He’s Tried but Failed to Strike a Note for Innovation

In this era of education crisis, Rich Reed is shocked that his ideas for reforms in reading--which stop nothing short of reinventing the English language--and music still can’t find support from any of the hundreds of influential people he has pestered over nearly two decades.

Chances are you’ve received a phone call, a package or have run into the El Segundo resident if you are a politician, educator, entertainer, journalist--anyone who might have even a remote interest in reading and music.

If you are Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, for instance, you probably remember Reed from a campaign stop in June at Christ Unity Center in Los Angeles. He was the one who gave you a hug during the service.

Reed doesn’t see his reforms as being drastic. In his pitch to Bradley and others, he says they can “enable 90% of 7-year-olds, just two years from now, to:

* “Easily read anything in the Encyclopedia Britannica, with accurate pronunciation.

* “Reasonably easily read 100 words in each of six additional languages.

* “Easily play 20 songs and 20 classical themes on keyboards.

* “Easily name the correct pitches of all notes in full scores of Beethoven symphonies.”

To be sure, some of Reed’s ideas are reasonable, admit some who have heard about them. It’s just improbable that they will replace centuries of tradition in music and language.

“There is very little doubt that the kinds of things he wants to do are very logical and really make a good deal of sense,” said Harold Goldwhite, faculty trustee on the California State University board of trustees. “But there is an enormous ‘but’--the vested interest in everything that currently is done in music and reading.”

Some, like Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), who have tried the systems personally and played music after one lesson, admire the nonconformist in Reed.

“He is the Don Quixote of music,” says Wesson. “Rich is not going to give up.”

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Reed’s displeasure with traditional music notation and spelling--the genesis for the program he calls Easyread System of Music & Math & Languages--began here, at the El Segundo Public Library, in the early 1980s.

The 57-year-old has never drifted far from this coastal town where he was born. The valedictorian at nearby El Segundo High School in 1960, his GPA would have been perfect but for a B he got in second-year biology. He scored in the 99th percentile in all categories of the Iowa Test, and received perfect marks in the math and verbal portions of the School and College Aptitude Test, he says.

Robert Thornsen, the high school’s math chairman, now retired, says Reed was the brightest student he ever knew. “He asked me one time if he could teach the [geometry] class,” Thornsen said, “and he taught it . . . better than any instructor I ever knew.”

Reed left UC Santa Barbara in 1974 with a master’s in math and a minor in music.

Although he also intends to reform the way math is taught, his efforts have been concentrated on music and reading. His reforms are a combination of original ideas--as far as he knows--and ideas he has borrowed.

The idea is to simplify the well-entrenched systems of music notation and English spelling to make learning music and English “easier and more fun.”

First, music.

A typical written piece in standard notation is full of symbols--from time and key signatures to sharps and flats, ledger lines built on five-line staffs whose notes change names depending on the clefs--and other factors--despite being in the same positions on the staffs.

What’s the name of a note placed on the lowest line of the traditional five-line staff?

It depends.

In the treble clef, it’s an E, or E flat, or E sharp, or an E double flat. In the bass clef, it could be a G, G sharp, G flat, or G double sharp.

“Depending on the clef, the key signature, the accidental sign and the transposition, that note can be A, B, C, D, E, F or G,” Reed says. “It might be natural, or it might be flatted, or it might be sharped and occasionally it might be double flatted or double sharped. Every position on the staff can be every note name.”

Consequently, the “Every Good Boy Does Fine” mnemonic that music beginners rely on only works in the treble clef of a keyboard.

Reed--who says his system accounts for all the music elements and allows him to translate full pieces from traditional notation--offers a few simplifications.

In his system, there are fewer names and symbols to remember, and a person just needs to learn how to count. There is one clef. A person knows which part of the keyboard to play because each octave is numbered differently.

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The octave beginning with middle C is 6. The notes played in that octave are said to be in the 60s. The notes played in the octave below--where the bass clef begins in traditional notation--are played in the 50s.

Instead of the letter names, Reed numbers the notes from 0 through 11, with the letters A and B representing 10 and 11. Each note now has only one name. If a music writer wants the fourth black key on any octave, its name is always 8. The even-numbered notes are always black, the odd-numbered ones are white.

The numbered notes are accommodated by a different kind of staff. Instead of the five-line staff, Reed uses the “1+3 staff”--one line, a wide space, then three lines closer together.

In reading, Reed has combined the unoriginal idea of phonetic spelling--exemplified in Spanish--with some of his own ideas.

In English, there’s no one-to-one correspondence between the 26 letters and the 40-plus sounds used in the language, he says. Spelling for kids is confusing because the same letter can have numerous pronunciations for no particular reason.

