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Lily-White.
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February 13, 2023 at 2:16 pm #300829
Molly
ParticipantHi all, me again!
I recently started Suzuki Harp Book 2 with my teacher (so excited!), and as the repertoire becomes more difficult I am beginning to wonder if my learning approach is normal, because I feel like I’m able to memorize songs but I’m not fully understanding what is happening musically. I know that is likely part of the process, as I didn’t come into playing with a ton of music theory.
I’m currently learning Siciliana Harp 1, and the chord progressions are going right over my head. I understand chord root positions (in major keys), but when I start getting into all the inversions I get lost and frequently forget what chords are the right ones. Not only are there multiple inversions of chords in this song, but there is also a key change into a minor chord which I haven’t played before. Maybe it’s just growing pains, but I’m feeling a bit down on myself that this is just not “clicking” for me.
Did anyone else struggle with this throughout their learning process? Any advice would be appreciated.
February 14, 2023 at 10:01 am #300838carl-swanson
ParticipantHi Molly,
When students first start the harp, the melodies they are playing are very simple and easy to memorize. But unless you are a very good reader and understand music theory very well, my advice is to force yourself to read the music you are playing and not to play from memory at this stage. I don’t allow lower level students to play from memory for this reason. Once your reading ability has improved (a lot) then you can memorize. What you might do in addition to playing from the music when you practice is to take the music to the kitchen table, away from the harp, and study it and analyze how it is constructed. Look at the chords and figure out what they are and in what inversion. You could also do this with your teacher, away from the harp. If you could take a music theory course, that would help to. Good luck
February 14, 2023 at 11:26 am #300841ParticipantThanks Carl! Your advice makes a lot of sense. It is actually opposite from what my teacher has said to do! The Suzuki method is taught by ear, so she wants me to sound out the music and try to figure things out that way. The idea is for the music to become intuitive, but it’s really not that easy to do with more complex pieces of music.
I do read music, albeit very slowly, and glance at the book from time to time to confirm what notes I am playing. I’m almost 2 years in so I feel like I should be sight reading more. I have learned 2 non-Suzuki pieces with my teacher’s support, where I actually read the music. I very much enjoyed that way of learning a new piece of music.
I do have a sight reading book my teacher recommended, so I will start to practice with that a bit more. I obviously want to respect the Suzuki process as it has benefited me this past 2 years, and is good for me to have another perspective rather than just reading music and playing off a sheet. But, right now I really do need that guidepost rather than just pulling a melody out of thin air. I think there’s a fine line of that method being helpful vs. handicapping you from progressing
February 14, 2023 at 4:26 pm #300846balfour-knight
ParticipantHi Molly,
I agree with Carl. I never used Suzuki for any of my students throughout my long teaching career, because it hindered their ability to read music. The Suzuki books were very good collections of music, however, so some of my students learned from them by READING the music.
I have had the wonderful ability to play by ear since I began learning to play the piano at five years old. When music lessons soon started, I resisted reading, since I could make my own tunes sound so much better than the printed music did at that level. Thankfully, my teachers persisted, and I learned to read music very well. In college music theory and composition classes, I had to sight read and play on piano all the handwritten composition assignments from all the class members!
So, read every piece of music you can get your hands on. The memorizing can go along with it, on the pieces you will actually perform, but like Carl said, concentrate on the READING and the understanding of the music theory behind the music. Somewhere in all of this is a nice middle ground, I promise!
Good luck, and happy Valentine’s Day!
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)February 15, 2023 at 7:22 pm #300860ParticipantI remember years ago, Ray Pool told me that he went out west each year to teach his theory classes to the students of a “certain teacher” who shall remain nameless. She was a Suzuki teacher, and had an enormous number of students. But she would start legions of students around 8, 9, or 10 years old, and then, once they got into high school, they would drop the harp because they couldn’t play in any high school ensembles (orchestra, concert band, etc.) because they couldn’t read music! They couldn’t do anything with the instrument with other players. Ray told me that most of them didn’t even know the names of the strings. The teacher was trying, with Ray’s teaching, to fill in the enormous gap that was the logical outcome of the Suzuki method.
February 16, 2023 at 10:45 am #300862ParticipantHi Carl,
What you said reminds us of exactly what we experienced here with Suzuki students. Many local churches here need pianists or keyboard players. When a Suzuki student tried out for one of those jobs, the first thing they asked them to do was to sight read a hymn or anthem (now-days, a praise chorus!) and the student would not be able to do it. Of course, they did not get the job. The same thing happened if the Suzuki student applied for a recording studio job. I had one such young woman student who came to me specifically to learn to read music. She had been trained in Suzuki and played very well, except she could not read a note of the music she was playing! I would refer to this as “musical illiteracy,” and my goal as a teacher was to make them “musically literate.” The young woman took three years of piano lessons with me, went back to Atlanta, and got the job at the recording studio!
Hope you all have a great day,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)February 16, 2023 at 3:49 pm #300865ParticipantWow, this is all very enlightening!
Thankfully, my teacher started me on music theory from the beginning of my studies, doing music note & key signature flashcards, workbooks, etc, as well as some sight reading pieces. But for the Suzuki training she has asked me not to sight read out of the book which is the majority of my learning. I may start reading it anyway just so I am not handicapping myself in the future.
