but training is making it so easy!

I hope, you ha a chance to see this video, where kids start singing Bach Musette in D major with all sharps from the very start:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-thPcTOzzNU&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/-thPcTOzzNU&rel=1</a>

We have to graduate 7 years of music school with honor to be a candidate for a music college. But there is always more candidates then places and you have to be better then your competitors. All for BA in music.

After that 5 years in conservatory, where you also have to win to enter, if you are straight A student.

All this strict and well developed structure has a great advantage in the world: we consider music as a science, where all subjects being presented in ways that had been approved by generations of masters.

Currently the world is turning against music education. Even in Russia I was witnessing ideas about losing music schools.
I afraid that if that would happen, musicology, solfeggio, harmony, music history and other subjects won't survive and for it is like to see a beautiful castle in perfect shape is being ruined.

My goal was to safe the best traditions of Russian music school education and make them accessible for public schools. Technology helped me to make this happen and I see, how it can work.

Soft Mozart was called 'missing visual link in music education. We call our packages: Russian music school in a box.
We make Solfeggio training so effective and fun then results of our training now is superior then in music schools.

I almost asleep and trying to finish the most important idea: we have very good promotional packages for music teachers and all sorts of different ways to help and support them in future, If you will ever interested, please, drop me a line to hellene.hiner at softmozart.com 

[Tamsyn]

That video is super cute. 

Your music schools sound amazing.  I wish I could have had a chance to go to a school like that.  The state of music education in the public schools here in the United States is deplorable.  Take, for example, how we have started regulating what kind of food can be sold in the cafeterias during school lunch.  They aren't supposed to sell pop in the lunch room during lunch hour, according to some goofy new law.  Well, one school didn't remove their pop machine, and were assessed a ridiculously heavy fine.  The school bemoaned the fact that this fine would be coming straight out of the music and arts budget.  Yes, that really happened, right here in Utah where I live.  Music was cut because the school sold pop during school lunch.  Reference:  http://www.ijreview.com/2012/05/5800-utah-high-school-cuts-art-program-funds-after-15000-fine-for-selling-soda/   

Anyway, OBVIOUSLY Russia has a better public music program to the United States, and more power to you.

I think we have a better understanding now, and I think you have also proved one of my points:  If you have a country that uses solfege to name your notes, like Russia, where the local orchestra tunes to "La", naturally movable do is a poor choice.  In one of the threads I read about movable vs fixed, a French woman argued, "La" is "La".  Why move it around?  That's because, like you, with all of her training she was simply taught "La" in regards to a specific pitch.  Why try to move it around all over the place?  Movable "Do" should not even be considered for use in a country like Russia or France.

Take, on the other hand, an American like me, who their entire musical education was taught to think "A B C".  "A" is "A".  Our orchestras tune to "A".  We learn to identify "Middle C" on the piano at our first lessons.  I was well prepared to be a music major at the university, and that was when I had my first exposure to ear training in solfege.  I'm not the only music major for which this is the case.  We "think" in "ABC" like you think in "Solfege with fixed Do".  Some families have a very rich musical culture, and this is still the case.  My education prior to college doesn't compare to a Russian music school, but it will do.  I competed on a state level in voice, piano, and violin.  I composed music in varying keys.  I did a benefit piano concert to raise money for a new piano at the public school.  I even taught piano lessons to some of my younger peers in my congregation.  I played the organ at church as well.  That's a respectable amount of music education for a youth in my country.  All of this with no more exposure to "Do Re Mi" than watching "The Sound of Music".

So now, as I went to college, I received my training in Movable "Do", and found a fantastic ADDITIONAL tool, to better teach relative pitch!  Yes, I did have a good sense of relative pitch before, through constant exposure to different keys.  I had transposed pieces before.  I had modulated pieces music on paper.  I played all 12 scales on the piano.  I knew the patterns of whole steps and half steps for major and minor scales, and was familiar with modes.  In short, I had a good sense of relative pitch.  But it came through a lot of exposure and practice, and it wasn't taught in the early years of music, like "CDE" was.  So, from that perspective, Movable "Do" is, for me, a tool I can use to teach my children relative pitch from the start.  It's a tool I never had growing up, but it really seems to be helping my daughter.  She's getting it.  She adores math/music questions like "If "Do" is on "C", where is "Re"?  She instantly knows the answer for everything in "C", and is branching out.  With the help of the piano and the movable "Do" piano insert we use, she can figure out the rest on her own, although she still mixes up the spelling of black notes.  She knows that no matter what color middle "C" is, that it's middle "C" with a specific geographical location on the piano.  She relates color only to scale degrees.  My five-year-old is picking it up too, and since he loves math, the math/music questions are really helping him.  Even my husband is enjoying the challenge!  He sets a good example for his children.   

In Russia and America, an exercise like children singing the Bach Musette as your video shows would be just as effective, and would serve the same pedagogic purposes.

