Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-04-23 22:57
OK, SilverHare --
You say you are NOT tone deaf. Does that mean you can vocally replicate a pitch (in your range) after you hear it sounded by someone else? If so, good. One step in the right direction.
So, in the estimation of your other (faithless) teachers, where was it that you went wrong?
Are you rhythm challenged? (Can you repeat a clapped pattern of four, or three, or two? As Dutchy says, if you can do the simple thing, then you can likely do the more complex thing, with time and patience.)
Do you get the idea of up and down, tonally, on a piano keyboard (i.e., do you get the idea of changing the pitch by pressing down successive keys, even with one finger)? Do you get the idea of up and down on, say, a flutophone or recorder or clarinet? (i.e., do you get the idea that you add or remove fingers to raise or lower the tone the instrument is producing?)
Can you play anything at all by ear? (i.e, can you pick out a tune like "Row Row Row Your Boat" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb" without looking at any sheet music?)
Music is not something on the paper. Music is what happens between you and the instrument. The paper with the little black things on it is just a cue card. People who read music really well (i.e., people who respond to the cue card very quickly and accurately) already know in their heads more-or-less what it is going to sound like BEFORE they play -- their brain and eyes recognize the rhythm, for example, and their fingers "know" which way to go, without thinking much about it. (But please note, they were not, in most cases, born doing this -- it is a developed skill, like typing on a QWERTY keyboard.)
Depending on your response to these questions, I'm wondering if perhaps several solid weeks of basic ear training -- like, learning to tap or clap common rhythms, and to recognize them on the page, as well as learning to orally reproduce and then recognize ascending and descending scale patterns -- might not be the place for you to start, BEFORE you complicate the issue by introducing a tool called a musical instrument into the mix. A competent music teacher of any sort should be able to teach you this. There are also books available to help you with this.
I might also recommend a book called "A Soprano On Her Head", by the late Eloise Ristad (ISBN 0-911226-21-4 -- paperback) published by Real People Press (should be able to find it on Amazon, or at most libraries). She devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 7) of this book to people who do better reading music with the score turned sideways, rather than horizontally. Sounds like it might be right up your alley.
Susan
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