keyboard. Students will always want to know “why.” Explain that in Chapter 2, they will begin to learn
patterns where every letter of the musical alphabet will have to be used, no matter what the pitch looks
like on the piano.
Many students who already read music, but who have never had much experience writing it, will
have a tendency to place their accidentals on the wrong side of the note (on the right). Explain that when
speaking the names of notes and when writing them in text, such as G#, they are spoken and written after
the letter. However, on the staff, it does little good to read from left to right and encounter the accidental
after the note it affects.
It is difficult at this point to explain the concept of naturals. Typically naturals are used to alter
notes when there is a key signature; however, key signatures are not introduced until Chapter 2. For now,
use the idea of canceling a sharp or flat within a measure as the purpose for using natural signs.
Enharmonic Names
Enharmonicism is a major theme of many aspects of music theory. Make sure students understand that
there is more than one way to write virtually every sound in music notation.
Music Manuscript
If you ever hope to be able to read your students’ handwritten music, now is your chance! Make them
write lots of clefs, notes, and accidentals now, make them write it neatly, and accept nothing less than ac-
curate, legible music. There are two schools of thought on drawing quarter notes. Some like to draw ovals
and fill them in; others like to make a flat, diagonal note head with three or four strokes of the pencil
across a line or space. The author’s preference is the latter, but it is crucial that students be aware of the
perils of drawing space notes that wander across the lines and line notes that fill up too much of a space.
When you send your students to write at the board, if they are encouraged to draw oval notes, often they
will spend a great deal of time doing what the author likes to term “coloring.” If you have your students
draw oval quarter notes, remind them that this is not an art class and that where music manuscript is
concerned, time considerations should take precedence over beauty.
3 CHAPTER 1 | The Basics of Reading Music
Music for Analysis
If you have time in class, listen to the Bach Prelude (website) and discuss some of the notational aspects.
Students will always want to know why some of the stems go the “wrong” direction. Explain the consid-
erations of writing music for the piano, and how there are musical considerations that can take prece-
dence over “right” and “wrong.”
A good exercise is to go around the room and ask one student to name all the pitches in measure
one, another student to name all the notes in measure two, and so on.
Melody
Exercise 1. Play various notes on the piano and ask students to sing them. It is important to do this on
the first day of classes! You may discover that you have students in your class who cannot match pitch.
In the author’s experience, the lack of ability to match pitch does not necessarily mean that a student is
“tone deaf.” In fact, truly tone-deaf students are quite rare. More likely, it means that this is a student,
usually an instrumentalist, who has never been called upon to sing and who has no idea how to make
a connection between the vocal chords and what the ears are hearing. If possible, this student should
be placed in a voice class right away, where the student can be taught to make that physical connection
between the vocal chords and the sense of hearing, by someone who specializes in singing (which many
theory teachers do not).
It is also helpful at this time to make a note as to the vocal ranges of the students in your class.
Eventually the students will be called upon to sing four-part harmony and you will have to know their
ranges in order to divide them into sections.
It may also be helpful at this time to ask students to sing not just single notes, but also two-note
pairs, ascending or descending. Usually these should be seconds and thirds. The purpose of this exercise is
to determine that students can hear changes of pitch and the direction of those changes.
4 CHAPTER 1 | The Basics of Reading Music
Exercise 2. The following melodies are representative of the types of melodies you should ask your stu-
dents to sing back to you after hearing it only once. The goal is to determine the degree of pitch memory
that your students currently possess. You may transpose the melodies if desired. Many other similar
melodies may be used.
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b c
# #
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