Leaving the city behind,
I cruised through the countryside of southeast Michigan, enjoying the scenery—lush green lawns flanked by evergreen and deciduous trees alike. After about an hour or so I arrived at my destination: Joy Morin’s Retreat at Piano Manor 2023. I was greeted by the hostess, Joy Morin, a tall, slender woman with a friendly, welcoming smile. First thing I noticed was the number of keyboards present—oh, half a dozen at least—lining the walls in various rooms throughout the house. The king of them all was a full-size grand piano in the living room. The walls were lined with bookshelves housing piano music of all kinds: graded method books, collections of various composers’ works, sheet music, etc.
In the kitchen, Amy Chaplin (of Piano Pantry fame) was putting together the finishing touches on a delicious lunch: chicken salad served either as sandwiches, croissants, or without any bread; raw veggies, fruit, and to top it all off—sweet potato cookies! This lovely lunch was accompanied by a delightful raspberry tea drink. While I was enjoying my lunch, our hostess joined a small group of ladies who were assembling folders for the attendees, a task quickly finished. Other piano teachers soon arrived, some greeting old friends and others making new ones.
At the appointed time, everyone gathered in the living room and the proceedings began…
After some brief, introductory comments, we dove right in, “exploring rote + note learning in piano teaching.” We discovered that none of us were taught anything by rote from our own teachers (with the exception, perhaps, of scales and arpeggios) but that all of us, as children, had learned certain songs—by rote—from other children! These songs included “Chopsticks”, “Heart and Soul”, the “Knuckle Song”, and “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater.” And all of us could still remember how to play them all these years later!
So we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of rote learning versus note learning. We defined the word “rote” and considered whether it might mean something different when piano teachers generally use the term. Do we even want to teach by rote? Are rote learning and note learning mutually exclusive?
This led to an exploration of the idea of “audiation.” What is that, you ask? Audiation is the “process of both mentally hearing and understanding music, even when no music is present.” An extreme example of this is Beethoven still composing after having gone deaf. But that’s an extreme. A less extreme example is when a young child begins to pick out familiar songs in different places on the keyboard, such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
So, what’s a piano teacher to do? It has been said that the best way to learn any language is by every means possible. Music is a language all its own. Could we, as piano teachers, integrate and combine rote + note + audiation learning in piano teaching? What would that look like? Or should I say, what would that sound like?
To explore this idea further, we organized ourselves into groups of two and three and looked at piano method books, past and present, to see how rote learning was used and whether the approach as presented was user-friendly, known to produce good results, still in print, etc. A number of the teachers present expressed surprise at what was found, since rote learning played a foundational role in piano pedagogy many, many decades ago but fell out of fashion. Some of the teachers present discovered new materials that they want to begin using themselves in their own studios.
Our hostess, Joy Morin, gave a presentation on Dr. Edwin E. Gordon—the man who coined the term “audiation”—and his writings and philosophy regarding Music Learning Theory. This included a brief summary of Gordon’s Learning Sequences for both rhythm and tonal content.
The next step? Finding and collecting rote solos that align with the levels described by Gordon. Suggestions were made as to how to keep track of favorites. By this time, hungry tummies were beginning to beg for attention, so the group broke up for supper, reconvening on the backyard patio after dinner. Some of the teachers shared entertaining stories about their funniest moments teaching and other experiences, while fireflies blinked secret messages of their own...
Day Two
After a delightful breakfast prepared by Amy Chaplin, we began day two with the passing out of a few door prizes—useful items carefully chosen to enhance the piano teacher’s toolkit. This was followed by Joy Morin modeling for us how to teach a piece by rote, or imitation. As she sang the tune, she said, “Do what I do.” And so it began…the grand adventure of learning how to develop audiation in one’s students. She directed us in moving to the rhythm. Once that was established, she played the piece a few times on the piano, leading us in chanting the resting tone of the piece. Once the rhythm and tonality of the piece was determined, she invited some volunteers to follow her lead in playing the piece, completely by rote, no note-reading involved. All were successful.
