Never Say "Never"....

That's the title of a James Bond movie that wasn't produced by the regular James Bond folks.  It starred my favorite Bond guy, Sean Connery.

But. I digress. 

I have been the type of piano teacher who NEVER allowed students to write the note names in their pieces.  No matter what age, no matter what level.

You see this one coming, don't you?

Okay, so I have a young student with whom I've struggled all year to engage in any type of learning activity.  She's got major attention issues, some behavioral issues, and dyslexic issues.  A challenging package, to say the least.  She's also extremely bright and quick to clue into how to control just about any situation.  She's learned the letters on the keyboard, picks things up by ear, understands basic notation.  But she has REFUSED to work out of anything -- and I repeat, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G that even remotely resembles a book.

This week at her lesson I started with a rote demonstration of some hand-over-hand 5-finger patterns because hand-over-hand helps with the whole cross-brain training thing.  It also allows her to stand and walk her way from one end of the keyboard to the other instead of me trying to get her to sit on the bench.  Just to be clear: on a cooperative day she has no problem with the 5-finger patterns.

Today, like at most lessons, she's rolling around on the floor.

In the past her mother and I agreed when this student's uncooperative and rolling around on the floor that I should stop the lesson and her mom takes her home.  But today I don't want to stop the lesson because, despite her uncooperation, over the past nine months this student has learned and retained keyboard letter names, treble and bass clefs, basic note values, and four songs hands together by rote.  So today I ignored her rolling around on the floor and demonstrated the hand-over-hand 5-finger exercise up and down the keyboard.  I showed her how to use her four long fingers to start on C and play C-D-E-F in each register up the keyboard (OKAY, OKAY!  It's a 4-finger pattern).   Then I showed her how to start on F and play F-E-D-C in each register going down.  For whatever reason, today she stands up in front of the piano and uses her thumb and second finger instead of her four long fingers.  But she uses both hands and completes the patterns up and down the keyboard, then goes on to tell me that what I showed her is similar to one of the rote songs I taught her that uses the three-black-key whole tone scale.  And she plays that one up and down the keyboard.

Good enough, I decide, and I move on.  I pull out the Bastien Young Beginner primer level that has letternames in the noteheads for most of the book.  She has played through most of this book, and when I can get her to engage in the lesson, she will play her favorite songs.  Today she wants to play the last song in the book, which of course is on the Grand Staff and does NOT have the letter names in the notes anymore.

She's been engaged in the lesson.  I've got her attention.  So what the heck?  I get down on the floor and start writing in the letter names.  And she plops down on the floor beside me and starts telling me the letternames of the bass clef and the treble clef notes.  Then she reaches into her music bag, which for most of the year she has wanted nothing to do with, and pulls out the pink Dozen a Day.  She opens that book to the last page, and we go through the same thing.  I remind her that the bass clef is for the left hand and the treble clef is for the right hand.  And she nods, grins at me, and says, "Yeah, I know all that."

Dyslexia is often less about a reading problem and more about the self-image of the person.  This little girl does not like to be wrong; she hates making mistakes, which in turn makes her bullish to try anything new because guess what?  New things always involve making mistakes.  But learning doesn't occur unless you try new things.

The point of all of this?  I think it's to tell you to throw out all those written-in-stone axioms.  Those "I-WILL-NEVER-DO-THAT" rules that box you in when you might just reach the student if you go ahead and step out of that box.