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This is the way - beginning at age 3 or so - that I began to engage music.
My sister was my youngest sibling - over a decade older than me. When she would come home from her 2nd/3rd/4th year piano lessons, I would listen to her working on her assignments, and then I would sit at the piano after she left and pick away “by ear”, until I figured out much what she was doing.
When I was four, I was given a pressed board (cardboard/Masonite w/wood) ukulele that was actually a toy. My brother tore off the fingerboard, and made one for me out of heavy posterboard and toothpicks - whereby the frets were in the correct places. He and my mother showed me a few chords, and - by the time I had a $10 guitar (a couple of years later) I began listening to the radio, and began to teach myself some of the songs that I heard on the radio and on recordings (“records”).
In second grade, I begin class piano at elementary school, which was the first time that I encountered sheet music and music theory. It was easy, because I just put all of that with what I already knew that had taught myself. Memorization was natural, because – when someone plays without music - everything is memorized.
In junior high school, I approached the trumpet and the tuba and the same way. I would take the trumpet home to practice, but I didn’t practice the easy little things in the Belwin book, but would pick out tunes, and see if I could play a little bit of the stuff that the trumpet players were doing on the Lawrence Welk Show and other television shows.
Had my first engagements with music been on paper and theoretical, I’m pretty sure I would have quit messing with music.
Am I agreeing that the “book-first“ (rather than “SOUND first” - with NO music stand staring a little kid in the face) method - employed to this day in beginner band classes - kind of sucks for people (who have never engaged music before)?
Maybe I am...(??)

bloke wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:58 am Had my first engagements with music been on paper and theoretical, I’m pretty sure I would have quit messing with music.
Am I agreeing that the “book-first“ (rather than “SOUND first” - with NO music stand staring a little kid in the face) method - employed to this day in beginner band classes - kind of sucks for people (who have never engaged music before)?
Maybe I am...(??)

You aren't wrong. It's the reason why many quit. We don't forbid kids to talk, who can't read yet. Having band directed many years, this opinion is spot on from my experience.

Well, of course we know many don't quit, and follow that path to become fairly skilled players. I don't play in small groups with anyone like that, and it isn't what I look for, but they do go occasionally on to play as adults.

I had a very brief experience in grade school band, probably cut short more by the playability of my school-issue clarinet than the nature of the musical experience, but where music really took was choir. In choir we did read music, after a fashion, but of course there isn't any note-to-button map, so maybe it's somewhere in between. While I'm a sub-par reader and sometimes have to think about it if you ask what note I'm playing, my ability to connect what I'm doing with `song' in an intentional way is something I have to work on, on the instruments I learned later in life.

I was always the one who would be relied upon to pull the chord changes and guitar licks off the 45 rpm records for the various garage bands with which I was involved (c. ages 8 -12, after which, I realized that "solo guitar" was the way to go, if I wanted to have anyone hire me to play anything...' both easier to put together, and more control over the product).

"Playing early" - possibly (??) - may well be just as beneficial (to a musician) as "talking early" seems to be to people in general...

something else: Playing multiple-pitches instruments (which involve keyboards/strings/etc.) is probably really beneficial, whether-or-not those sorts of instruments are someone's "primary" instruments - as these instruments can "teach" their player the basics of music theory - even though the player/learner may not know the formal names of those things they're in the process of learning.

This is an interesting discussion. I really believe that if I had learned to play and listen to music before I learned to read it, I'd have been much better off as a musician. As it is, playing by ear is a struggle, and even reading music for a long time made me feel like I had no context (style) other than the notes.

On the other hand, I spent a couple years in conservatory, and the most miserable people to work with were vocalists who couldn't read music. You had no common point of reference. Once you got on the same page, they could be fantastic performers, but it was hard to get there with them, especially with a band. The most brilliant musicians in music school were always the piano players, followed by the guitar players. They understood chords and progressions, and general theory. I was very blown away by this.