Putting all of that debate aside, I wish to recognize that, while this discussion has mostly been between SoftMozart and myself, I know that there are a lot of other people tuning in to see what we have to say on the matter.  Many of them are intimidated by the idea of teaching their children music, and are finding tools like Little Musician and Soft Mozart (indeed, a "Russian Music School in a box") to be a life saver.  Even for musicians like me, this is the case because I still have a house to run!  High praise is deserved to programs that make a superb music education available to young children.  Fixed do is really just fine, and the idea of changing LMS to teach relative pitch is just not in the cards for them.  What is your advice to these parents for teaching relative pitch?  Do you use a numbering system for scale degrees?  Something else?  What was your approach to teaching Rachel to transpose the Musette into, for example, the key of "So"/"G".?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/WzmKrw0_NwQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/WzmKrw0_NwQ&rel=1</a>

She did it using Soft Mozart.  She's only 3. Yep, there's something very right about your program.      I would love to hear what your approach is for teaching relative pitch.

[SoftMozart]

Hi, Tamsyn,

Yesterday I was half asleep and wrote on auto-pilot    Thank you for understanding me, though.

Let's think outside the box now. Music education is in a very big hole now. I was reading about the public school and it made me again very anxious. Unfortunately, this crisis of music education is not local. Recently I talked to Yuri Rozum, renowned pianist, who was invited by our government to answer the question: do we really need music schools or it is time to close most of them and have just several for talented kids. If it would happen, it will be a tragedy not just for Russian kids. but for music as the language and science. I am telling this not because I am Russian American, but because I am musicologist and I consider the Russian Music School experience in teaching music very valuable. I also think that if we will keep cutting roots, we'll end up with impoverish society.

Even at the end of 20th century the situation was much better and more promising. Even pop and rock music was trying to reach high standards. There was sympho-rock, rock-operas, Pink Floyd, Beatles. Now, when our digital recordings, Internet, You tube, tablets can be turned on any time, large population turn primitive tunes on. I know many famous pianists, who has to play 2-3 times more concerts now to make the same living, because concert halls are not halls any longer. Mostly they are just small rooms.

Our kids, without true music literacy, can't comprehend advanced forms of music simply because they were not properly trained to do so. And by proper training I mean 'hand on' experience. Driver always remember the road better then a passenger.

I also found it very sad that when our prodigies play piano, no one is listening and getting excited. I always see pianists playing while people walking, eating, drinking... How such 'listeners' can understand value of such a player, if illiterate? There is a rule of thumb in life: you won't cry for something that you never had on the first place.

Once I had a contract with private Montessori school and turned lessons ABOUT music to group piano lessons. We fund raised a good acoustic piano and about 30 keyboards. I didn't have software yet and made music books (btw placing pictures of Door Rain Mirror etc under the notes  and on the keys). It was AMAZING how these piano lessons changed the kids and their appreciation for arts alone with their creativity.

We played Hanon and Chromatic scales with metronome and timer!   Kids LOVED to listen to each other performances. Twice a year we had recitals. You won't believe, but even 2-3 year old kids were sitting quietly through entire concert! 

Once before Christmas one very talented boy learned March from Nutcracker (he was also taking private lessons with me). Instead of going outside to play kids gathered around him and listen to his performance. I saw their eyes! Every time, when I am too tired to carry on, I remember these eyes of my students! There was no envy, but excitement and desire to learn more. Needless to say that this boy learned the entire Nutcracker suite in couple of weeks!

Since then I understood that SUCH  lessons really CAN turn around our society, when all kids will have the ability to play piano as starting point of education and read music from 24 months.

Maybe, I was born with this mission, who knows    Maybe, I had to be born in Russia to receive Russian music education and to move to USA to be able to create software curriculum to finally get it to public schools. But my weakest point is... English and lack of good manners. 

I am gathering music/piano teachers, parents, educators, everybody, who cares about music education. I founded a company called Music Vision International and hope to bring real music education to public school. I invite you and other teachers to join and help me with this mission. Together we can make some changes.

BTW, on this video you may see the class of my students from that Montessori school. We play Canon in D:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/DIH9npACNUw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/DIH9npACNUw&rel=1</a>

[SoftMozart]

PS
Rachel and method... It is hard to explain it in few words We play tons of piano pieces, playing ear training/theory games, find chords for melodies in different keys, writing music dictations and sing Solfeggio with every piece we play. There is also Note Alphabet that kids have to recite as fast as possible (requirement for 1st Level graduates):

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZrXBQuozmQE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ZrXBQuozmQE&rel=1</a>

[Tamsyn]

Your video was very inspiring- I'll be sharing it!  I'm feeling very ashamed that a couple of days ago I was so keen on winning a debate with you, and I was too proud.  My husband is more cool headed than I am, and now I can see that I needed to first pull the beam out of my own eye, so to speak.  You are an amazing person, Hellene.  (By the way, my first name is Helen, and that's my 3-year-old's name too. 

Thanks for the video with Rachel about relative pitch.

If I do Soft Mozart with my kids, are there images to represent letter names?  I saw a few butterflies, which is why I ask.  Could I use Soft Mozart without using the fixed Do aspect of it?  I'm thinking I could, but I wonder if you have students who use it that way, or what kind of road blocks I would encounter.

[Tamsyn]

P.S.  Don't we all love the newroom's heading, "Pushing kids too far to fast?"      It was such an inspirational story otherwise, but we wouldn't want to encourage parents to teach their children, now would we?

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