Hi, my name is Stefan and I am from Sweden. I am new to this forum and to playing piano as well. I really like the friendly atmosphere here in ABF and I have learned a lot about pianos and piano playing from reading many posts during the last weeks since I found this forum.

I am an adult beginner at piano but I have played classical guitar for many, many years so I am not new to music. I have a MIDI-keyboard with only 49 keys witch I connected to my computer running a software synthesizer (VSTi) so the sound is pretty good. It’s okay to learn on I guess but I will have to buy a real digital piano as soon as possible. I am thinking about a Roland FP-4 or FP-7.

One thing I have noticed in this forum however is the (miss)use of the concepts “reading music” and “sight reading”.

Reading music: The ability to read and understand music notation.

Sight reading: The ability to take a piece of music witch you have never seen before and put it on your music stand and play straight through it.

Obviously, sight reading is much more difficult than reading music and takes a lot of experience with your instrument but I think it is easier on the piano than on the guitar.

Anyway I am glad I found this forum .

/Stefan

Stefank, let me be one of the first to welcome you. I have not been with this forum long either but I do find it mostly very stimulating.

Your distinction is an interesting one. For those who know Schenker, he would disagree. In his posthumous notes one of his first thought are that the physical side of music has little relevance to the composers intention. Another writer, who I'm trying to get republished, is Bonpensiere who says much the same. The ideal is, whether guitar or piano, to go straight from page to the sound. Physically you get involved obviously, but you pay no heed to it. In that sense sight-reading and reading music are equivalent.

Welcome, Stefank - this is indeed a friendly place, long may it reign -

I, too, have always known "sight reading" to mean playing a piece the first time you see it, and "reading" as playing, using the sheet music, a piece you have played before. I find it to be a useful distinction.

But given that, this topic has come up several times in different PW forums even in the short time I've been here. So it seems to me that maybe what's happening is that some of us who are older, or perhaps more formally trained, use the terms in the way Stefanc defined them, and some of the newer or less formally trained are in a transition period when the definitions are changing. Perhaps that's not the right cause of folks using the terms differently, but it does seem there is a shift in definitions going on. So some of us keep trying to clarify the definitions because the distinction is useful to us, and it's what we know.

But I suspect it's a losing battle. When I taught freshman composition I would correct the spelling every time a student wrote "alot" as one word. But one of these days, in the near future, "a lot" is going to be in the dictionary as one word, because I see it in print now, too. Languages and definitions just do that, I guess. But somehow I never expected being an old fogie would happen to me

But ABF is the greatest, so have fun here, all.

Cathy

Thank you both for welcoming me!

Maybe I'm just an grumpy old man but I do think the distinction is important, IMHO. I now understand that this topic has been discussed before.

keyboardklutz, I am not familiar with Schenker or Bonpensiere. Who are they?

jotur, please remember that English is not my native language!

/Stefan

Welcome Stefan!

I happen to think that the distinction you've made between being able to 'read music' and 'sight reading' are spot on. I consider that I'm able to 'read' music in that I can 'understand' the notation, symbols, dynamic markings etc on the written score. But, as for being able to play the music from first sight, no way!

By the way, if I may say so, your English is exceptional, in common with most Swedish people I've come in contact with.

I suggest you google Heinrich Schenker and
Luigi Bonpensiere.

So far both of your posters have missed my point. I'll say it again - You must go straight from the page to the physical sound (by-passing any physiology). This makes your distinction invalid. How the page really functions is misunderstood virtually everywhere. In Zen I think you would say it was looking at the finger pointing to the moon.

...I take your point...

I guess I was equating 'understanding' music with being able to 'read' music but, as you say, the reading of music is only realised in producing the sounds that the page represents

StefanK -

I think it's fine to bring this topic up again - it's all part of the process of sorting out understandings, changing or not - just as Keyboardklutz's post is.

All us grumps can talk the same language and make the distinction when it's useful to us

Sorry that I didn't stop to think that my example of a spelling change in English wouldn't make much sense to you - it was just an example of how language changes over time.

Cathy

Thanks cruiser for taking the time to think about my comments. I would like to say you are very close. But, to be honest, if you are still looking at the finger?

cruiser, thanks for welcoming me! I like Germany very much, especially the Oktoberfest in Munich.

jotur, don't be sorry for your example of how the English language is changing over time. I think most languages is changing as time goes by. I was just afraid that you as a teacher would check my spelling and grammar.

/Stefan

Welcome to the club, Stefan.

There is much interesting about piano's and playing piano.

I'am always reading and playing. At the moment I read and play many pages of Schumann.

Yesterday my children gave me a jazz-album (sheet music) as a birthday present. They want to hear other musicstyles

Stefan, I hope you will enjoy the ABF.

Best regards,

Johan B

Thank you, Johan B!

I like all music styles too. There is only two kinds of music: Good music and bad music, regardless of style.

/Stefan

LOL. Nah, I've given up being a teacher - too much piano playing to do!

Cathy