Notes of the staff

I have been very impressed with my students knowledge of music theory.  We have just begun to work on rhythms in 4/4 time and now this week I taught them the grand staff.  Next time I see them we will put all that knowledge together and learn some songs on the piano, using their new understandings of treble and bass clef.

I was astonished when my son came home as an adult and told me he was never taught that the middle C on the grand staff connects the bass clef to the treble clef.  He always thought they were two separate entities.  He never knew that it is actually a continuum.  Well, after he learned that, at such a late age, after he had been in jazz band and band all those years, and after he had taught himself piano and bass..I swore that I would teach it to kids right away, so they would always know WHY the notes on the staff are read differently from bass to treble.

At the risk of telling you something you already know, the reason that you read the spaces in treble clef f-a-c-e, but in bass you read them a-c-e-g- it is because you read up from middle c in one way, but when you read down to the bass clef the other direction, you end up with different notes on different spaces and lines.  Thus, your bass clef is read very differently than your treble clef.

Now, it does appear that it makes a difference if I teach them that at the beginning, it makes it easier to understand what all those lines and spaces and balls and sticks on the staff mean- but there will always be students who still don't understand it after you have explained it all, but I am finding that either students are more motivated than they ever were, or they just get these ideas better than they used to, or more of them have had experience with the concepts of music theory than ever before.

So- I used the gradual release of responsibility one more time, and it worked as always, and I am pleased at how far we got this week, even with the snow day on Monday and the delay on Friday, but they will be ready to hit the pianos when they come back after testing in two weeks!  Hurray!  Have a great EASTER!!