A Better Way to Teach Kids How to Read Music
I have become a fan of music mnemonics or acronyms (I like to call them memory phrases) because it’s a creative approach to learn how to quickly identify a note, wherever it may be within the staff. Check out how I use this resource when teaching a piano lesson.
By associating information with familiar or catchy phrase, students enhance their retention and recall. From this they gain confidence and momentum to be able to read music, and eventually being able to site read effectively.
Treble Training has taken the traditional acronyms/mnemonics to the next level, making the notes easier than ever to remember in both treble clef and bass clef. All the information ties together into one creative picture, let me explain….
Above is the picture, called Notes on the Grand Staff Memory Phrases. First, I’d like to point out the structure of the picture with the colors highlighted on the treble and bass clefs. I have my students highlight treble clef blue because blue is the color of the sky- think high notes. Bass clef is highlighted green the color of the grass-think low notes.
The cartoons on the page are all tied to together from the face up high in the sky to the bug down in the grass. The cartoons that represent the high notes in the treble clef are the sun and the bird. The cartoons that represent the low notes in the bass left are the cow and the bug.
How do you remember which one to use for lines and which one to use for space notes?
The sun up high with the “face” are the “space” notes in treble clef.
The cow down low needs lots of “space” when he eats all that grass, so we think “space” in the “bass”.
The bird flys up in the “sky”, short of rhymes with “lines”, so we think treble lines. Yes I’ll use imperfect rhymes if it helps!
The green bug chases the “line” of ants down low (bass) in the “grass”, so we think bass lines.
So there you have it, a visual tool that starts from up in the sky to down on the ground- every memory phrase connects with the picture as a whole to give the student a clear understanding of what notes go with which clef.
So why do teachers avoid using acronyms/mnemonics?
Quite a few teachers avoid the acronyms or mnemonics now a days because it’s too confusing for the student to remember which one to use with which clef. Also, which one is for lines or spaces? I’m with those teachers, that’s why when I first used the mnemonics I didn’t have as much success as I do now with the Music Memory Phrases Page.
But I don’t want my student to rely on mnemonics forever
This is by no means something that the student will use forever. Just like an older student doesn’t have to us a mnemonic anymore for the order of the planets “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos”, or the old fashion memory phrase “right is tight”. We used so many of these phrases as kids and now we don’t need them anymore. They were the training wheels to help us grow and gain confidence.
For my more experienced students who have put in a lot of practice, I don’t ask them, “What is the memory phrase for the treble clef lines?” Instead, I simply ask, “What are the treble clef lines?” and they respond with E, G, B, D, F. I let go of the bike, and they ride on there own- there are no more training wheels.
We’ve all benefited from creative association
The memory phrases really have become one of the fastest approaches I have found to teach note reading to kids. We are all creative beings, and have have benefitted from creative association more than we realize (Anyone else memorized that the sun rises in the east from the Beauty and the Beast song? 90’s kid alert!).
My hope it that if you decided to throw out the mnemonics a while ago, that you would give them another shot in a more creative yet methodical way.
You can find The Music Memory Phrases on my Etsy or my Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s Store
