The blog below is text taken from a comment I posted on the group Music Teachers.  To comment, please go to the group.

I have always had a problem with the traditional way sight-reading is taught to beginning students. Now, before I say anymore, I'm relating this to school band instruments such as saxophone, trumpet, bells (percussion), etc. It should apply to all the other instruments as well but maybe someone that plays guitar would have a different outlook.

Here is my problem. Most beginning method books have the note names written either on the note or by the note. They want the students to learn the letters names from the beginning.

A music note is just a symbol. It has no meaning until we give it meaning. A letter name is also just a symbol. It has no meaning until we give it meaning. The problem is, when you have a young student, they see two symbols. One symbol is completely new to them, but a letter name is something they have seen before. Most of the time, they are completely drawn to the letter name. They might then learn that F on saxophone is played (123|1 ) and that an A is played (12 | ). If that's the way they learned it, they will probably have to look at the symbol on the page, think of a letter name, which is another symbol, and then think of the fingering. This process then is symbol = symbol = fingering. The student is now placing an extra step in the thought process. So to make it easier, they start witting the letter names under the notes.

This is a big problem.

A student that has to write letter names under the notes will only be given minimal information. Think about it. How much information can you get from a letter symbol? If you look at a note, it will tell you the exact range (fingering), length of the note, any articulations, etc. A letter name can only mean one fingering and it can't tell you anything else. In order for a student to play it, they will have to have heard and memorized the rhythm and the shape of the melody. The type of student that has to rely on letter names in order to play will be a slow learner and reader.

With all that said, it's possible to learn letter names at the same time, but it's important to know that the student is making the process, note = fingering and not that note = letter name = fingering. The last way is very hard to do which is why you will see students witting letter names on the music. They are trying to cut out the first step to make it easier. Once you let them do this, it's hard to brake them of the habit and learn to read music.

When I teach beginners, I won't discuss letters names at all for the first half of the year. When I tell them to play a note on their music, I will say "third space, second line, fourth space flat", etc. Most of the time they are looking at music and I can say, "Let's start on your third measure, beat two." or if I just want them to play a note that's not on their music, I will say "play your 'first space' note". They can easily picture the note in their head or on the paper and play it.

Once the students have proven they are actually able to read the first 6 notes they have learned without use of letter names and can sightread a piece of music just given to them (using the first 6 notes along with quarter and eighth notes) then I can introduce letter names. This ensures that the student understands that note = fingering. It is easy to learn letter names once they have the basics. They can memorize those in one night or over time as you start integrating letter names into the lessons.

Letters are good for discussing music and learning theory but when you are actually reading music, in order to be a proficient sight-reader, you can't be thinking letter names. It has to be an automatic process.

By taking away letters at the beginning of instruction, they won't have the option to attempt to use them. Some kids naturally pick the correct way to remember the notes. Others grab onto letter names and can't play without them. Don't introduce letters and all your students will be able to read.

Every beginning student I have taught this way has quickly become a good player. My problem is, I have band parents that use to play in band when they were young. Of course, they are all experts. They learned through letter names and that is how they try to teach their kids at home. I have lots of proof at my school that they couldn't read music when they were younger. A lot of the parents in the town where I work went to school and grew up in that same town. The music from years back is littered with sheet music destroyed with letters written under every single note. This was high school music too. More than half of the music within a selection had letter names. Now, these students who are fighting me with letter names are the students that quickly fall behind as the other progress quickly through the method book. It happens every year.

I could go on and on, but I think I have stated most of my point above. I know some people are thinking, what about key signatures and other things that require discussing notes. The thing to remember is that when you are just starting an instrument, you usually play in the standard key for that instrument. In band, it's concert Bb. We stay there for a while as we learn new notes. There is no need to discuss the key signature yet. For example, since flutes are non-transposing instruments, they have a Bb and Eb in the concert key of Bb. When we learn Bb (third line), it has a flat in front of it. They don't worry about the flat. They just learn a fingering for that note with a flat in front of it. A few lessons later we just tell them we are going to move the flat to the front of the song on the same line so we don't have to write it all the time. No big deal. The student still continues to play the same fingering. By the time we are ready to start playing B naturals, the student has known about letter for a long time. They have also memorized and discussed the chromatic scale early on which makes understanding sharps, flats, and naturals much easier. I'll write about that another day.

