<p>I've read threads concerning this issue but still not quite sure if the discussions answer my concerns. I am the parent of a boy entering his junior year in high school. He is a decent student but not academically inclined hindered by his lack of interest in reading although he reads well. Like all of us, he has some tasks he does better, e.g., writing or just about any project. Anything involving reading just doesn't fly. This includes reading music. He has taken piano/keyboard for several years. We got through the years of piano lesson rebellion a year or so ago by telling him he could quit. He then immediately became inordinately attached to the piano. We've ending up getting him a keyboard and he now has a music 'mentor' ( a graduate of a good music school) rather than a teacher. They get along great and spend alot of time 'jamming' and writing stuff. Our son reads almost no music, perhaps partially because he's always played quite well by ear and has little difficulty memorizing pieces although I suspect they leave his head as quickly as they enter. His mentor thinks he's a genius-an exaggeration I assure you but perhaps indicative of some level of talent. A former teacher declared he has "perfect rhythm", whatever that may mean.
He is looking at college alternatives and has not ruled out music. It would seem his area of interest would be composition and not so much performance, per se. In fact, he is shy about playing outside his circle of friends and family. I'm sure he can make strides over the next year or so in reading if he is motivated. If he is not, I suppose that is his problem. However, I cannot be optimistic about his drive to 'read' when he hears so well.<br>
Is his extreme weakness in reading likely to be a deal breaker everywhere or is his 'by ear' playing ability going to let him slide by in some schools? Thanks! Dad</p>
<p>He may very well have some sort of amazing natural tallent. My son has a friend who has never taken a real music lessons, yet he can play several instruments by ear at a level which is way above the beginner level. After hearing the friend play my sons violin, I asked him when he took lessons, he said “never” and explained that his uncle had a violin and he just picked it up and started playing it. Of course my son’s friend would never be able to get into a college music program due to his lack of skill in reading music.</p>
<p>I’m not a musician by any means, but I have been told that the ability to play by ear mostly involves understanding and being able to identify intervals. Most, if not all college music programs have a sequence of “aural training” and music theory classes which I believe teach that type of thing. If your son already had some sort of inate understanding of that, and a gift for memorizing music, then he may be a little ahead of the game in that respect.</p>
<p>But regardless, a thorough understanding of written music is absolutely going to be required to enter into a college level music program - especially for composition. If he auditions/interviews for composition I believe he will have to present a portfolio of origional work, and of course that will have to be in the form of sheet music.</p>
<p>If he is serious about music, he needs to start learning to read music immediately. I mean right this second. He needs to be willing to spend hours and hours a day playing music from written pieces. Sightreading is an important part of the audition, he can’t trick anyone (remember the movie “Drumline”). </p>
<p>My son’s primary instrument is trumpet, but he also plays piano. His piano performance skills are excellent, after just a few months of piano lessons he was playing pieces that many people can’t play after years of lessons, but since he spent many years learning to read just treble clef for trumpet and violin, he struggles trying to sightread piano music because it is treble and base clef. He was accepted at all the colleges he auditioned at for trumpet, but only one college accepted him for piano due to his lack of piano sight reading skills.</p>
<p>I do agree that his weakness in reading will likely be a “deal breaker” for college acceptance. Music is really the only field in which you are already supposed to be good at it before you start college - business majors don’t have to be business people before enrolling as a business major, nursing majors don’t already have to be nurses, engineering majors arn’t expected to already be engineers, but music majors are expected to already be musicians. The great thing is that he might have enough time to cure that weakness. </p>
<p>I would think that maybe you need to get him a new piano teacher, and probably also a composition mentor who will work with him on actually putting compositions to paper.
There are specific programs for writing music, I bought my son Finale about a year ago. You may want to look into getting the student version of Finale (it’s the full professional version but at a highly discounted price). I would think that if one can learn to create music in the written form that one would also sort of automatically learn to read it - much like written lanquage (just don’t let him know that it is possible to hookup a keyboard to the computer and automatically transcribe notes from playing).</p>
<p>You just need to explain this to him and let him make the decision as to whether he is going to make the effort. If he ain’t gonna do it, then he just aint gonna and he needs to forget about being a college music major. If he does do it, I don’t see any reason that he couldn’t pull up his music reading ability in a year and a half.</p>
<p>Most, if not all, composition departments require a prospective student to not only present a portfolio of works composed but also require the student to audition on an instrument as well. Sight-reading is a part of every music school audition, and one has to be able to read and notate what one is composing, so, yes, I’d say with certainty that not being able to read music would keep your son from even getting an audition at a college. He has time,but his lack of motivation needs to be addressed if he is even considering attending college- and that’s not only for music. Profs don’t hold kid’s hands in college, they assign readings and if the work isn’t done, a failing grade is awarded. There would be no sense in sending your son off to any sort of higher education if he is not going to be willing to do what is expected of him. regardless of whether he is interested in it or not (my youngest sort of fits this description, so I know what your are dealing with!).
