Motivation and Musical Literacy in the Education of Year 3 Children

Abstract

This paper describes how a teacher explored her teaching of an introduction to recorder playing to children, and how she tested her belief that music notation was an essential component of that teaching.Two roughly parallel classes of 7 to 8 year-olds were introduced to recorder playing. One group was given tuition accompanied by music notation, the other group learned to play by ear. An interaction was found between the ability of the child and the relative success of a method of teaching. More able pupils became demotivated without access to written music, whilst less able pupils retained their interest when playing by ear. An intermediate strategy, using notation with the names of the notes written below, proved effective for those of average ability.An holistic assessment of the quality of performance created by the two groups was independently assessed. Contrary to expectations the playing by ear group produced better quality sound than that of the group exposed to music notation.The implication for the introduction of music performance to young children is discussed.

Investigating Carl Czerny's Approach to Teaching Notes, Rhythm and Nonchordal Tone and Accidental in Etude Opus 599

“…Considering the study of this etude and the study of articles related to Etude Opus 599 Czerny, we conclude that in this opus for teaching notes in the initial practices of this opus only focuses on the G key of the F key notes from lesson 32 very quickly and without basic training such as basic training on notes training in the G key, in this etude, the importance of strengthening the fingerprinting skills entered. Also, the importance of hand rotation and hand preparation for stepplaying and a variety of rhythmic figures were taken into consideration [14]. Czerny very carefully familiarizes students with the prosody notes in this opus and then easy tonalities and gradually using transverse signs and then ornament notes in the form of gruppetto, trill (shake) and passage in different practices prepares the student in these techniques.…”