This tutorial will give you a basic idea of the features and how to best use these features to highlight your talents and make connections with like minded musicians. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Features:

Now that you are a member (have an account) you can start using the site.  Please note, some of these features may not be available if you are a standard member.  (full memberships are available with "Donation +Plus" accounts - standard member are accounts that have expired and are about to be removed)

   Music

This is the area where you can upload your mp3 to share with other musicians.  When you click the music icon located in the top menu, you will be taken to your music options.  There are two tabs on this screen.  The first tab, which is also the default screen, is "My Music Playlist".  If this is your first time on the page you won't see any songs.  Once you upload some songs they will be listed on this page where you can move them in the play rotation and also edit the title information that is scrolled on the music player when they are active.

In order to upload a song, just click the link that has this icon  and says "Upload New Songs".  You will then be shown your upload screen where you can choose what to do.  As you add music files, they will be displayed below your progress bar.  Once you have added all the songs you would like to upload, simply hit the "upload songs" link and your upload progress will be displayed.  When the songs have finished uploading they will be available within your profile.

The second tab is labeled "Music Settings".  This area is where you determine if your music files will automatically play when someone visits your profile.  You can also determine if other peoples music will play when you visit their profiles.  The default is set for autoplay.  I personally like autoplay but it's possible that people with slow connections can experience delays when viewing your profile since the song is streaming while downloading the remainder of your profile.  Users can always disable autoplay within their settings if they are experiencing problems with slow loading profiles that have music set to autoplay.

  Friends

When you view a person profile, you have the option of asking them to be your friend.  You don't want to just start asking everyone that you see to be your friend.  Do you do that in public when walking down the street?  If you have conversations with them or some type of previous connection, then a friendship request would be something you might want to do.  There are a couple of ways to ask someone to be your friend but the easiest way is to look for the friend link located underneath a persons picture when viewing their profile.  (If they are already your friend, this link becomes a remove friend link.)  Friends are a two way street.  After you request a friendship, they are sent a message asking if they will approve the request.  If they say no.... well, I don't know what to say.  If they say yes, then you are added to their friend list and they are added to your friend list.

Being a friend has privileges because some of a users content might only be available to people on their friends list.  It's good to have friends.

Under the Friends icon in the menu you can manage your friends and view any friend requests you have sent or received.

  Groups

Groups are so cool!  Well, at least I think so.  As a Full Member, you can create interest groups.  Let's say that you are very interested and knowledgeable in Guitar Technique for Country Music.  You could create a group for this topic and others can join this group.  You as the groups creator have complete control over how it is run, who can see it, post messages, etc.  You can even assign roles to other group members to make your job of managing the group easier.  These groups can be searchable from within the site and will be picked up my major search engines such as Google.  It's a great way to gain and share information while making connections with people that have your same interests.

   Blog

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you know basically what a blog is.  For those who don't it's a basic way of entering text for others to see.  It's widely used to discuss your "day to day" happenings.  They can be used for other things as well.  For example, this page is a blog located on my profile "stlmusic".  Most musicians will probably use it to tell us about their gigs, but it could also be used to discuss music stores and venues.  It's your place to vent or praise if wanted.

  Events

This is a nice feature for those that want to advertise their gigs.  It's similar to the gig calendar on St. Louis Music Classified (which you should still use for all your public gigs ) but it's your own personal calendar from which you can let people make comments and also send RSVP to let you know they are going to attend.  The calendar can be indexed by search engines which helps get your band some exposure.

