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The Visual Music Tutor Advantage
14
PARALLEL SIGHTREADING methods—The Best Readers are Frequent Readers
Good reading habits will be strengthened further by using the following two strategies: 1) insisting that the class
methods and materials have correlating disks, and 2) have students read through other parallel methods with
visual/SMF guidance.
Possible parallel methods/materials could be:
1) If the class text is Alfred's Piano Course for Adults, then one might use the chapters in PDM: Piano for the
Developing Musician that use parallel concepts. So, when the class was learning the dotted quarter-eighth pattern in
the text, supplementary—and parallel—reading materials from another book would not only reinforce the con-
cepts, but provide fresh new examples for reading.
2) For younger classes using Alfred's Group Piano Method, parallel reading materials would be those from Bastien
Piano Basics, Hal Leonard Student Piano Method, Noona's Comprehensive Piano Method, or any other disk-based
method. Again, the emphasis is simple: the more one reads, the better one reads!
• By insisting that the class method is accompanied by SMFs, every student has an individual, visual guide to
help develop good reading. In addition, the Visual Tutor serves as a teaching assistant for the teacher.
• A parallel reading method is an important adjunct; however, one must keep in mind that these “read
throughs” are not aiming for perfection but, rather, the visual/tactile process. Either the OUTLINE or SHAD-
OW options are suitable.
• Provide students with a list of supplementary book/disk publications that they can read through, emphasiz-
ing popular or standard tunes
• Use other tutorial SMF disks for reading practice, especially the correlating POPULAR MUSIC materials from
FJH Piano Adventure series, the Alfred Basic Piano Course, or the Hal Leonard Student Piano Method. In addi-
tion, both the Looney Tunes and the Performance Plus series from Warner Bros. provide interesting, enjoyable
and challenging reading materials. Best of all, students will enjoy reading through these tunes; they'll proba-
bly forget they are learning.
• Finally, there are two more SMF series, the first with accompanying books, the second without books. By using
these SMFs with the Visual Music Tutor, students will be compelled to read along with professionally-record-
ed MIDI files. In addition, the subtle propulsion of the SMF playback provides pressure to "keep up with the
ensemble," further strengthening keyboard reading skills.