It’s not too early to sit your son down and lay out the cold hard facts of life, chief of which is: you’re not going to be able to pick and choose what’s handed to you and you’re not going to “like” a good deal of what’s ahead,BUT, you have to get through it in order to be a productive member of society. Does it sound like I’ve had this conversation already? I have…
Hire the “mentor” to get down to working with your son on reading what’s put in front of him and developing some real proficiency on piano. He’s not going to audition as a piano performance major, obviously, so he needs to begin writing down his compositions and keeping them for his portfolio. He has to give an admissions committee something concrete to go on; many kids are competing for few openings. If the fact that he won’t even make it to the audition process isn’t motivation enough for him to read music, then nothing will be.
Good luck,“Dad” and hang in there, it does get easier!</p>
<p>It was DD’s college studio professor that diagnosed her learning disability because her reading of music compared to everything else were out of line. You might want to get him tested for processing issues. She has trouble when the notes are all over the clefs and tracking her line in the music. She knows it all and can correctly sight sing a single line, but sight reading and playing piano from full sheet music is darn near impossible. She had an accommodation at school for it and had to learn other methods to learn her music. Dyslexia is not uncommon in the music world.</p>
<p>Singersmom07 is on to something … you son’s reading issues or avoidance may very well be more related to a “learning difference” in the skills associated with reading. My son was tutored in elem. and middle school for ‘mild to moderate dyslexia’ and by high school junior year he scored a 34 on the critical reading portion of the ACT. The learning difference is just that, a different way of the brain working. You son’s genius-ness at playing music may be related to that because his learning difference can pay off in other areas. If it does have a gap in reading, it will help him to get help via a learning center (We have Stern Center where I live). If he can get this addressed in high school, he’ll have new skills to help him in college and the future.</p>
<p>There have been threads before about different kinds of music degrees–you may want to look at those. The posters above are certainly right that if your son is interested in a music school/conservatory, he will have to audition and will absolutely need to be able to read music well.
But it’s perhaps a different situation if he wants to go to a university and major in music in a college of arts and sciences. At a lot of schools, you don’t have to audition to declare a music major–but you do have to get through prerequisites, which will include music theory and ear training. A kid who couldn’t read music well would be far behind most of the others who would be pursuing a music major. Some schools have a performance requirement, others don’t. But even at such schools, if you are hoping to use his musical talents and achievements to help him get in, he will need to have a portfolio of compositions and possibly recommendations–and it seems to me that being able to read music is a key tool.</p>
<p>knownothing, you son could have a learning disorder and/or dyslexia. Dyslexia sufferers can be very intelligent and, of course, musically gifted, and usually develop strategies for coping with the disorder to some extent. Your son’s ability to play by ear (and his mentor’s assessment) suggest he may have such issues. The reason I write this, is that the reason he’s not reading music may not stem for stubbornness or laziness (in fact, from the way you describe his passion, I’d put money on it.)</p>
<p>Edit: After positing this, I noticed that SnowflakeVT wrote essentially the same thing I did. I also have a child similar to her son-- reading music was a huge struggle, and she did find ways to compensate, but it was not easy and sight-reading remains difficult.) For those sharp eyed readers, this is not my child who is in a conservatory, but rather a sibling who nonetheless has been and remains highly musically engaged.</p>
<p>My son originally played entirely by ear and was considered something of a ‘natural talent’ musically and compositionally. Then we discovered he had ‘super hearing’ and capd (central auditory processing disorder.) early music teachers said he wasn’t great at sight reading because he picked it up naturally/aurally, so reading slowed him down/frustrated him. In actual fact, after years of effort (he’s now a reasonably strong sight reader) we discovered he actually has a visual scanning deficit that rather goes with the territory in inattentive-type ADD.</p>
<p>Happily for him, he did master it sufficiently to be selected in a competitive music tech/composition/production program at umich, which he loves. But he also had to become a very high achiever in hs to have the stats for that program. It still takes him twice as long to do certain things, but his determination has made it possible. In his last two years of hs he taught himself how to properly compose (written), he took myriad private lessons, dual enrolled college keyboard and theory, played at every opportunity he could find, did summer programs and otherwise completely immersed himself in it.</p>
<p>It is absolutely worth pursuing an assessment (full neuropsych) to help your son make the most of his talents and overcome obstacles that might be in his path. believe me, we nearly missed it with mine ;)</p>