   Chat

The chat feature can be used by all users and is not member specific.  Basically, it's not a private chat.  It's public.  The best way to use this feature would be to setup discussion times where people can meet to openly chat about anything music related.  Obviously anyone could join the chat room at any time but if you are trying to have a discussion with a group and someone shows up and causes problems, just report the user using "Report this Person" link found on their profile.

  Photos

Within this area you can create photo albums for others to view.  In order to upload photos, you must first create an album.  Just click "Create New Album" and fill out the fields you are shown.  Once finished, you can upload pictures to your albums.  When you are editing your album, you can enter a title and text for each photo.  The title will show above the picture when viewing the album as a whole.  The title and description will show when the picture is viewed individually as in slide show view.  This is a good place to upload gig pictures or pictures of your musical equipment.  Some people like to show off that type of stuff.  I have nothing to show off so you won't find any of those pictures on my profile.   (Please see the FAQ page regarding the tag feature.)

  Messages

Your message area acts just like email but it's only between members of St. Louis Musicians Network.  When someone sends you a message, the text link "Messages" will be in bold lettering and a number representing new ads in your message folder will be shown.  You can view received and sent messages while also controlling other features such as notification to your email address when a new message arrives.

  Settings

The settings area is for changing what people see when you do something on the site.  On your profile it shows your activity.  If you don't want someone to see when you login, update a message, post a picture, etc., you can disable it here.  Everything is on by default since it's helpful to let people know that you are active on the site and when they should check areas of your profile for updated information.  You can also delete your profile from this page but that is not recommended.  If you are a member of St. Louis Music Classified, the account will just be recreated when the database is updated.  The only thing is you will lose all your information previously posted.  The account will be fresh.  There is really no reason to remove an account.

  My Home

There are so many things on this page.  It's fairly self explanatory so I'm not going to go into detail.  This page will have all site messages from me, show your online status that you can edit, show recent activity on the site, and a few other things.  You'll figure it out.

  Profile (edit)

This is actually two links.  The profile link will show you how others see your profile.  The edit link is used to change this information.  The "Personal Information" tab should already be completed for standard users since they were asked for this information when they created their accounts.  For full users you should enter this information otherwise the default information will be used.  It will show you are over 100 years old.  You don't want people thinking that so make sure to fill out that information.  The "Contact Information" tab just has your phone number and band website fields.  You don't have to enter these.  The band link is useful but you may want to leave the phone number blank.  I just created the field because I'm sure someone might want to post it for some reason.  (You may notice there is no place to update/change your email address.  If you could change your address and your paid membership was created from the St. Louis Music Classified membership site, this would cause a problem in the system since your paid membership on St. Louis Music Classified and St. Louis Musicians Network could possibly have different email addresses.  This could lock you out of the network.  If you really need to change your email address on the network you can simply update your email address within your membership profile on St. Louis Music Classified and it will then change your email address on this system.)  From this page, you can upload a photo for the profile, edit comments posted to your profile (if posting was allowed for other users), change your status message, and change the view settings for your profile.  (standard users do not have as many option when it comes to who can and cannot see their profile and other items)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Just a few more things...

The search bar at the upper right is capable of searching profiles, groups, events, and comments.  The ability to search these areas will be determined by the privacy settings the content creator has set.  You can do a more advance search by using the search link located at the upper left.

If you need help, please use the "FAQ" or "Contact Us" link at the bottome of the page.  You can also use the Technical Support (live chat) page on St. Louis Music Classified to ask questions about this site.

This is your personal website!

If posting an ad to St. Louis Music Classified, there is an area where you can link to a website.  In the past a lot of people would link to a myspace account.  Why do that when you have a dedicated music site here that offers just as much if not more, and in a better layout.  The link to your site is the domain name of the site and your username.  My URL would be http://www.stlmusicnetwork.com/stlmusic/

Just replace "stlmusic" in the above example with your username.  Pretty easy!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

I think I have covered the main areas but I know I didn't mention everything.  If you have further questions after reading all of this and the FAQ page, just let me know.