But yeah, if I could go back 50 years and do it again, I'd spend more time singing, more time fiddling around with an instrument, and I would have taken those piano lessons my mother gave me more seriously.

good response/thoughts

I guess the piano/guitar thing could be better expressed as "Music theory - if FIRST learned by SOUND - is FAR easier to (then) attach names/descriptions to the sounds."

My mother had always wanted piano lessons but only her grandmother, whom she spent summers with, would provide them. So she ended up a talented but not techniqued player. Good ear, good rhythm, and we always had a well-tuned piano in the house. I'm told that when I was three I started picking out tunes by ear, and that's why I got lessons starting when I was six. Her father was a violinist, and I was expected to play it. Violin came at seven, didn't last, and came back when I was eleven. The pro world in that was not good for me, and brass didn't come in until it was too late to do much more than have fun, which I have and do.

When I was trying to make a living off of music, I also was the one who got the chords off the records for the bands I played in. Interesting parallels.

I remember in grade school that Suzuki Method violin lessons were offered. This was instruction without using written music. There was no followup in subsequent years and there was no strings program in jr. high or high school. There were one or two youth orchestras but I didn't know anyone who played in them until my brother was roped into joining and playing percussion. Myself, I joined the regular band program on the trumpet in the fifth grade.

Has anyone else heard of the Suzuki Method?

a effective "jump-start" method - offering fun, socialization, and positive reinforcement, which can be applied to many instruments - particularly now that there are such things as pocket trumpets, kinder flutes, shrunk-down single F or B-flat horns, and (though mostly discontinued) flugabones (compact valve trombones)...and either American bell-front baritones or top-action euphoniums can rest in the laps of small children.

If anyone has kids turning four or so, they should have some sort of piano in the house.
If too expensive, then an electronic keyboard, and - if still to expensive - a ukulele...
...oh yeah: and a small fiddle with a working bow.

The Big Ben wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 4:37 pm ...the Suzuki Method?

The Big Ben wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 4:37 pm Has anyone else heard of the Suzuki Method?

Sure, but not in the public schools. Along with the method per se, I think it's also somewhat known for the scaled down violins. As I suppose you'd see in any instruction that starts very young.

The Big Ben wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 4:37 pm I remember in grade school that Suzuki Method violin lessons were offered. This was instruction without using written music. There was no followup in subsequent years and there was no strings program in jr. high or high school. There were one or two youth orchestras but I didn't know anyone who played in them until my brother was roped into joining and playing percussion. Myself, I joined the regular band program on the trumpet in the fifth grade.

Has anyone else heard of the Suzuki Method?

Yes. If you go through my previous two videos that start the discussion on this topic, I mention Suzuki.

If this topic is interesting to anyone, please check those out and weigh in on it. More discussion to come...

(Maybe I should have posted these in Music Chatter???)

No searching necessary:




The idea to include a play-along tune starts in this one (grab your tuba and try it):

Those chickens clucking in (almost) time is pure Country.

KingTuba1241X wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:32 pm Those chickens clucking in (almost) time is pure Country.

Originally, I was going to use the indoor-recorded audio with the video. My outdoor rendition was one take and was done strictly to capture the video - it certainly wasn't the best I could do. But when I started, the chickens cranked up and that was too good to leave out. They chimed right in, as if on cue. And yes, we iz in da country.

My covid cow video was done on a lark, contains imperfect/unedited playing, but it was also too funny to try and edit. Hell, I'm lucky to have time to do one-take video and audio, much less sit around and do multiple takes and do lots of editing. Doing a short video every week is a tall order.

In my lesson giving days back when, I used the Suzuki books (but not the method, which I was not trained in) for beginning violin players.

bloke wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 2:09 pm I guess the piano/guitar thing could be better expressed as "Music theory - if FIRST learned by SOUND - is FAR easier to (then) attach names/descriptions to the sounds."

If you already have a working, practical knowledge, you can always attach a label. Learning the other way around ain't so natural and easy.