Reading Music in Book One? Yes, by ear!

Traveling from San Francisco to Lima, in a casual
conversation about music teaching, a fellow
passenger asked me, “Do you teach the Suzuki
method, or do you teach the children to read?” This made me
think. Wait a moment, the Suzuki
method is the Mother Tongue
Approach. In the mother
tongue, do our children learn
to read? Yes, of course! I knew
I had to do something drastic
to change people’s perception
of the Suzuki approach.
I am in agreement with Dr.
Suzuki’s emphasis on the
importance of postponing
music reading in order to
develop the ear, the memory,
beautiful tone, physical ease
at the instrument, and fluent, expressive playing. I want to
stress the importance of developing all the skills Dr. Suzuki
mentioned, while experiencing music reading through
activities away from the instrument.

Yes, it is about postponing music reading at the instru-
ment, but do not postpone music reading!

One of our goals as music educators is to develop the same
level of literacy in music as people have in their native
language. We cannot pass a sign
in the street without reading
it—that is, without hearing it
in our heads. With music, it
should be the same. It should
be impossible for a musician
to glance at written music and
not hear it.
Going back to the mother
tongue, think about the vast
preparation children have in
their written language while
they are learning to speak and
long before we teach them to
read. From the moment the young baby can focus her eyes,
she is surrounded by words and letters. As she is developing

language acquisition through the ear, she is also becom-
ing familiar with the images on the page, and naturally

associating what she hears with the
written language. This preparation
stage for reading is an all-important

step in achieving language liter-
acy. The natural way of learning

to read is achieved by exposing
the child to the written elements
of language, not through direct
teaching but by guiding the child
to absorb through her senses. We
let the child imitate, associate,
and self-discover before adding
a grammatical explanation. We
create the environment and let
the child learn! It is an advantage

that children already have the lan-
guage in their ears and memory as

they are learning to read. Reading
is recognizing familiar images for
sounds already in the ear.

In music, I propose the same ap-
proach. Expose the child to the written

notation from the beginning. Let

the child associate sounds with im-
ages and learn to write by imitating

shapes on the page. Guide the child
to unconsciously absorb the concepts
while separately and simultaneously
developing the physical and aural
skills associated with the instrument.
We must link the written symbol to
the sound from the beginning and
take advantage of the ample musical
language already in the child’s ear.
This is the key to music reading with
ease. We want the child to be able to
look at the score and hear it. Look at
the rhythm and feel it. Look at the
dots on the page and sense the music.
Our Suzuki students with well-trained
ears and an already-developed musical
sensitivity have all the advantages.
Once we connect the symbol to the ear,
they will be able to hear what they see.
Music reading activities through the
senses, not the intellect at first, will
encourage self-discovery, enhance
musical intuition and eventually,
through careful guidance, lead to
advanced analytical skills. I remember
when I asked Haruko Kataoka about
40 years ago, “How do you teach sight
reading?” She said to me, “You read to
the child.” I didn’t understand. Now

I know this is the all-important first
step. It paves the way towards reading
by ear.

Here are some of my ideas. A ll

concepts must first be “uncon-
sciously experienced.”

Rhythm: There is no point in talking
about the beat if the child cannot feel

it. Feel the beat, feel the rhythmic pat-
terns, associate images with known

rhythms. Discover there is one symbol
per sound, therefore every symbol
represents a sound. Follow the score
from right to left. Become familiar with
basic note values already in the ear.

Melody: Understand the basic con-
cept of melodic patterning rather than

saying “that line is a G.” With familiar
patterns, feel the music ascending
and descending, feel phrase lengths,
feel question and answer, all without
explanation. Sing, sing, sing. Singing
will develop the skill of inner hearing.
See these patterns on the staff. Sing
and follow.

Global: Without explanation, ex-
pose the child to the complete score of

familiar music, with rhythm, melody,
bar lines, clefs, time and key signature,
and all indications on the page. Follow
the score while singing or clapping
and let the child discover. It is amazing
how the child develops her intuition
when we show her the score for what
is already in the ear.
Musical Form: Through familiar
repertoire, feel phrase lengths, feel
same and different, question and

answer. Express with gestures. Experi-
ence leads to discovery and eventually

to analysis through the senses.
Tonality: Develop a sense of tonality
through transposition by ear. The ear

guides the child to an “unconscious
understanding” of whole steps, half

steps and key, not based on memoriz-
ing key signatures, but by using

the ear and sensing the pull to
the tonic.
In conclusion, let the child
develop the ear and memory,
beautiful tone and physical ease
at the instrument, and at the same
time introduce reading through
singing and feeling while not
playing. Fluent and expressive
music reading depends on fluent
and expressive playing, together with
an approach which allows the child to
connect the sound and sensitivity to the
written score. We must rid ourselves of
the myth that a trained musical ear
and memory will cause a child to have
reading problems. In language, it is
just the opposite. No one would think
of blaming a child’s reading difficulties
on the fact that the language is already
in the ear. We blame the school, the
teacher, the system.

Which brings me back to the moth-
er tongue. I remember my husband

showing concern that our five-year-
old son was not yet reading. I told him,

“If you want him to read, just read to
him.” So he did. Constantly. One day,
our son was reading naturally in the
same languages he already had in
his ear.

Caroline Fraser

graduated from Ed-
inburgh Univer-
sity with a BM and

studied at the Royal
Academy of Music
in London, obtaining the diplomas Licentiate of the
Royal Academy of Music (piano) and Licentiate of
the Royal College of Music (violin). She obtained
an MM degree with Kodaly emphasis from Holy
Names University (HNU) in California. From 1992
until 1999 she was lecturer in music theory at HNU
and she continues to direct the Summer Suzuki
Piano Teacher Training Institute. Caroline is an
ESA, SAA, and ARSA teacher trainer, traveling and
teaching throughout the world. She currently lives
in Lima, Peru, and is a Latin American liaison for the
SAA. She is passionate about promoting a natural
approach to teaching music reading and theory
for Suzuki students.