I am teaching a six year old boy and he has been taking lessons for about six months. I find that he is having problems seeing the direction of the notes on the staff. For some reason if the notes are going up he plays down and vice versa. We have talked about which way is up on the piano and which way is down and how you play up when the notes go up and play down when the notes go down but he is still not recognizing this. I am not sure how to make this clearer to him in another way. Please help.

Doreen

-- Doreen Kral (doreen_kral@hotmail.com), September 13, 2002

Answers

Try turning the staff a quarter turn to the right so that he can see the notes going left and right as they do on the piano. Works wonders for their visual perception!

-- Arlene Steffen (asteffen@fresno.edu), September 14, 2002.