Music Key Signatures are taught in a few different ways. As a student I was exposed to the circle of fifths, tetra chord, and to a rhyme to learn the key signatures. In each case I was shown the teaching methods, but only in the rhythmic method did I participate in a way that locked in most of the key signature knowledge.
When I revisited the circle of fifths, it wasn’t until I had actually spent time to completely write the circle of fifths by hand did I start to truly understand the formation. It took the act of physically writing major keys, minor keys, including the signatures on the staff lines with total number of sharps and flats for me to fully internalized the concept
Only then did I can the ability to determine the keys by counting the sharps and flats.
What Stuck the Most
It was the rhyme that associated name and sharp numbers that still sticks with me the most even today. I can easily think and see this rhyme up to five levels of key changes instantaneously. This test for new students is often to have them memorize the sharps and flats and key names. This being done as they slowly learn each major scale. Often times I find that principals are easy for me to learn and application of the principal is not difficult. When talking and working with others I’ve observed that even when one gets the principal, if they don’t apply it and get some practice they have a difficult time in implementation.
What We Can Do as Student or Teacher
One approach that I’ve taken in learning the music key signatures is to purposely require that the full process of visual, physical, and auditory sense be used to learn the key and their musical relationships.
By using a big picture of the overall signature patterns a direct and complete focus on just the music key signatures can be taken.
How this works:
1. Explore the principal of the circle of fifths or the relationship in a tetra chord approach. (Visual outcome)
2. Use a blank template which must be developed and filled in by the student (written effort on students part, physical effort)
3. Work to develop both the major and minor keys and say the names, number of sharps or flats, the relationship to the previous key, and relationship to the next key. (Auditory sense)
4. Completion of the relationship of the minor key using the same process.
Using this big picture approach puts the overall frame work in a students mind as they complete other series of musical elements such as scales and chords.
What to Consider
As the student works with other concepts the complete key signature picture remains with them and reinforces these other concepts.
I much prefer having spent time on getting the full picture as opposed to learning about C major then G major and so on until we slowly add one new sharp note each time. I’ve found you can really accelerate the speed of learning by taking an approach that shows an end point rather than spoon feeding one piece at a time.
You can easily test this concept on yourself as a student or on your students as a teacher. Give it a try.
Find additional ideas on teaching or learning music key signatures at: MusicLearningWorkshop – Key Signatures and explore further the concept of making sure you are on the right track to success with music.
Brad Chidester writes and develops ideas and resources at the MusicLearningWorkshop.com where you will discover other resources for accelerating your skills at Getting It Down Cold Workbooks course study workshops.
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