18th June 2024

Note Recognition (It's Important)

Note recognition is one of the most valuable skills acquired by the beginner musician. The ability to translate vertical position on a staff into a key on the keyboard, or to a specific fingering, or to a position on the fingerboard, is a skill that used all of the time. Because of this, I believe that it’s extremely important for a student to be able to master the skill as early as possible in their learning journey. Once the basics of note recognition are learned, they are unlikely to be forgotten, as they are used constantly while reading from sheet music.

It therefore surprises me greatly when a student has playing skills far in excess of their reading ability. I’ve seen examples where students have written in the note names for pieces of grade 4 – 5 difficulty. That’s a lot of note names! The music looks cluttered and messy, with little room for worthwhile annotations. Not only has the student used a lot of time writing in all of the note names, but they have a hard time reading them at any speed. There is a reason that the staff was invented; for all of its faults, it is a fairly efficient way of notating pitch. Additionally, even if the student can read note names at speed, I have found that they often play in the wrong octave.

To help my students read efficiently, I devised a series of reading exercises. In eleven gradations, they take the student from the very easy, to advanced. Each level contains ten individual exercises or identical difficulty, so that the student doesn’t get used to one particular exercise. The levels are:

1. Lines and spaces grouped. The range is from the lowest line to highest line, and each exercise starts with four space notes, followed by five line notes.
2. Lines and spaces mixed. This keeps the same range, but with lines and spaces mixed at random.
3. Lower and upper spaces. The range is extended by a second at the bottom and top of the staff.
4. First ledger lines. The range is again extended at both extremes to include one ledger line/
5. Common sharps. The five most common sharps (black keys on the piano) are included.
6. Common flats. Sharps are removed and replaced with the five most common flats.
7. Common sharps and flats. This is a combination of the previous two exercises.
8. All sharps and flats. This exercise includes “uncommon” sharps and flats (E-sharp, B-sharp, C-flat, F-flat).
9. Double sharps. All sharps and flats are included, along with F, C, G, D, and A double sharp.
10. Double flats. All sharps and flats are included, along with B, E, A, D, and G double flat.
11. All accidentals. This is a combination of the previous two exercises.

Each note of every exercise is randomly generated, with nine notes in each exercise. For my students to progress from one level to another, they have to play an exercise in less than fifteen seconds with 100% accuracy.

This probably gets a fair bit more complicated than it absolutely has to. For most students, getting to level seven or eight is probably more than enough. However, I went to eleven for a specific reason. It’s difficult enough that I have to really think in order to get 100% accuracy in less than fifteen seconds. I make sure to tell my students this; for the more competitively minded, it really solidifies a target from them, and they really concentrate!

If you have read this far, and think that this is something that you’d like to try with your own students, then try them out – they’re completely free. All eleven exercises are available for treble and bass clef. Click here to get them.

For previous months, click here.