The letter G, for example, has a logical pronunciation in “good” but it sounds like a J in “age” and like an F when it stands next to an H in “tough.”

Ever notice that young kids tend to spell “cat” with a K? Reed asks.

“That’s until they are taught to do things stupidly” with a C, he says.

Indeed, the K-sound comes in many disguises--with a C in “camp,” a CK in “back,” a CH in “chorus,” a Q in “Iraq,” and a QUE in “antique.”

In “lamb,” the B is not pronounced, so why is it there? Reed asks.

“ ‘Courage’ and ‘college’ should end the same because the last syllable is pronounced the same,” he says.

In Reed’s system, at least part of the solution is solved by assigning only one sound to each letter. Because there are only 26 letters but about double the sounds, upper- and lowercase letters have different sounds.

For example, an uppercase D is assigned the sound heard in “dip.” A lowercase “d” has the sound of “th” as in the word “those.”

His words, therefore, are a combination of upper- and lowercase letters. When a lowercase letter needs to be capitalized for grammar purposes, it is drawn larger rather than changing shape.

Some words from Reed’s dictionary: LAJ (lodge), KaT (cat), TOZ (toes), Brd (bird), BiR (beer), NirLI (nearly).

Some who have heard Reed’s concepts simply point to the impracticality--not to mention sheer impossibility--of lifting centuries of language tradition from American culture.

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During his one-man crusade, Reed has seen significantly more failure than success. In the absence of receptive ears, he’s tried to take matters into his own hands. In 1989, he ran for a board seat in the El Segundo School District, finishing 12th out of 13 candidates.

About 10 years ago he filed a lawsuit against El Segundo and Los Angeles unified school districts, El Camino College and the Cal State University and UC systems, accusing them, essentially, of fraud for “falsely” teaching--among other things--that “2+2=3.” (In traditional music theory a common music operation is written as M2+M2=M3 or, simplified, as 2+2=3.)

“The judge threw the case out before I had a chance to speak,” Reed remembers.

Still, Reed has found a few who see some value in his systems.

“I think there could be a group of folks who could benefit from this,” says Wesson, “kids who don’t want to go through the conventional process.” Wesson, who in his first lesson with Reed played “something from Beethoven,” is one of a dozen or so people to whom Reed has peddled his reforms just in the last month.

But he adds, “I don’t think the conventional music instructor believes this is the way to go if you’re trying to groom a concert pianist.”

There’s also been some progress with a few “unconventional” parents and students.

“It got her interested in music because it was immediate,” said Ruby Diy, an El Segundo mother whose daughter, Jamie, took Reed’s lessons for five years. “She was able to play a couple of pieces right away.”

The reforms have been studied with closer scrutiny by others.

Don Dustin, the recently retired director of performing arts for L.A. Unified, says he kept a file on Reed and his music reforms--with opinions from music professors and educators from throughout the country.

The district decided that, though portions of the reforms were valid, they would not benefit its students.

“To do it unilaterally would handicap our kids if they had to compete with those who use traditional notation,” said Dustin. “It would take everyone agreeing to use it.”

Yet, Reed seems undaunted.

He spends much of his days copying materials and sending off fat Manila envelopes. He has been sporadically employed in odd jobs--teaching private music lessons and tutoring in English as a Second Language--since he worked as a computer programmer for a few years in the late ‘70s. He lives with his mother, and the occasional small paychecks he receives cover the $60 or so it costs him monthly to get his message out.

The way he sees it, Arabic numerals were also suppressed initially by those who were loyal to Roman numerals.

Goldwhite, who says Reed’s best bet would be to gain support from university professors who have control over curriculum rather than education bureaucrats who do not, admires Reed’s persistence.

“I think it’s admirable,” he says. “Nothing is done in this world unless someone is willing to work hard.”

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Easyread System of Music

In Rich Reed’s music system, there is one clef, with octave is numbered differently. The octave beginning with middle C is 6. The notes played in that octave are said to be in the 60s. The notes played in the octave below--where the bass clef begins in traditional notation--are played in the 50s.

Instead of the letter names, Reed numbers the notes from 0 through 11, with the letters A and B representing 10 and 11. Each note now has its own number. The even-numbered notes are always black, the odd-numbered ones are white.

The numbered notes are placed on an altered staff. Instead of the conventional five-line design, Reed uses the “1+3 staff”--one line, a wide space, then three lines closer together.

*Source: Rich Reed

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Jose Cardenas can be reached by e-mail at jose.cardenas@latimes.com.