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I doubt it.

Now THAT is some useful information.

And I think you're right that assumptions flying around in this thread are not necessarily consistent or correct.

And I think others are right that the usefulness &/or motivation of the thread is debatable in the first place.

But it's an interesting thought.

I honestly don't think a "war" is breaking out. This topic really isn't up for a solid, academic debate because the data are based on observations and anecdotes. And it's hard to prove anything without hard, scientific data.

I thought I understood the mechanics of sightreading because i did it so well on trombone and voice.

Either piano is much different, or (much more likely) my understanding was superficial.

Discussions like this help me to think about subjects more deeply. I always clarify my opinion and frequently realize i was wrong and change it completely.

In this specific debate, it seems unlikely to me that there should be a direct relation between intelligence and sightreading. What i suspect is that some of the more intelligent pianists have had a quicker insight into the effective strategies, and that those strategies probably work for everybody.

For you? or for everybody? I've seen some impressive sight readers that were clearly pattern oriented, and when they missed notes they hit ones in the key and chord progression. On trombone, I am visual/intervalic; on voice I'm about half and half. I wish that my parents were still alive to ask about strategy. My mother sightread flawlessly; I never heard her stumble. When the music got more black, she used more finesse and slipped through it (at least it sounded like it.) My father on the other hand just hit the keys harder! He never slowed down but the number of successful notes would decline with the difficulty level. However the volume would increase at the same rate.




I think that you have grossly oversimplified the act of sight reading. There are a number of substeps involved.

This question came to mind when I chanced upon an old book in my school's library. I forgot the author's name but its supposingly a book on Music Psychology.So unfortunately, I can only mention this but not support my question with much solid evidence but obviously it is fruit for thought.

There are many hypothesis in the book. The book did acknowledge certain theories that are flawed because of exceptions. For the exception on sight-reading like most of you mentioned, they are people with high intelligence who are unable to sight-read that breaks the correlation. Of course, there are not-so-bright ones who can sight-read real well since some of you mentioned about this.

The author mentioned that a research was conducted to find out whether sight-reading and intelligence is correlated.The answer is yes and no. Why yes? Those with a higher intelligence are better at decoding note patterns but the book didn't mention about psychomotor skills being considered. Obviously, the hypothesis is still flawed.Many aspects have to be taken into account, like socio-economic background and years of experience especially into sight-reading and many others.Its difficult to find someone with the same socio-ecnomic background and experience to conduct the test or probably the same age to make the test seem balanced.

If sight-reading is merely visual and psychomotor impulse,then its almost similar to likening the process of sight-reading to normal text reading like reading a passage since reading a word from a passage is generally merely a visual and psychomotor process decoding phonemes and word pattern should be considered as well with many other aspects.

Taking the English language into account,phonics are taught to teach people the skill of decoding a word and to pronounce it afterwards.If the strategy of phonics is well-grasped, there is a high probability that a person would be able to read the word or maybe an unknown word first with the exception of some special words. There are always special cases in many contexts.

Then,many can seemingly argue that reading a language text and reading a piece of music is different.

Of course, they are so many who can argue that one can produce music without reading a score and just do so by ear.

Since good sight-reading is a strategy as mentioned, have any teachers wonder why some people just cannot sight-read well? Music dyslexic in sight-reading? If so, what approaches do you all take? Tell them to practise more? Won't they be turned off since they always lose their confidence? Encourage them but how?Or just merely rote-teach and that's the end of the lesson?

As much as patterns are concerned, every piece of music is different from the rest even if some phrases pose similarities. To teach a strategy to someone, shouldn't the person be intelligent in the first place in order to be able to learn it well?

Yes, sportdude I admit that I'm not really good at English because its my 2nd spoken language. Probably, I should used the word "excellent" sight-readers instead of "good". The intensity would be better this way. Yes, I do agree with the point that you mentioned that to produce an accurate correlation between iq and sight reading, you need to know a person's starting point and/or total work input.

Since you mentioned that, if 2 persons' starting point and/or total work input is the same,which person would be more likely to sight-read better? The one with the higher intelligence or the other given that their age,background and many other thinkable aspects are the same? Why?

