09 - The Reading of Music

Chapter 9 of Dr. Montessori's own handbook by Maria Montessori

This Libravox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Phil Shenover, the reading of music.

When the child knows how to read, he can make a first application of this knowledge

to the reading of the names of musical notes.

In connection with the material for a sensory education consisting of the series of bells,

we used a didactic material which serves as an introduction to musical reading.

For this purpose we have, in the first place, a wooden board not very long and painted pale green.

On this board, the staff is cut out in black and in every line and space are cut round holes

inside each of which is written the name of the note in its reference to the treble clef.

There is also a series of little white discs which can be fitted into the holes.

On one side of each disc is written the name of the note.

Do re mi fa so la ti do.

The child guided by the name written on the discs puts them with the name uppermost

in their right places on the board and then reads the names of the notes.

This exercise he can do by himself and he learns the position of each note on the staff.

Another exercise which the child can do at the same time is to place the disc bearing

the name of the note on the rectangular base of the corresponding bell,

whose sound he has already learned to recognize by ear in the sensory exercise described above.

Following this exercise, there is another staff made on a board of green wood,

which is longer than the other and has neither indentures nor signs.

A considerable number of discs on one side of which are written the names of the notes

is at the disposal of the child.

He takes up a disc at random, reads its name and places it on the staff with the name underneath

so that the white face of the disc shows on the top.

By the repetition of this exercise, the child is enabled to arrange many discs on the same line

or in the same space.

When he is finished, he turns them all over so that the names are outside

and so finds out if he has made mistakes.

After learning the treble clef, the child passes on to learn the base with great ease.

To the staff described above, can be added another similar to it.

Arranged as is shown in the figure 32, the child beginning with Doh lays the discs on the board

in ascending order in their right position until the activists reached. Doh re mi fa so la ti Doh

then he descends the scale in the same way returning to Doh.

But continuing to place the discs always to the right, so fa mi re Doh.

In this way, he forms an angle.

At this point, he descends again to the lower staff,

ti la so fa mi re Doh, then he descends again on the other side.

Re mi fa so la ti, and by forming with his two lines of discs, another angle in the base,

he has completed a rhumbus, the rhumbus of the notes.

After the discs have been arranged in this way, the upper staff is separated from the lower.

In the lower, the notes are arranged according to the base clef.

In this way, the first elements of musical reading are presented to the child,

reading which corresponds to sounds, with which the child's ear is already acquainted.

For the first practical application of this knowledge, we have used in our schools a

miniature piano forte keyboard, which reproduces the essentials of this instrument,

although in a simplified form, and so that they are visible.

Two octaves only are reproduced, and the keys, which are small, are proportioned to the hand

of a little child of four or five years, as the keys of the common piano are proportioned

to those of the adult. All the mechanism of the key is visible,

on striking a key, one sees the hammer rise, on which is written the name of the note.

The hammers are black and white, like the notes.

With this instrument, it is very easy for the child to practice alone,

finding the notes on the keyboard, corresponding to some bar of written music,

and following the movements of the fingers made in playing the piano.

The keyboard itself is mute, but a series of resonant tubes, assembling a set of organ pipes,

can be applied to the upper surface, so that the hammers striking these produce musical notes,

corresponding to the key struck. The child can then pursue his exercises with the control

of the musical sounds.

End of chapter 9