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Sight reading vs. memorization vs. playing by ear - What if you can't do ANY of them???

I'm still slow at identifying notes. I don't think what I'm doing qualifies as "sight reading", but more like learning the 5 notes in either C or Middle C position well enough that I can hit the right ones most of the time. Yeah, I'm still playing the baby stuff. Some days I can play through my easy music without mistake and some days I forget where the notes are.

I can not look at notes and "hear" how something should sound in my head. I can not look at sheet music and sing it. I can not hear music and go to the piano and pick it out by ear. And I've played Jingle Bells a bazillion times, but I could not go to the piano right now and sit down and play it without the sheet music.

I can "read" simple primer level sheet music and some early level 1 stuff and stumble through music I am familiar with, but give me music that I've never heard before and I'm totally lost because I can't tell if I'm playing it right.

I've got lots of easy music to practice with, and I do seem to be getting better. I panic (too strong a word, but you know what I mean) when my Alfred book throws me a new concept, but with lots of practice I do eventually get it.

It sounds like I'm not musically inclined and should not enjoy playing the piano, but I love it. Go figure!

Me too, Mom. Like you, I am getting better each and every day. We actually have it better than masters, as we can improve every single day, and a master must work for months to improve. (How's that for finding a bright side???)

Not musically inclined? Stop it, just stop it right now. You have it in you from birth, you're just learning the best way to get it out. Skill is a measure of how much you practice.... Talent is a measure of how much you have learned to apply those skills.

One of the side benefits of all this practice is my ear is growing. I could always tell if I miss a note, but now I can tell when I'm right, and for me, that's big.....

I'm 51 now, I hope the implication is not that we can't be due to age! I plan to be a good sight reader.

Dave

I do not think that age is an issue as far as being able to develop good sight reading skills. It just takes some discipline, desire, and practice. While it is true that children do learn faster than adults, I am sure that is because their young minds are not clogged up with a lot of useless things like us adults.

I am 57, and have been learning the piano for about 1 1/2 years now. My teacher (a very nice Thai lady) constantly reinforces sight reading. When she sees me looking at the keys and not the music, she will take a book or newspaper and hold it over my hands, forcing me to read the music. Sounds strange, but it does work. My sight reading has improved dramitically.

My teacher is also a big fan of Hannon, and each week she has me do one of the exercises without looking, until I can do it at 190 bpm on the metronome, then we move to the next one. Not so hard once you get used to it.

Alfred has 2 books that are pretty good, one is called "Finger Aerobics", the other is called "Sight Reading". I bought them on my own and they have also helped a great deal in being able to sight read.

Hope that this helps, good luck in your quest to sight read better.

Gregory, was the sight reading book the Shaum Method supplement?

Could ya give a thumbnail sketch of the book and maybe what was useful and what wasn't?

Amazon lists another book, Music Reading For Keyboard: The Complete Method

Does anyone have any experience with this one?

Sight reading is a nightmare for me. It must be some sort of mental block that keeps me from interpreting what I see and making my hands behave accordingly. Btw, I'm 60 and started into music about 3 years ago, piano about 3 months.

I'm encouraged by my ability to play by ear in with lot of pieces, but that certainly doesn't produce the result that one would get from knowing that the piece is being played as the sheet music describes it. For jazz and blues, it's not a big deal, especially when playing with others: Find the groove and go with it. Solo pieces are a totally different animal in my eyes. That's either complete memorization, improvisation on the basic theme or that old pal of mine, sight reading.

Bottom line is that it's real hard for me, too.



Thanks,

Here is a picture of the cover of the book. It is available on Amazon for $6.95.

I have that book. The best thing I can say about it is it was cheap. My biggest problem with it is there is no mention of finger numbers or hand positions in the entire book. Not even recommended fingerings for the drills. I don't think you can approach sight reading without addressing that.

There are some decent drills in it, especially for rhythm practice, but for that you might as well use Czerny Op. 599, which you can get free off the net.

As far as being a "Complete Method" -- that's almost a joke. It's really just a hodge-podge of practice material.

I should add that it's not really intended as a sight-reading book, but a music reading book. It covers a lot of concepts like tempo markings, codas, etc. that you need to read music, but spends very little time on "prima vista" sight reading.

