There has been a lively and thoughtful response to an article which appeared in The Guardian on 27 March in which the author declared that notated music is "a cryptic, tricky language – rather like Latin – that can only be read by a small number of people". The author, Charlotte Gill, who is neither a musician nor a music teacher, suggests that only privately-educated students can understand music and because it is difficult for most students, it should not be taught in such a formal, or "academic" way in our schools.
As I have written on my sister blog The Cross-Eyed Pianist, music notation is in fact not that difficult to learn, if taught well, and most children, whose brains are receptive and open to new things, can pick it up fairly quickly. What has troubled me about Charlotte Gill's assertion (which seemed to be founded only on the fact that she found sight-reading difficult at school), in addition to the accusation that the ability to read music is somehow "elitist", is the peddling of the idea that if something is difficult or challenging children and young people, or indeed adult learners, won't be able to do it and therefore it should not be taught in school. Some teachers skirt around the issue of teaching music theory and notation for this very reason, and in doing so they are depriving students of an incredibly useful tool for understanding the nuts and bolts of music and denying them access to a wonderful universal language. This form of dumbing down is yet another worrying example of the anti-intellectualism and suspicion of learning and the acquisition of knowledge that pervades society today.
In my limited experience teaching piano privately to children and teenagers, and through my son's unhappy journey through primary and secondary education, I have formed the impression that too much teaching in our state schools has been reduced to "tick-box teaching" which involves a fair amount of spoon-feeding of bite-sized information to students, largely to enable them (and their teachers) to cope with the ridiculous amount of testing which goes on in UK state schools today. Sadly, while such spoon-feeding may bring decent exam results and desirable league table positions for schools, it also robs children and young people of the opportunity or ability to think independently, creatively and critically – all skills which are part and parcel of being a well-rounded, thinking individual.
In teaching notation – and indeed in all other areas of teaching – I believe we need to dispel "the myth of difficult" – that is, if we tell students that something is difficult before they begin, the difficulty is inculcated in them from the outset and the task seems that much more onerous/impossible. One significant yet very easy way to achieve this is to change the vocabulary – that is, not to preface a lesson in music theory or the first stages of learning a new piece of music with words like "difficult" or "hard", but instead to find positive words to describe the task. I don't use the word "difficult" in my teaching ("there's no such thing as difficult" is something my students hear regularly from me), nor indeed in my own musical studies: I find it discouraging and dismotivating, with a danger of setting off the cycle I have described above.
Most students, children and adults, enjoy a challenge, and children in particular are generally very open to new processes and ideas. In the teaching of notation to very young children, there exist a number of methods and systems which make the process great fun – see for example, Dogs and Birds – and a quick Google search brought up many simple yet fun and creative "methods" developed by music teachers to engage children's attention and fire their imagination, including music dominoes and musical cupcakes And once we have engaged our students, the process becomes that much more straightforward.
If it's too hard, I won't be able to do it!
Many people can't read music because they don't believe they can, that it is simply too difficult for them to grasp: they have been peddled the idea that it is "difficult" by teachers, peers, and parents, and such a negative, defeatist attitude simply convinces them that they won't be able to do it. But good, intelligent, and positive teaching encourages confidence and self-belief – it turns "I can't" into "I can!" and makes learning to read music a valuable and practical tool which gives access to a common language, develops fully rounded musicians, and sets us on a wonderful voyage of discovery.
Ensure that the quality of our students' understanding is better than the quantity of their work.
Lessons become positive with a spirit of discovery.
Ian Pace's response to Charlotte Gill's article in The Guardian includes a link to the original article, his open letter and links to other articles written in response.