So, to be good at something,shouldn't it be somehow equated to being smart at it too? To be smart at it, shouldn't intelligence play a crucial part?

Isn't sight-reading a form of "brain-food"? Yes or no? Why?

I disagree with pretty much all of that.

First, I meant for everybody, as the laws of physics apply to everyone equally.

Second, I'll admit I'm not too familiar with the trombone; however, the "pattern recognition" involved with sight reading on the piano is not the same as the one measured by your standard IQ test. On an intelligence test, you are required to discover a new pattern from something you've never seen before; whereas, with a piece of music (95% of the time), you must recall a previously-viewed pattern which you've practiced and rehearsed dozens of times before.

As far as I know, there are no IQ tests out there which ask hundreds of questions you've already studied but require an instantaneous answer to compensate.
It is possible (but relatively rare) to observe a brand new pattern, but it is impossible to perceive whether a person is playing something new or old.

And no, I haven't "grossly oversimplified" the act of sight reading. Here is the entire biological process which occurs when you read a piece of music (please feel free to corroborate with some source of biology knowledge) :
1) The photons from the sheet reach your eyes; the brain interprets them as a image.
2) The brain scans the image and detects the individual notes while searching for the mental connection between the notes and the piano. At this point the brain may notice that multiple notes form some previously-studied string.
3)Once the connection has been established, the brain sends a signal to the neurons in your hands and arms to hit the notes.

Voila, you've just sightread. Now, at the very beginning of one's career, the transition from step 2 to step 3 involves nothing but pure processing speed (which is, in fact, an element of iq). However, once the practice starts, the connection begins to form more easily and swiftly. Eventually, the process will become second nature, and the brain will be able to send the signal as quickly as your psychomotor impulses can travel. Clearly, some will be able to improve at more rapid pace than others, but the original question didn't even mention rate of increase but rather skill by itself, which, as I've said 12 times now, means nothing.

(Ugh, participating in somewhat trivial arguements while sick is not as fun as I thought.)

Ummm... this is pretty simplified because our brain do not operate in this robotic vacuum state. And there's a lot more to do with sightreading than just getting the notes.

For example, while in the middle of sight-reading, you suddenly think about what you want for dinner. Perhaps this is a bad mental habit - of not being focused and present in the moment. This outside interference can have a lot to do with how successfully you sightread.

A lot of sight-reading uses intuition, clever guessing, filling in the blanks, knowing the style of the harmony depending upon the composer or the time period of the piece. These aspects do not have to do with what your eyes take from the page, but what your trained mind can do to assist with what you can NOT take from the page quickly enough.

Most good sight-readers are also using skills like making quick judgment calls. Which notes can I leave out or skip over? This is decision making.

You're also (hopefully) being artistic and musical. Trying to play with dynamics and tone and phrasing and not only getting the notes and rhythms but making it sound good too.

This thread does remind me though of how fascinated I feel when I'm at a workshop and someone volunteers to sightread a duet part. And they sight read so easily. (Forgive the side track.)

It makes me curious. I'd like to know how they got so good at it. I'd really like to know was it that they had an accompaniment job (and therefore pressure to learn, and the experience)?

And it makes me curious about how much good 15 minutes of daily sight reading over 2 years will do (or how much good 2 MORE years will do). I know practice of sight reading is helping me...but then it's difficult to be exact and really recall how poor was it 2 years ago. I end up just trusing the idea that practice helps...and I continue. Plus I don't want to be embarrassed playing my duet parts with kids with parents nearby to hear mistakes--that's motivational!

I would have been interested if the OP as teacher was seeking ways to help students by getting more insights into aspects of sight reading and different ways of learning. Both the music student and the teacher in me is interested in such things.

When teaching academic subjects one-on-one, the intelligence of a student has never been that much of a concern. Almost always, the students were smarter and more capable than their grades indicated. Usually their difficulties were due to being mistaught, or faulty approaches they were taking. The overall concern is to correct that, so that they can be on their way (hopefully).

This seems to me like it ought to be regarded as the essential correct answer to the original question.

