Why Learning To Read Music Is Not Enough

Teaching my students to read music is an essential part of my job as a music teacher. 

But I do it a little differently from most teachers, and here’s why.

Being able to sight read exponentially expands your ability to play all kinds of songs.  Plus, when you can sight read, you can also  learn the tune in an abstract form, and then add your OWN interpretation, independent of anyone else's ideas.

It’s a skill that offers a freedom of creative expression that I want all my students to experience because it’s THIS from which life-long music playing is born.  

It's not enough to just read music.

Let me tell you what I mean . . .

When I was fresh out of college, I got a job at the Arkansas Symphony, and I got to help organize a residency of Arkansas Symphony string quartets at the Ozark Mountain Folk Center.

It was a completely transformative experience!

I was with all the symphony musicians and all the Folk Center musicians at a jam in the evening on the town square, like they do 

At one point, one of the symphony violinists was playing The Orange Blossom Special. And of course it sounded brilliant and amazing. 

But, in a folk music jam, you don’t just play a solo piece, right? You take turns. 

But instead, here’s what happened.

After this classically-trained violinist had been playing for a long time, at the end of each phrase, the mandolin player would keep giving signals that he was ready to take a turn. 

The raised foot, the looks, the gestures —he’d done this for several phrases. And the symphony musician just kept playing! 

The mandolin player started saying ”my turn” like as a cue, just to be super clear… but this symphony violinist just kept playing. 

And then I realized what was happening…the symphony violinist wasn’t being rude! 

It was just that he’d memorized this piece and couldn’t play it any other way. He wasn’t improvising, he was playing music off of a page that he’d memorized, and didn’t know how to  improvise, get off the tune and jam. 

In that moment I saw the mismatch between the style I’d been raised with — the classical style — and this other more collaborative style.

And I thought “Man, if you’re a musician, you should be able to jam!”

But at the same time, I knew that I couldn't jam because of the classical musical education that I had to that point. 

I was very, very good at playing music off of a page. But I didn’t even know how to read a chord chart well.

That’s when I realized that the classical style of learning music should not be the ONLY style a student learns IF you want that student to be able to innovate, interpret, play with the music and co-create with others.

This is why I use the Fiddlequest method with my violin students — they learn to read chord charts shortly after they learn to put their fingers down! Not only that, they learn to play by ear!

It's also why I drill scales and music theory as soon as my students can play with fingers one, two, and three.

How do you make sure your student learns to actually co-create music, to sit down with any musical group anywhere and join in? 

If you'd like to incorporate these skills into your student's practice, let's chat.