This was all in preparation for us to role-play teaching each other a piece by rote. To aid in selecting pieces for that, supplemental teaching books were passed out for the teachers to review. It soon became apparent which pieces were more useful and which ones were not so much. Once again, the attendees paired off and each teacher had the opportunity to actually teach their counterpart how to play a piece completely by rote, using all the tools and steps learned earlier. (Did I mention that there were five keyboards in addition to a grand piano?) My partner was Annette Hoverman, from Ohio, who taught me how to play “Green Frogs” from Repertoire by Rote by Dennis Alexander and Amy Greer, published by Alfred Books, and I taught her how to play “The Roadrunner” from the same book, using the steps outlined for us by Joy. We each had a lot of fun pretending to be five- to six-year old students. With a little coaching from Joy, we felt very comfortable with the idea that we could also teach other pieces using these steps.
Outside, rain began to fall, watering the verdant lawns neighboring the house, where inside, Joy continued watering our minds with knowledge from those who have and continue to pioneer Gordon’s Rote Song Procedure, sharing two articles, one on the benefits of rote teaching, by Dr. Julie Knerr and Katherine Fisher, the creators of the Piano Safari method books, and another on teaching a rote piece, by Anne Katherine Davis.
Of course, the goal of all this is to develop audiation in our students. Teaching pieces using rote song procedure is the doorway to that development. Not all students, even those who show musical aptitude, are ready to begin with note-reading as they learn to make music at the piano. As the student matures physically and developmentally, note-reading is then integrated into the lessons. The suggestion was made by one of the teachers that using rote learning occasionally can even help a student who is struggling with a certain type of pianistic skill or passage(s) in a particular piece.
Joy also walked us through Marilyn Lowe’s Keyboard Games, which looked to me to be a very useful book in providing meaningful musical experiences centered around the piano for even the youngest children, whose tiny hands may not have developed sufficient dexterity to play using individual fingers. She also stressed the importance of listening daily to pieces selected by the teacher for teaching listening skills, by asking questions about the music they’ve heard. These pieces are then taught through rote, or imitation.
The rain outside came and went, and a hummingbird darted by outside the window as we wrapped up the afternoon by reviewing Music Learning Theory (MLT) Sequencing in Piano Study. We listed the five vocabularies of listening, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing, We reflected on whether we would actually ask a young child NOT to speak something unless they knew how to read it first. Highly unlikely. But isn’t that what we often do in music education? We also reviewed Gordon’s Skill Learning Sequence and pondered whether or not most piano methods of today follow his findings or, if not, what sequence do they follow, instead? Lastly, we reminded each other how to get our students audiating rhythm and tonality and how important it is for us to help our students develop the skill of audiating context.
Once again, after supper, everyone gathered on the patio for conversation and dessert. However, the chairs were still wet from the afternoon rain, so a number of us gathered in the living room and unwound to a hilarious game of Wise or Otherwise.
Once breakfast was out of the way, Joy handed out more door prizes and this time I was the recipient of a book on my wish list: The Ways Children Learn Music: An Introduction and Practical Guide to Music Learning Theory by Eric Bluestine! I also received a pamphlet titled Quick and Easy Introductions by Edwin E. Gordon, which covered the following topics: Introductions to Music Learning Theory; Audiation; Preparatory Audiation; and Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children. I have some happy reading ahead of me. :)
Joy took a quick group shot of all of us and after a brief discussion to determine our preferences, we dove right in to the final day’s activities, beginning with a walk-through of Joy’s own book, Keys at Play: 88 progressive pieces for pianists of all ages. Joy was looking for a resource that presented rote pieces following Gordon’s theories on Skill Learning Sequence. Not finding what she was looking for, she wrote her own. The pieces are simple and can easily be taught using Gordon’s Rote Song Procedure but also help students “more easily develop musical understanding and technical skills at the piano.” This is a resource that I can use with my own students.
After a stretch break, we learned an ear piece together (I.e. by rote), only this time, Joy led us through the steps we might want to take in preparing our students to play these pieces and we role-played that. This was a very useful follow-up to the role-playing we did yesterday, when we all paired off and taught each other a song.
Another very useful follow-up was the end-of-retreat review which allowed us to articulate answers to our own questions about rote teaching, the use of ear pieces, audiation, Music Learning Theory, MLT sequencing, and the use of movement in teaching rhythm.
My key takeaways:
~ I learned about available tools that I can use with my own students that address specific needs they might have. ~
~ I knew the topic was going to be rote-teaching but what I didn’t know was that rote teaching as used in the music teacher studio is so much more than just learning a song without reading notes. ~
~ I am so excited about how this new knowledge and available tools can help me help my students in spreading the gift of music! ~