Again, for that kind of stuff nowadays save your money and use google.

I am learning to read music at 40. I think that it just takes practice and determination. So far I am doing ok with it, not with anything complex of course but I am getting there. I hope to improve and I make sight reading a part of my practice everyday.

I appreciate the attempt, but this image link was for a file on your own computer. To post it here, it needs to be on a web server somewhere.
Here\'s a link to an Amazon search that lists several sight reading books associated with Alfred's Basic Piano Library. Some are unavailable, one appears to be viewed as a collectors' item based on the $27 price tag.

Let's see if this works. I've placed the image of the Level 1a book on box.net:
http://www.box.net/shared/e3t6tge80k

Well, there's a link to it, anyway.

You just need to remove the [img]tags from the url


Edit: and, natch, whilst I was posting that, you edited your own post LOL

Always seems to work that way, doesn't it?

For some reason, I can't link to images on my own web server via this forum. I've made the usual entries (in a file called .htaccess) but to no avail. And I think I've spent about as much time on it as I'm going to today.

I downloaded the Czerny Op. 599 (part one) and I'll give that some time today and see what kinda mess I can make out of it.

[img]http://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic...mp;s=books&qid=1205467550&sr=8-9[/img]

Sorry about that, here is the link from Amazon.com, hope this helps.

Dear Bluekeys
I feel for you!
I played piano by ear for 60 of my 70 yrs and then determined to read music - Oh dear !
My teacher gives me simple pieces that I have never heard before so that I CAN'T play them by ear. I can now, after about 11 months play the right notes (as long as they don't go too far outside the clefs)
Trouble is I rather easily memorise the music which means that I know how to make it sound right. So I then don't bother to sight read!
It's a problem
I can only say Keep on going! There is a very good site on the web where you can practise your sight reading. So sorry I cannot recall it but someone will know.
I'm not taking any exams but I'm now just beginning on Stage 3 pieces. So if I can do it then you certainly can. Good luck ! Practise Practise!
Mary

Here are some sites that people pointed out and/or listed in the "Important Topics on the Adult Beginners Forum" Sticky thread:
Note Trainer
eMusicTheory Practice Drills
Introduction to Reading Music
Dolmetsch Intro to Music Theory

I can't comment on their relative merit since I haven't spent much time with any of them and I'm also green enough in this area that I'm just not qualified to rate them.

Dear Granny (and everyone else),
Thanks for the encouragement. I see it's been almost a month since I opened this thread (in a tantrum of desperation), and I'm pleased to say I'm finally seeing some improvement.

During the month--in which I also got a new piano--I practiced sight-reading for at least half-an-hour every day except one.

I went through a book of 75 children's songs, and by the end could play a lot of them without too many mistakes.

I'm now about half way through a book of 200 "easy" adult songs, and even though I can't play any of those without some bugaboos, my progress is unmistakable.

I think I'm just naturally a better memorizer than reader, but I'll keep plugging away. If I happen to find any magic sight-reading pixie dust that makes it all come together, I'll be sure to pass it on!

I think that is the pixie dust you've found

Send a bit of the pixie dust out toward the salt flats, wouldja? I'm makin a little progress, but it's slow.

The Czerny Opus 599 is helping me. Speaking of which, there are a couple of versions it floating around. I've taken the liberty of putting them on my web server. They're in this directory

The full original version is about 6 mb.
This is the link to it. The first 30 exercises are written with 2 treble clefs, the remainder have treble and bass clefs.

I made a gif file of the first 2 exercises Here\'s a link to it. It's 36kb.

There is another version that was edited by James King and have treble and base clefs. There's also a vestige of Czerny's fingering instructions that can be somewhat misleading. It's only the first exercise and this is the link for it. This file is 150 kb.

I hope this can be of use to someone.

Ratman, your links aren't loading over here. I was curious to see what King had done to Czerny.

Good catch, ks. Typos made while trying to type and talk on the phone at the same time are apparently inevitable.

I think it's fixed, You may have to force a reload (Control-Reload)to get the newer version of the page, but it otta work. If it doesn't for some reason, I'll think of something else.

In any case the link to the main directory should work and allow you to see the files there.

Crossing fingers,