Reading and writing pitch on the stave is practiced hand-in-hand: singing from stick notation, re-writing music from stick notation into staff notation, singing from staff notation without clef, first with indicating all the singing names below the notes on the stave, later only indicating the position of do, and creating own melodies with the learned singing names.
Halfway through the Silver level absolute note names are introduced. By then the students are able to sing pentatonic songs and songs in the diatonic major and the minor mode on solfa names and they can read and notate these songs on the stave without clef and key signature, where only the position of do is given. Absolute note names are introduced, according to the method, because they are necessary to sing a song on a certain pitch and for instrumentalists to find the notes (key) on their instrument. Notes that already had a singing name now get a second name: the playing name. The treble clef assigns to each note in a certain position on the stave its playing (alphabetical) name. From now on melodies are sung from staff notation, using first the solfa singing names and then the playing names. The position of the relative do is indicated as well as the clef.
Much later students learn to find the position of do by themselves. The transposition to different keys is ‘discovered’ by using the relative singing names and the knowledge of whole and half steps (mi-fa and ti-do) in relation to well-known songs that could be started from a new pitch (another playing name). The need for flats and sharps is discovered by ear and then put into notation. It is made visual by the human singing piano where the connection between relative and absolute note names is shown on flash cards.
In the whole process of learning to read pitch in staff notation, the aural understanding comes before the visualisation and notation on the stave, with relative note names used before introducing the absolute names. The process of learning to find the position of do on their own ends with the “golden rules: the last flat in the key signature is always fa; the last sharp in the key signature is always ti; if there is no key signature, C is always do.” But this is actually more a conclusion of the whole process than an instruction to learn about different key signatures and their meaning.
Cecilia Vajda’s books and recordings may have been an important source of inspiration for the NYCOS method. Her incredibly rich lessons for young children[1] and older beginners[2] follow the path as described above. She orders the steps and tools in four stages in musical literacy.
In the first stage of musical literacy, after an extensive period of aurally developing melodic, harmonic and rhythmic skills, rhythm symbols and hand signs connected with solfa names become the first visual representations of what is already aurally understood from the familiar songs and games.
The second stage combines the rhythm notation with the solfa letters, resulting in reading and writing stick notation as a bridge between reading from hand signs and reading from staff notation.
The third stage, staff notation, makes use of the solfa letters placed on the five lines of the stave without a clef. Only three positions of do are chosen for the pentatonic notes the children can by then read from stick notation. This is done not to confuse children who may learn to play instruments at the same time, using pitch notation with treble clef and accidentals. Children have their own felt boards to notate the melodies they hear or know from memory. In Hungary we have seen children in Grade 1 (age 6-7) using these tools very accurate.
The fourth stage in musical literacy introduces absolute pitch, using the tuning fork as a reference for the pitch ‘A’. This pitch A can be given any singing name of the pentatonic scale (do, re, mi, sol or la). Then the treble clef is introduced which positions the pitch of G on the second line of the stave. Small melodic motives are practiced from notation, using both the singing names and the pitch names in the three different do-positions. Other positions of do on the treble clef stave, which need the introduction of sharps and flats, follow later. The piano keyboard or xylophone is used as a tool to match the sound to these new elements in the pitch notation. When reading from staff notation, the clef as well as the position of do is indicated. Only after that the diatonic scale is completed with fa and ti in book 1 for young children. In book 2 for older beginners (age 11-14) this is slightly different: staff notation is introduced after the diatonic tone collections are learned from songs with solfa names, but the methodological steps are the same.
In Szönyi’s method[1], that achieves a very high level in aural skills after three volumes containing 130 fully described lessons, pitch names are only introduced after all the chromatic alterations (fi, si, ta, di, ri) of the solfa names are learned in a musical context. Up to this stage the music is notated in different forms of relative pitch notation: in stick notation, in staff notation with letter names on the stave, and in the do-clef notation.[2] This shows that there is no restriction to pentatonic or diatonic music to read from a relative form of notating pitch. The same approach is found in the original Kodály-Ádam schoolbooks[3]. Students already are able to sing and understand quite advanced melodic and harmonic concepts and can name and read these in relative solfa notation, using do-clefs, before absolute note names are introduced.
