After an entire
year of scratching my head in confusion and wondering why so many of my
students were having problems with key signatures (all of which were
students at the same school), I finally realized it was because of the
very bad habit of marking key signature notes in their music. This is
something you need to stop doing RIGHT NOW!!!!
Are you one of those students who can barely see the
music through the circles and penciled flats or sharps?
Does your music
look like this?:
Or like this?:
The new rule is "Don't do this anymore!!!!"
This is a VERY bad habit.
It wouldn't be SO bad if it actually worked. But it
doesn't. You mark
these notes because it reminds you which notes are in the key signature, right?
Well then, why do you still keep playing them wrong? (I haven't met a
player yet who marked key signature notes and didn't play wrong notes
anyway). Face it. This kind of
marking has no positive benefits and the problems it causes are
severe.
Before we talk about the negative effects of marking
your music this way, let's take a moment to discuss how marking should
work. In general, you should mark ONLY the following:
Information not written into the music. For
example; if the teacher tells you the notes should be staccato and staccatos are not written, then you should write them on the
part. If the band director tells you to crescendo in a place where
no crescendo is written, then you mark it into the part.
Misprints. If you learn that the music has
errors, you should correct those errors on your part.
Conductor Notes. If the conductor tells you to
do something at a certain point in the music, then you should mark it
into the part. Maybe he wants you to play a note more sharp or flat.
Maybe he wants you to watch him. Those things should be written into
your part.
And NEVER the following:
Do NOT mark things that are already written
because it delays the day you actually learn how to read the
music.
Do NOT mark fingerings unless they are
alternative fingerings.
Do not circle mistakes! Consider the psychology
of circled mistakes. You're in a competition and the music on your
stand has twenty reminders of all the parts where you messed up. How much
sense does that make?
Yes, it is important to mark trouble spots so you know
what to work on. This is different from what most of you do though. Most
of you circle mistakes to remind you to "try harder" the next
time you play it. Bad!!!! The only time you should mark a mistake is
when you plan to return to it later to fix it. When you've practiced it
enough to play it correctly, you don't need a reminder to "try
harder" anymore so it's time to erase the mark.
But what about key signature notes? Why shouldn't you
mark them?
Because, remembering the key as your eye
travels across the page is a skill which needs to be developed over time.
It's a short term memory skill and by marking the key signature notes into
your music, you put off the day when you develop this skill.
Unfortunately, it's a badly needed skill which is never
effectively sidestepped with such shortcuts. Our minds do not comprehend
music on a note by note basis. We think in terms of groups of notes and
one of the most basic concepts behind these note groupings is the concept
of key signatures.
That's why marking individual notes doesn't work. It
merely causes you to avoid learning to recognize note groupings. It puts
off the day you will learn the short term memory skill of remembering what
key you're in.
As a professional player, I often read music that only
has the key written ONCE, on the first staff of each page. So this is a
big deal. It's part of learning how to read music.
The prescribed cure for this problem is to spend lots of
time playing the Tonalization Studies in the Daily
Routines book (doing them in many different keys) and NEVER marking
your music this way again.
