[Smt-talk] Dylexia and music theory/aural skills

Sun Oct 16 12:25:10 PDT 2011

Leigh,
Thanks for the email and for the advice to look at the pedagogy of mathematics. Most of what I've seen so far on dyslexia and music addresses reading notation (which is a struggle for my student, but not the fundamental and biggest problem) and the instruction of performance, rather than theory and aural skills. Given her struggles with number and letter symbols (note names, intervals, solfege syllables, scale degrees), material on dyslexia and math pedagogy may be very helpful. I'll check it out.

For any others who may have had similar experiences with insights to share, here are a few more details:

She is definitely struggling with reading the staff, as well as differentiating pitches on the keyboard, because of the black and white; she also has severe difficulty (more than most students) with interval inversions and with composing counterpoints below a CF (usually inverting the intervals or the direction of resolution). Her biggest issues are in aural skills, however. Solfege is very difficult, and almost completely useless for her. She transcribes a melody's solfege as "do re mi" for example, but then notates the pitches E D C and often can't find the error when asked. When singing Karpisnki's "sequentials" (e.g., the pattern do-re-mi-do transposed to each step of the scale: do re mi do | re mi fa re | . . . ), she memorizes the pitch patterns separate from the solfege patterns, and frequently combines one sequential's pitch pattern with another's solfege pattern (or with the pattern for the descending sequential) without noticing that she did it. This happens frequently with patterns in her melodies as well. Her other big problem is the ability to comprehend, or even repeat, a series of instructions that involve solfege or numbers (scale degrees, intervals, etc.), though she can remember a series of verbal instructions fairly well if numbers and symbols are not involved. She seems to have an incredible memory, though, and has made use of that i compensating for some of her difficulties in other areas.

The biggest question I'm dealing with right now is whether solfege is the best way for her to learn this material, and how to teach it to her in a way that she can learn and that will be effective in learning the concepts. We're experimenting with colored staves and off-white paper for the time being, to see if that helps some of the reading/analysis/writing issues. But solfege is the big difficulty for her that I haven't found literature on yet. Does anyone have any experience working with that?

Kris Shaffer
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Charleston Southern University
http://kris.shaffermusic.com

Prof. Kris Shaffer
Charleston Southern University
Horton School of Music
9200 University Boulevard
P.O. Box 118087
Charleston, SC 29423-8087
(843) 863-7964
kshaffer at csuniv.edu

On Oct 16, 2011, at 10:44 AM, Leigh VanHandel wrote:

> 
> Kris;
> 
> One place to start might be to look at the pedagogy of mathematics and how they handle teaching the fundamentals to students with dyslexia. That's a rich (and well-funded) research area. I've sent an email to a math education colleague of mine to ask if there are any good sources for this, and I'll let you know what I hear back from him. I've found that research on how children learn mathematics tends to be much more applicable to how college students learn music theory than one might suspect!
> 
> There are several different types of dyslexia -- phonological and spatial being two that would be most important for music -- and it would be important to figure out which one(s) your student is dealing with, as they would manifest themselves in the form of different errors (i.e., phonological would mix up instructions or reverse letter names, whereas spatial mix up ascending and descending lines, for example). 
> 
> I currently have a student who has primarily the phonological version -- as he's telling himself instructions, he'll get his steps mixed up or just say the wrong thing, which then becomes the "truth". "Okay, so a step above C is B ... " -- he knows full well that B is below C, but he meant to say D, and everything gets messed up from there. Working with students step-by-step can help you -- and them! -- identify where their problems are and what parts of the process they need to watch out for. Even before you are given testing accommodations, you can start working with your student to find out where her primary difficulties are, and with luck you'll be able to start encouraging a workflow that will help her.
> 
> Leigh
> 
> 
> --------
> Dr. Leigh VanHandel
> Associate Professor of Music Theory
> Music Theory Area Chair
> Michigan State University
> lvh at msu.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 14, 2011, at 6:50 AM, Kris Shaffer wrote:
> 
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> I have a freshman music theory and aural skills student who is demonstrating signs of dyslexia. While she is pursuing testing and an official diagnosis, I'm searching for ways to help her through some of her specific struggles. So far I've found some helpful lists of musical problems often associated with dyslexia, many of which are true for this student, but nothing in terms of helping an adult learn music theory, dictation, or sight singing. Do any of you know of specific resources for music theory instructors in this regard? Or have you found types of practice techniques, assignments, accommodations that were helpful for a dyslexic student in your charge? Until we have an official diagnosis, we can't make any testing accommodations, but I'd like to start tutoring as soon as possible (she needs tutoring help whether dyslexic or not!), or she may fail the course. So I'd really appreciate any suggestions for training/practice techniques that we can try right away.
>> 
>> She is currently in the first semester of theory (finishing up 2-voice species counterpoint in a week or so and moving on to basic chord structures) and aural skills (just started a unit with first substantial focus on melodic dictation, using Karpinski's protonotation-to-musical-notation method). Any suggestions specific to that would be amazing. But anything relating to dyslexia and musical notation, musical instruction, solfege, dictation, etc. would be a big help. And if any of you with insights want to talk over coffee at SMT, that would be wonderful.
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Kris Shaffer
>> Assistant Professor of Music Theory
>> Charleston Southern University
>> http://kris.shaffermusic.com
>> 
>> 
>> Prof. Kris Shaffer
>> Charleston Southern University
>> Horton School of Music
>> 9200 University Boulevard
>> P.O. Box 118087
>> Charleston, SC 29423-8087
>> (843) 863-7964
>> kshaffer at csuniv.edu
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Smt-talk mailing list
>> Smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
>> http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20111016/8166f3be/attachment-0004.htm>