# Piano Lesson 4



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

As we all know, *Every Good Boy Deserves Favour *- and *Good Boys Deserve Favour Always*. Plus, *Face* up to it - *All Cows Eat Grass*.

But what's wrong with these mnemonics for the notes on the stave in treble and bass clef?

I mean, apart from the fact that the concepts of *good boys* and *favour* seem even more quaintly Victorian now than they did when I first heard them in 1961?

(In York, we used a different mnemonic. There's a dormitory village for the city called Fulford, so we said *Eggs Go Bad Down Fulford* - the grammar & earthy criticism capturing the very essence of the North.)

What's wrong is that the sentence reads *from bottom to top*. If you come across a sign or words written vertically, don't *you* always start at the top and read down? The Chinese system of writing is based on top-down too. Whichever quaint Victorian made these mnemonics up was also a *stupid* Victorian. 

(I paused here to google who it was - but there's no record.)

Throughout the day yesterday I was thinking of new mnemonics to replace the Bass Clef one, since I've no problem with Treble Clef.

There are refined ones - *Great Emperors Collect Antiques*, and *Art Furthers Deep Brainwork Generally* .

Observations on Life - *Girls Enjoy Chocolate, Always* and *Act Fairly - Don't Be Greedy*.

And the quirky ones - *Goats Eat Cooked Apricots* and *Andy Fled Denmark By Gunboat*.

The lesson was okay. I'd taken the precaution of tackling the next ones in the book, so when I was asked to try them out, I managed. Rho set me some more from the book, last practice before the fingering changes.

Then, five minutes before the end, she asked if I enjoyed practising, or found it an effort. I said that I found it an effort, to the extent that I often felt like giving up - not that I would, I added hastily; but only when I didn't have to concentrate *all the time* - an unnatural condition for my brain - would I be able to relax and enjoy it.

We went on to the computer tablet games, but at a lower level, and I seemed to have more time. This asked general questions about music, with a choice of four answers. I didn't know what fourths, fifths etc are. That's when Rho offered to teach me theory as well - but I declined.

Seriously, when I've just said that the intellectual effort is daunting, do I need more of the same?

All the same, she insisted on writing the notes of both staves down with the names of the notes beside them. I am to familiarise myself with the diagram. Hence the mnemonics. But in my not-so-humble opinion, I'd be better off 'learning by doing', as I have with the notes from middle C down to F, which I now associate with the fingers on my left hand, and it's beginning to come naturally.

That's the trouble with ex-teachers. Driving - photography - IT - fiddling - piano-playing - look, I may not know the subject, but ideas on how much better I would teach it pop up like rabbits at reaping-time. 

*Good Educators Cultivate Achievement* - and *Active Feats Develop Better Grasp*...


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