If you see seven notes arranged in the visual form of a solid chord, and you don't recognize any of that set of seven notes as belonging to some chord or other, then your ability to play the set quickly and accurately all at once is in serious doubt. That's the type of pattern recognition I meant to refer to. Not sure if others agree; but I think when sight reading stereotypical or "ordinary" tonal music, if you don't recognize scales and chords you're going to be at a very serious disadvantage, and scales and chords are patterns. Not recognizing a sequence as a sequence would be another disadvantage of not recognizing patterns; in my experience, the very worst sight readers, when they are in the middle of a sequence, have no idea that they recently played something that was remarkably like this.

David, when you say "recognize" do you mean as in knowing the name of the chord and what notes are involved? How about seeing it and hearing it without knowing the name of anything? What does "know" and "recognize" mean? What if the person plays other instruments?

Extremely good point. I knew what I meant, but I see that it was not at all clear.

It isn't the names; though the majority who can do it also know the names because they have wanted some way to talk about it.

It's perceiving a set of notes (whether horizontally or vertically doesn't matter) as a single entity and not as several separate ones.



One of my students wants to play a lot of interesting music that she should by law be declared not ready for. I let her play it, because she is willing to keep working on more appropriate things as well.

When she reads that music, she has to treat each chord as a puzzle to be worked out one single note at a time. She can't yet "read chords". C-E-G is to her "umm... C, umm... E, umm... G". And she continues to call it "C-E-G" even after figuring it out. Even though she "ought" to know because she has practiced triads, she is not yet able to perceive a stack of notes C-E-G as a triad that she is already familiar with.

If you yourself were shown a flashcard with those three notes printed on it, you would answer, "C major triad". My student would say, "No fair! That's three questions on one card!"

The same thing applies if you get a card with a two-octave ascending & descending B flat major scale. You would say, "B flat major scale". My young student would cry, because twenty-nine notes is far too many to remember at once.

So... by "recognize" I mean "perceive individual elements as forming a mental unit". Sorry, the wording is still not clear...

I sight read very well. I cannot memorize hardly at all.

Am i smart or dumb?

I can sight-read at around level 2. I play at around level 6, and can memorize everything that I play.

Am I smart or dumb?

PS-great thread!

Haha, maybe we should turn this into one of those "rate the person above you" threads, where you post your sight reading and memorization abilities and then state whether those of the poster above you make him smart or dumb.

(P.S. I have officially given up on the original question posed in this thread, since everyone seems to read only 1 or 2 sentences from each of my posts.)

I read them all, every one. I only responded to the ones I found particularly interesting - but that's as it should be. Just because you said something, doesn't mean people are required to believe you, or to find every one of your comments interesting.

You might be surprised. Show me Eb G Bb and I'd have to work it out, like your student. Put it into a piece with key signature and I'd play it as the tonic chord of Eb major with a decades old "do mi so" ringing in my head. I might play B and correct it because it sounds wrong. Or the Bb might be in my fingers. Notice that I referred to sound rather than piano keys. It is still a major factor in how I relate to written music. The point is that there are numerous ways. That is what makes the question of sight reading so fascinating.

I only played piano when a child, and self-taught, using a bit of solfege. Then came back to it decades later, and have discovered what reading actually is. I got other bits that musicians use. I might read a score like a singer. Last night I tried sight reading a Sinfonia prima vista and could do it slowly. Give me "easy" music with chords and I might hunt like your student. Think of a singer reading piano music.

As a child I heard lots of classical music, and the piano music that was passed on to me was mostly Intermediate level sonatinas (Clementi, Kuhlau). That kind of music has a rather fixed structure - ABA, development of themes, modulation to dominant, the way Alberti bass and chords go, etc. ....... - We know where the music is likely to go. A lot of my "reading" was this kind of anticipation. These are also patterns and pattern recognition. There have got to be all kinds of other things.

Back to your flash card chord. This is a weak area that I need to strengthen. And that leads me to the actual question about learning to sight read piano music. There are probably various skills and strategies. If we are lacking in a particular area, then that is what has to be pursued.

The idea that a teacher would be wondering "How smart is this student?" while teaching me leaves me a bit uncomfortable. I'd want the question to be: "What is this student missing? What skills are behind musicianship and how might we get there? What weaknesses does this student need to overcome? What strengths can be used?" "Intelligence" is too vague an idea to be practical.

ough

through tough thought though bough