As previously noted in this blog I am teaching a young adult to read music: I have been teaching this improvisingly gifted young man since he was seven. Reading never came easily to him so I did not push it, sure that if I had he would stop study.
Now he is mature enough to go along with the complexity of the enterprise. After several months working on Clementi Preludes (which I highly recommend on many levels) we are tackling the sonatinas, beginning with the C Major, Op. 36, No. 1.
Yesterday we enjoyed together one of the most stimulating lessons I have ever taught: We read it together, one note at a time, imagining what the next tone would be and then coping with Clementi's agreement or disagreement with our better judgment. It was a lot of fun, and deeply insightful into the working of Clementi's superlative genius. (How unfortunate that Mozart said a nasty thing about him in a letter to his father!)
In the process I learned a great deal about the piece and about the limitations of approaching music as if the point of learning it was purely technical.
