[Illustration: FIG. 32.--THE MUSICAL STAFF.[A]]
-----
[A] The single staff is used in the Conservatoire of Milan and
utilized in the Perlasca method.
-----
When the child knows how to read, he can make a first application of
this knowledge to the reading of the names of musical notes.
In connection with the material for sensory education, consisting of
the series of bells, we use a didactic material, which serves as an
introduction to musical reading. For this purpose we have, in the
first place, a wooden board, not very long, and painted pale green. On
this board the staff is cut out in black, and in every line and space
are cut round holes, inside each of which is written the name of the
note in its reference to the treble clef.
There is also a series of little white discs which can be fitted into
the holes. On one side of each disc is written the name of the note
(doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti, doh).
The child, guided by the name written on the discs, puts them, with
the name uppermost, in their right places on the board and then reads
the names of the notes. This exercise he can do by himself, and he
learns the position of each note on the staff. Another exercise which
the child can do at the same time is to place the disc bearing the
name of the note on the rectangular base of the corresponding bell,
whose sound he has already learned to recognize by ear in the
sensorial exercise described above.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--DUMB KEYBOARD.]
Following this exercise there is another staff made on a board of
green wood, which is longer than the other and has neither indentures
nor signs. A considerable number of discs, on one side of which are
written the names of the notes, is at the disposal of the child. He
takes up a disc at random, reads its name and places it on the staff,
with the name underneath, so that the white face of the disc shows on
the top. By the repetition of this exercise the child is enabled to
arrange many discs on the same line or in the same space. When he has
finished, he turns them all over so that the names are outside, and so
finds out if he has made mistakes. After learning the treble clef the
child passes on to learn the bass with great ease.
To the staff described above can be added another similar to it,
arranged as is shown in the figure. (Fig. 32.) The child beginning
with doh, lays the discs on the board in ascending order in their
right position until the octave is reached: doh, re, mi, fah, soh,
lah, ti, doh. Then he descends the scale in the same way, returning to
_doh_, but continuing to place the discs always to the right: soh,
fah, mi, re, doh. In this way he forms an angle. At this point he
descends again to the lower staff, ti, lah, soh, fah, mi, re, doh,
then he ascends again on the other side: re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti,
and by forming with his two lines of discs another angle in the bass,
he has completed a rhombus, "the rhombus of the notes."
After the discs have been arranged in this way, the upper staff is
separated from the lower. In the lower the notes are arranged
according to the bass clef. In this way the first elements of musical
reading are presented to the child, reading which corresponds to
_sounds_ with which the child's ear is already acquainted.
For a first practical application of this knowledge we have used in
our schools a miniature pianoforte keyboard, which reproduces the
essentials of this instrument, although in a simplified form, and so
that they are visible. Two octaves only are reproduced, and the keys,
which are small, are proportioned to the hand of a little child of
four or five years, as the keys of the common piano are proportioned
to those of the adult. All the mechanism of the key is visible. (Fig.
39.) On striking a key one sees the hammer rise, on which is written
the name of the note. The hammers are black and white, like the
notes.
With this instrument it is very easy for the child to practise alone,
finding the notes on the keyboard corresponding to some bar of written
music, and following the movements of the fingers made in playing the
piano.
The keyboard in itself is mute, but a series of resonant tubes,
resembling a set of organ-pipes, can be applied to the upper surface,
so that the hammers striking these produce musical notes corresponding
to the keys struck. The child can then pursue his exercises with the
control of the musical sounds.