Teaching your violin students to read music
Steps to success and helpful resources
My first experience with music lessons was taking piano classes beginning when I was eight years old. Learning to read rhythms and staff notes was just part and parcel of the overall process. Similarly, when I started learning the violin in school in the seventh grade, we were taught technique and music reading concurrently.
As an undergraduate honors program student, I began researching as many violin methodologies and pedagogies as I could find, including the Suzuki method. One of Suzuki's fundamental pedagogical ideas was allowing students to reach a basic level of technical competence in the instrument before teaching music reading. I also was taking an elementary music methods course where I learned the ideas of Kodaly, where students are exposed to a musical concept by listening, singing, and movement before learning to notate it.
I have used both approaches throughout my teaching career, sometimes in combination, depending on the individual student's situation. In the public school instrumental ensemble setting, such as a beginning orchestra class, music reading is almost always taught first or in combination with learning instrumental techniques. Being a good reader is vital to building a solid ensemble, and with Sight Reading contests beginning in the second year of instrumental ensemble classes, creating strong readers was essential.
But string instruments are complicated. Often, students who could name notes and clap rhythms with a high level of proficiency struggled with an instrumental technique that hindered their further progress or ability to keep up with the group. I also found that in my private lesson teaching, my students seemed to progress much faster by delaying music reading or using alternate forms of notation, such as "tab" style notation or rhythm-only notation off the staff. And of course, with very young students who didn't even know how to read their primary language yet, introducing music reading right away did not seem to make a lot of sense from a child development standpoint.
Whichever approach you prefer to use, what is ultimately important is that our students eventually achieve a high level of music reading proficiency and become strong sight-readers. Here are some of my favorite resources and tips for introducing, reinforcing, and reviewing music reading skills for violin students.
Separating the Hands
One crucial idea that is especially helpful in a group or orchestra class setting is separating the left and right-hand skills in beginning students. For this reason, many beginning string method books begin with pizzicato, so students need only be concerned with connecting a note on the staff to a place on the fingerboard, without the added complication of what the right hand needs to do with the bow. Similarly, when learning new rhythms, it is helpful for the student to master them first by clapping, shadow bowing, or playing on open strings before combining left hand, right hand, and music reading skills. With any music reading exercise, or even learning a piece by rote, breaking it down into smaller steps helps students internalize the concepts before putting them together.
My typical approach when working with a new piece or sight-reading exercise is:
Clap or play the rhythms on unpitched percussion instruments while counting or chanting the pitches' letter names.
Play the pitches pizzicato, either in guitar or playing position. If rhythms are tricky, fast, or unfamiliar, begin by just plucking each note as a whole or half note, then quarter note, then as printed.
Shadow bow the rhythm in the air, in the elbow, or with a toilet paper or paper towel tube held on the shoulder.
Play the pitches arco, slowing down the rhythms if necessary as outlined in step 2.
Using a metronome at or below tempo in any of the above steps is ideal. Using accompaniment tracks is fun and helpful, significantly if you can adjust the tempo.
What to use for reading practice?
For young beginners: Step by Step: My First Note Reading Book
This book introduces pitch and rhythm concepts separately and features games, clapping activities, writing exercises, and sight-reading practice with the instrument. I love using Kerstin Wartberg's books with my young students and often introduce this book to my 4-6-year-old students once they reach book 1B of her Step by Step series.
8-12-year-olds: I Can Read Music by Joanne Martin
This series is my "ride or die" for teaching beginners to read music. In a typical lesson for this age group, we will spend:
5-10 minutes on warmup and technique exercises
Ten or so minutes on Step By Step 1A or on concepts from Mastery for Strings
a few minutes in a Just the Facts theory workbook
the rest of the lesson on reading practice with I Can Read Music
This series separates each lesson into pitch and rhythm studies. With beginners, we practice the pitch pages pizzicato and the rhythm pages with rhythm instruments, shadow bow, or arco, depending on the student's level. I use the metronome in the rhythm lessons and let the student explore different tempos. It's also fun to use an app like Super Metronome Groovebox and use beats instead of a typical click track. Each lesson builds on concepts from the previous studies, and I like how the rhythm exercises expose students to a wide variety of meters and time signatures.
Older Students: Adventures in Music Reading by William Starr
This book is excellent for teen and adult beginners. It includes teacher duet parts that more advanced students can play in a group class setting. We usually practice each line plucking, then arco, and then add the duet.
Online Lessons: I have a few students who have struggled over the years making progress, be it a lack of practice and family support or a learning disability that makes music reading confusing and frustrating. Taking these students online in the past year has added another layer to the challenge. I have found that the ebook edition of Essential Elements for Strings has helped these students. I can share the book from my iPad screen via Zoom during the lesson. I can also share my sound to play along with the built-in accompaniment tracks that come with the ebook. The students can also use the annotate feature to complete the lines that have writing activities right on-screen during the lesson.
Advanced Students/Group Lessons: I like to use the repertoire review portion of our lessons to enhance my advancing students' sight-reading and ensemble skills by using the Suzuki duet books. I have the student draw a card from this review deck, or in online lessons, I share my iPad screen with the app Tiny Decisions. Each of my students has their own "review wheel" of previously learned pieces. Once a review piece has been chosen and played through, I'll play along on the duet part. Then we switch places and have the student sight-read the duet.
In group classes, we use My Trio Book by Kristen Wartburg. It has two additional parts for most pieces in the Suzuki violin repertoire that are great for building reading skills. The table of contents ranks each part in order of difficulty so students can be assigned one based on their level. Playing in a group is something we have missed being in an online lesson format this year. I'm anxiously looking forward to being able to make music together soon!
SmartMusic: The SmartMusic app has a wealth of repertoire at your fingertips for a low membership price. It now even includes the ability to print copies of some music and allow teachers to set up classes and send assignments for students to complete independently. I use SmartMusic in my in-person lessons as a tool for sight-reading and assessment and as a self-guided station in my 20-20-20 rotating classes. Most of the widely-used string method books, as well as the entire Suzuki repertoire, are available. Students can practice playing along with the accompaniment, including the ability to adjust the tempo. They can also get feedback on their playing and see notes that they missed.
Note Reading Drill: Two fun apps that will help your students master reading notes on the staff are Flashnote Derby and Staff Wars. Both are fully customizable. You can choose which pitches to test students on and have students answer by tapping a letter name or playing the note on their instrument.
Ningenius is another excellent app that helps students connect notes with their place on the violin fingerboard. With the teacher edition of the app, teachers can save a game for each student and track their progress as they work their way up to a note-reading black belt.
When do you introduce music reading to your students? What tips and tools have helped them achieve success? Please share your thoughts in the comments below or join us on social media.