Many other books are mainly anthologies of melodies ordered by an increasing level of complexity in the music and in knowledge of music theory concepts (for example implied harmonies underlying the melodies that need to be understood in order to be able to sing the melodies). Ottman’s[1] and Berkowitz’s[2] books are examples of this approach. They work with staff notation (treble clef, bass clef and c-clefs) and with all key signatures right from the start. Melodies are composed exercises or taken from the music literature, and are ordered by an assumed increasing level of difficulty in musical concepts, which need to be connected to recognizing and understanding them from staff notation. Stepwise progression is for example introduced before reading and singing triads or larger intervals. It is left to the teacher if he or she advises the student to use any absolute or relative naming system or not.
But is a stepwise melody really more logical or easier to sing than a melody with skips? It is probably so when you work from symbol to sound. But if the sound (the music, and not the music theory) is taken first, the notation only needs to match what is already heard and understood inside the musical mind. Skips are then not perceived as ‘missing parts of a scale’.
The aural skills methods in category B are probably not meant for learning to read and write staff notation. Reading and writing of staff notation is assumed to be learned somewhere earlier in the musical training process. They all use staff notation as a means to develop aural skills that are considered to be very important for a musician. The approach in these methods is certainly a more abstract or intellectual approach, which could be considered more appropriate for students starting music-college than for young children. But the teaching process resembles for me the way a foreign language was taught in high school: learning words, grammar, reading books and listening to other people speaking instead of first learning to speak the language actively yourself, before learning to read and write. It did not work very well. The approach in category A takes the spoken language (the music) as the starting point and matches the ‘rules’ only to what is aurally understood and can already be performed by the student. This way of learning can be compared to the acquisition of language skills in one’s first language.[3]
Many more details about methods in category A or B could be described. I concentrated on the approach and use of pitch notation. In my research I would like to discover if a different approach of the visual information will give different results in performing the music in a prima vista sight singing situations. It could prove that it is more effective or even necessary to re-direct pitch reading to relative note names to activate the aural imagination. Or do students benefit more from knowing theoretical concepts which they can apply to the absolute pitches they read in the score when sight singing the music?
Examples of methods using do-clef notation – working from sound to symbol (category A)
The steps as seen in NYCOS’ – ‘Go for Bronze, Silver, Gold – A comprehensive musicianship training programme for young musicians’[1] can be seen as a representative example of the methods that fall into category A. This method stands in the tradition of Kodály-based programmes for musical development and literacy. It uses the do-clef notation.
Songs and games (the games are a very attractive and active element in these lessons) form the basis of the musical repertoire that students learn from a young age. Before introducing staff notation, other tools are used to realise a cognitive relationship between sounds, their names and their visual appearance. These tools are hand signs[2], stick notation[3] (rhythm notation combined with solfa letters) and singing familiar songs on solfa names, showing the notes on the solfa ladder[4].
When students are able to work actively and creatively with some of the singing names they know from the songs (so, mi and la), the singing names are placed in a certain position on the stave.
Overview of methods for developing aural understanding of pitch in staff notation
Basically there are two approaches in learning to read and understand pitch in staff notation.
A. methods that work from sound to symbol
B. methods that work from symbol to sound
Sound can be understood in this context as ‘music’ in a form of active music making: singing, playing and listening. Symbol means ‘music notation’ or knowledge of theoretical concepts.
Category A represents methods where many musical activities are performed before music notation is introduced. At a certain moment the learned sounds are connected to a form (or several forms) of music notation. The methods in this category build the development of reading and aural understanding of pitch in staff notation upon aural experiences, and upon ‘discoveries’ by the learner about the relation between the aural experience and the visual representation or understanding of a musical concept.
Category B represents methods where the musical activities are being directed from reading music notation. The methods in this category build the development of reading and aural understanding of pitch in staff notation upon visual instruction and cognitive explanation by the teacher.
Methods in both categories can make use of absolute pitch names and/or relative note names.
