Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Can sight reading be improved alot?

Hi,

I am currently working towards my grade 5 piano (ABRSM) and I want to talk about sight reading.

my sight reading is terrible. I have practiced it and even improved but only a bit.

Do you agree with me that sight reading is something which you can do or you cant do. Is it possible to become a decent reader through hard work alone on sight reading. Because I really am talentess at it.

Has any "talentless" sight readers on this forum become good at it eventually?

Yes, I may get most of the notes right in grade 5 sight reading tests but it never seems to sound like music. It just sounds like a bundle of notes not really related to each other.

Hope you don't mind me asking a quick question here: what is exactly meant with sight reading, when the term is generally used on this forum?

Reading the notes for the first time + playing along immediately as good as possible?

On the question - disagree. But instead of "hard work" I'd say it's work with strategy. PW is full of ideas. If you set aside 10 minutes every day to practice sight reading specifically you'll get further. Also maybe take time to analyze where you usually trip up and what hidden weaknesses you might need to address - then work on those. Some things won't be specifically sight reading but will help with sight reading.

I have a couple of answers for both the above posts, or some would say opinions.

Can sight reading be improved? Yes, in the same way that most anyone can learn a forign language.

There is a body of work that one may investigate that illuminates the problem that most adults have with learning to 'read' music. And it is the same as with learning language. One needs to have learned as a child.

But as we all know, a forign language can be learned.

Having started only three years ago at 63, I am at the point of being able to slooooowly pick out a song. This is certainly not sight reading. (Reading the notes for the first time + playing along immediately as good as possible.) But if ask can I read music, my answer is yes.

There is a family group of pianist who you may have heard that all play with incredible facility. They play very difficult works. Their ability is astounding. But to my ears, it has no soul. It is typing at the keyboard. Would I swap places? No but I admire greatly their work. And since they are young people, they will no doubt find the soul.

Because of the extreme difficulty I encountered, I began to look for alternative possibilities. I found a wealth of information at the site THE MUSIC NOTATION PROJECT which can be found through Google or your favorite search engine. There I discovered reference to a book that makes very clear the difficulty most adults face. That title is SUPERMUSICOLOGY from LULU press. A good amout of the book is available to read. Enough in fact that I bought the book. A bit pricey but what isn't now days.

There I discovered that others long before now have worked to implement different and direct music notation. Notation that provides a unique position on the staff for every note of the octave. Notation that uses NO sharp or flat notation forgotten back at the first of the staff.

All of this is quite new for me as I only discovered these works this month. In the book there is an example of this simplified notation that has been transcribed from a four flat notation on the Grand staff to the new notation. (Moonlight Sonota)

Whatever I have learned (which isn't much) of the Grand staff, I plan to erase and in its place learn the new. It is logical, clear and stands for itself.

Much of my posts here on PW are regarding my the experiments along the above lines which can be summed up to the full use of a chromatic keyboard which makes diatonic music in all tonics a simple process.

In actuality, I arrived at the above information from a backward process. I converted a landfill piano to chromatic keys and stumbled my way to the place I am now.

My very first thread or one just previous to this includes a chromatic keyboard illustration. It is my most consuming interest/hobby.

James

How's your short term/working memory?

My biggest advice would be to know your scales and harmony, and to look for patterns. In much classical music, melodies are based on scales or triads. Once you can see scales and chords (block or broken) at a glance, you'll be able to chunk parts of the music in your mind and be able to look a little bit further ahead. Patterns, like Alberti-bass or sequences can be chunked in your mind as well.

You may notice that when you're getting to know a piece better, you are looking a bar ahead of what you are actually playing at that moment. That is what you need to do when sight-reading, as well. If you get stuck in "look only at the note I'm currently playing" mode, it's hard to make it musical - you don't know what's coming next. Sounds obvious but it's tough to put into practice.

Despite your unflattering comparisons of unmusical piano playing to typing, I think that learning to sight-read music is more like learning touch typing than learning a language. Before the ubiquitousness of computers, few people learned to type as children.

Steven

Keyboardklutz, If that is for me, I must say not as good as it once was. I am running a race with alzhimmers, arthritis and age in general.

But I do know that you are the one that posted the picture in the thread I started. I don't remember if you are the one that refered to the GS as rat poison in a PM.

Thanks again as I intend to get the book you mention. Now to find a native Hungarian that also speaks English. I am much aware that you have a wealth of knowledge. Look forward to your pointers in subsequent posts. Of course that may be said of all who have answered my questions on PW.

The internet in general and PW in particular may bring a new notation to public acceptance where 'new' generally has failed previously.

James

Though more like learning to touch type Russian (without learning Russian)!

No, the rat poison definitely not me! Working memory concerns everybody - without it you can neither grasp hold of your chunks nor form them without difficulty.

You're making a fundamental error here. If you're
a grade 5 player, you cannot sight-read grade 5
pieces, because your level, grade 5, defines what
you have to work up deliberately and cannot play at
sight. If you were a grade 10 player, then you
might be able to sight-read grade 5 material fairly
well. Liszt could sight-read anything, but
this was because his "level" was off the charts.

The OP wrote about doing gr. 5 sight-reading, note sight reading gr. 5 pieces. The material for such an exam is already at a lower grade level, if it's the same as over here.

KS

What Gyro says is absolutely true; one should not expect to be able to sight read at the level one has currently achieved in repertoire that has been worked on for some time.

That said, however, the sight-reading portion of any piano examination is at a level that is considered appropriate for the examination. For example, in the RCM (Toronto)
- Grade 8 examination, one is expected to be able to sight read a piece at about Grade 5 level, any time signature, major and minor keys up to five sharps or five flats;
- Grade 9, sight read at Grade 6 level, any time signature, major and minor keys, up to six sharps or six flats;
- Grade 10, sight read at Grade 7 level, any time signature, major and minor keys up to seven sharps or seven flats.

Standards may var from one examination system to another, but if the OP is preparing for an ABRSM examination, s/he should be aware of the level of sight reading which s/he has to work up to. Starting with pieces even below that level, sight reading ten to fifteen minutes every day is perhaps the best way to improve one's sight reading skills.

With a little bit of research one can find progressively graded books of pieces for sight reading practice if the OP doesn't already have enough source material at his/her disposal to make the sight reading practice what it really should be : playing a piece when seeing it for the first time.

Regards,

It can be improved, I personally play pieces from books which are a few levels lower than what I usually play without sightreading. For me, its easy to sightread these. One good example is Clementi Op.36 Sonatinas. They are a blast for sightreading practice