I would like to be able to pick up a piece of sheet music and be able to play it. That I think was my ultimate goal when I started, so I could play any music I liked proficiently. But I also realize that there is some celtic and Welsh harp music that is 100% passed down and taught without any music and that’s a 100% valid way to learn as well. But, my goal is to become well-rounded as a musician so I don’t pigeonhole myself into just one thing.
March 31, 2023 at 10:54 am #301924ParticipantJust wanted to pop in and say that I taught myself a new song by reading the music! I did have an audio recording so I knew what it was supposed to sound like, but I learned the notes and bracketing 100% by reading the sheet music! I practiced each section until I could play the notes from memory, did repetitions until smooth, and then moved on to the next section. All in all, it took me about 2-3 weeks to play through the whole song somewhat smoothly. It was just one page of music, but I do feel very proud that I was able to do this on my own!
I think I’m going to pick more pieces and etudes to read and teach myself, in hopes that it will make me a faster sight reader. I’m not able to play as I’m reading yet, but I am confident that skill will come to me with more practice.
Thanks everyone for your advice!!
March 31, 2023 at 4:45 pm #301926ParticipantMolly, so glad to hear that! Learning this piece all by yourself will give you the courage to do it again and again, with new music. I have been thinking about how much you would benefit from Carl Swanson’s etude collections. If you go to his website, you can see what he offers and samples of the music. I highly recommend these!
Thanks for letting us know about all of your progress. We are so proud of you. Hang in there!
Harp Hugs,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)March 31, 2023 at 5:07 pm #301927Participanthttps://www.swansonharp.com/store/bochsa-revisited-40-easy-etudes-vol-i-etudes-1-through-20-op-318
Molly, I hope this gets you to Carl’s website where the Bochsa Etudes are featured!
Harp Hugs,
BalfourApril 3, 2023 at 2:38 am #301973Philippa mcauliffe
ParticipantI have never actually heard of a Suzuki teacher who asks people who can already read music not to before. After all the ethos of Suzuki was that music is like learning your native language – you do that aurally then go on to written but if you have already reached written why would you go backwards? That is really very strange.
April 3, 2023 at 7:58 am #301976ParticipantThat is a really good point, Philippa! Thank You!
April 3, 2023 at 3:13 pm #301980ParticipantThanks Balfour!! I found his website and definitely plan to buy them at some point. I watched some YT videos of some of the etudes within that book, and I am so excited to try my hand at them.
Hi again Philippa! I went into playing the harp not being able to read music at all. I don’t think she does that with her students that can already read music though. The ultimate goal was always to read music out of the books eventually. I think it just comes a bit later than with most other methods. I realize that many on this site are against Suzuki for that exact reason, but there are many schools of thought on how to teach. I expressed from the beginning that it was my desire to learn how to understand sheet music, and we always incorporated that as part of my training, but never learned to read music from the Suzuki books.
Philippa, can I ask when in your studies you learned to read music? Were you already “fluent” before you began learning Suzuki? I’m not really sure when you’re supposed to start reading out of the books, I will have to ask my teacher about this too!
April 3, 2023 at 5:24 pm #301981ParticipantMolly, I guess so many of us are against Suzuki because the process of learning to read music is so difficult, you really have to work on it all of your life. Even though I am a wonderful reader of music and sight-reader, I play by ear much better than I can read music, so I am always working to increase my reading ability to get it up to par with my playing ability, ha, ha! If I had not started reading music at 6 years old, I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to catch up. By then, I had played piano by ear for more than a year, so I was spoiled! I resisted reading music, and also reading anything, period. Thank goodness I had teachers and parents who MADE me do it!
If we didn’t have a written language, I could not be communicating with all of you right now. So it is with music–the written music is our universal language. It is all well and good to play by ear and enjoy it, but music also needs to be written down in order to preserve it. Folk music has to be practiced and handed down from generation to generation, but it is really wonderful when some folks who have the training actually WRITE IT DOWN!
Harp Hugs everyone,
BalfourApril 4, 2023 at 3:33 am #301997ParticipantI played the piano from the age of 6 before I started the harp a few years later and by the time I started harp I was pretty proficient. I was therefore a rather rogue Suzuki light student who always read the music and had it on a stand but had a full on Suzuki teacher (really a piano specialist who had learnt the harp herself as an adult and added it to her studio). But I performed everything by heart and did the concerts, graduations etc. Sounds like yours is one of the more evangelical ones though. I really think they need flexibility with teens and adults to adapt to their aims. It’s not like teaching a 6 year old whose mother has to supervise every practice session. I don’t teach via the Suzuki method although I incorporate ideas from it and quite a bit of their repertoire. I always have pupils do formal theory if they cant read music from the start and they want eventually to read music. The thing about the harp is that you basically give the same lesson content over and over again for a long time as it takes a very long time to establish the absolute basics that are essential for progress. Different tunes but an awfully similar lesson. Posture, approach to the harp, the hand and arm position, finger placement and motion, wrist motion…Once both hands can do that well they start going together. I add in things like chords, scales, arpeggios and harmonics for a bit of variation as well to keep things interesting. Suzuki of course would not add in scales and arps as they are embedded in their rep.
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