Many instrumental methods are known to follow the route of category B, and most of the time they only use absolute (pitch) names: letter names or fixed-do syllables. There is however a Dutch sight singing method for choirs, called “Jong Leren”[1] that works this way: the written symbol gets its absolute note name first (clef, position and note name makes a C and then is called ‘do’. Exercises with only do (C) and re (D) are then practised extensively from notation. More notes of the C major scale follow along the way. Much later the relative meaning of do is introduced, when the whole system is transposed. It is then explained that another absolute note name can be called do, and the visual information now must be interpreted differently by the singer.
In my research I make use of the do-clef notation to redirect the reading from the absolute note names to the relative function names, using solmisation syllables. All the methods that I could find using do-clef notation fall into category A. Most of them are meant for singers, but a few have translated the approach to instrumental playing as well.[2] The do-clef notation functions for a shorter or a longer time as a means on the way to reading pitch notation on the stave with absolute note names, but with relative understanding.
In my research I will treat the do-clef notation as a visual instruction to test the aural imagination of pitch in staff notation, a ‘final’ role that it normally does not have in the learning process. I think this can show that the aural understanding of pitch notation can benefit from reading staff notation primarily in a relative way, even when students have not learned to read music notation like this before. Just because there is a stronger (more direct) connection to the inner hearing world when the visual information provides functions instead of pitches (which can of course in second instance be understood as functions). But the tests may prove me wrong!
Examples of methods working from symbol to sound (category B)
In the test scores for my research I include normal pitch-clef notation as well. The test persons may or may not translate the absolute note names (letter names of fixed do names) to some kind of relative names while sight singing the music. But I assume here that the first information they get from the notation is the pitch name. Most methods for aural development and sight singing start from this position. Students are supposed to be familiar already with staff notation, with clefs and key signatures. Relative understanding may or may not be included as a ‘second stage tool’: for example by singing the exercises on numbers, solfa syllables etc. I will give some examples here as well, to compare the process when solfège is taught from symbol (or concept) to sound.
Karpinski[1] is one of very few who uses a form of relative ‘proto-notation’ for the fundamentals of rhythm and pitch in the beginning of his aural skills method for college students. It is explained that the major scale (a theoretical concept) and its scale degrees can be named by numbers or by solfège syllables. Tonal function names are also introduced right from the start: tonic, supertonic, dominant, tonic triad, etc. With these concepts in mind certain patterns are practiced in relative proto-notation with numbers or syllables. After that students are asked to sing and notate songs they know from childhood with the relative note names. Letter names for the pitches are soon introduced with the bass and the treble clef in staff notation. The first connection from the relative proto-notation to the absolute pitch names is through the scale of C-major: do (or 1) equals C. Reading and writing of short motives or melodies are practiced before the system is transposed to all other keys by stating: “key signatures move all scale degrees to new pitches” (p.47). Students must now find the position of do by themselves, using their knowledge of key signatures and this is practiced from (sight singing) and into notation (writing dictations). The method aims to integrate the learning of theoretical concepts with practical skills. A new concept is explained first (for example neighbouring notes), and then practiced in abstract exercises or examples from the music literature.
Edlund’s Modus Vetus[2] starts with reading short motives from the stave with treble clef and key signature. A specific tonal concept is chosen and has to be practiced from notation. Students have to sight-sing three-note motives and melodies from the tonic to the major third and back, notated in different keys. There are no other notes in the exercises: just the notes of the (tonal?) concept that has to be learned are there. Students learn how these motives look on the stave in the different keys, but must take the absolute pitch names with sharps and flats into account. Otherwise they may get totally confused when the next concept to practice is ‘from the tonic to the minor third’, or when these two concepts are combined. The symbol in a cognitively understood context directs the sound to be imagined and produced. But where can the inner ear find its information, needed to produce the right sound?[3]
Thus follows: when so is on a line, mi is on the line below. The other relative notes are introduced step by step, from sound (a known song), to the relative singing name (solmisation syllables), to notation (position on the stave). Positions of the relative notes on the lines of the stave vary all the time. No clef is used, not even an imaginary clef, where accidentals should have been taken into account. Later there is a tendency to only use three do-positions to notate the mainly pentatonic songs seen from the imaginary treble clef: C = do, F = do or G = do, but the absolute note names and pitch clefs are not used yet.
The hand stave is an extra visual tool, seen as an image of the stave. It is used for placing and spacing the relative singing names at the same time in the learning process when the stave on paper is introduced.
