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Brian, whose method were you talking about here that you wanted my comment on?
Evan Sorry, I think I'm confused by your signature. Are you going through a course or creating a course? Either way, would love to hear about it.
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I don't believer there exists a piano player who can play a piece whose notes he/she has never seen before (or heard it played) with little or no advance.
Even a very experienced and skilled player must have to study the piece, what key it's in, chord progressions, dynamics (crescendo, decrescendo, legato, allegro and all them Italian friends) and so on. Get a feeling for the work.
Me on YouTubeCasio PX-5S. Garritan CFX, Production Grand 2 Gold, Concert Grand LE, AcousticSamples C7, some Sampletekks. Pianoteq 8 Std (Blüthner, SteinGraeber, NY/HB Steinway D).
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A question for the OP:
Sail: if you have a score that has the grand staff and only C's and G's but lots of them, going from two ledger lines below to two ledger lines above the grand staff, can you read through it at ease? For example, "C G G C G G C C G G C G C C ... ", simply pronouncing the note names with your voice, steadily, one after the other.
In my opinion, you will advance more surely if you worry less about sight-reading and instead undertake a systematic study of reading in general away from the piano !
In your easy chair sounds like and excellent place to undertake this study!
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Wqw! Lots of interesting and informative responses to my question! Thanks to all of you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
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landorrano, I am mystified. Simply reading the notes away from the piano, without simultaneously playing them, does nothing to foster the eye-hand connection which is necessary for playing music from written notation. How does your easy-chair method help someone to play?
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I don't believer there exists a piano player who can play a piece whose notes he/she has never seen before (or heard it played) with little or no advance. A quick "what if" should show you this is false. If I gave almost any person on this forum a four measure piece that each had one whole note in each hand in each measure, we could all play it at sight with expression. What is the difference between this and Grieg's Piano Concerto? The length and the complexity. Yet Listz is famously reported to have played that at first sight - one of a number of astonishing sight reading feats of his. No, any musician can learn to play pieces up to a certain level at first sight well. Up to what level will depend on their own technical skills and the time they have spent specifically working on sight reading.
- Debussy - Le Petit Nègre, L. 114
- Haydn - Sonata in Gm, Hob. XVI/44
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As a church musician I have played many pieces at first sight. I can remember singers handing me the music on their way to the stage. I had maybe 30 sec. to study the score before starting to play.
While the music was not very complicated, it still requires considerable skill to play with confidence at first sigtht and unheard.
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I think there's some value in "reading on an easy chair" and in landorrano's distinction between "prima vista" sight-reading and reading more generally. I get that it "does nothing to foster the eye-hand connection which is necessary for playing music from written notation", but I think that it still does something useful (at least for me).
I think the analogy with reading Shakespeare is actually quite good. I'm fluent in English, so I have no trouble reading through a Shakespeare soliloquy. I've also done some amateur theater work and there is definitely a difference between "cold-reading" and reciting something I've looked over. I would like to become similarly "fluent" at reading sheet music and I think that reading away from the piano can help with that. I find it's very useful for learning to identify notes reflexively, especially on ledger lines, rather than slowly figuring out what's written on the score; similarly, it can help learn patterns of notes, either vertically (chords) or horizontally.
I think this kind of fluency is different from "prima-facie" sight-reading. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to 'perform' a piece of music at first sight (that is, play it musically, expressively, etc); at the moment, though, my goal is simply to become fluent at reading sheet music, even if that doesn't (yet) map directly to an eye-hand connection and smooth playing.
Yamaha Arius YDP-161
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Bach Prelude in C (BWV 846)
Petzold Minuet in G minor (BWV Anh 115)
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Working on: Re-establishing the basics and re-learning the pieces I used to know
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As a church musician I have played many pieces at first sight. I can remember singers handing me the music on their way to the stage. I had maybe 30 sec. to study the score before starting to play.
While the music was not very complicated, it still requires considerable skill to play with confidence at first sigtht and unheard. Yep. I've played too many times to count with the same experience. Just enough time to scan the piece for anything weird. I've played for lots of auditions, and you basically sit there and sight-read every piece the singers audition with. Maybe occasionally you get one you already know. Like any other skill, this can be developed. I had a conducting teacher in college who could reduce a full orchestral score into a condensed piano part on the fly, transposing the various parts into concert C. It was amazing.
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landorrano, I am mystified. Simply reading the notes away from the piano, without simultaneously playing them, does nothing to foster the eye-hand connection which is necessary for playing music from written notation. How does your easy-chair method help someone to play? Hi PianoStudent88. Mystfifed ? I love that ! And "easy-chair method", I love that too, I ought to try to market it ! Seriously, though. Studying reading away from the piano will help you a great deal when you have to read at the piano. And studying a score that you are going to play -- that is to say, reading through it, "in your easy-chair" (patent pending ) -- before trying to play it will help you greatly. If you cannot read it "in your easy chair", that just brings out how overwhelming an effort you are making at the piano.
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landorrano, I am mystified. Simply reading the notes away from the piano, without simultaneously playing them, does nothing to foster the eye-hand connection which is necessary for playing music from written notation. How does your easy-chair method help someone to play? Hi PianoStudent88. Mystfifed ? I love that ! And "easy-chair method", I love that too, I ought to try to market it ! Seriously, though. Studying reading away from the piano will help you a great deal when you have to read at the piano. And studying a score that you are going to play -- that is to say, reading through it, "in your easy-chair" (patent pending ) -- before trying to play it will help you greatly. If you cannot read it "in your easy chair", that just brings out how overwhelming an effort you are making at the piano. After I posted, I started thinking about the fact that it is advised to look over a piece before playing it the first time, and even afterwards. So I concede, the easy-chair is a more comfortable place to do this looking-over than the piano bench.
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I think there's some value in "reading on an easy chair" and in landorrano's distinction between "prima vista" sight-reading and reading more generally. I get that it "does nothing to foster the eye-hand connection which is necessary for playing music from written notation", but I think that it still does something useful (at least for me).
I think the analogy with reading Shakespeare is actually quite good. I'm fluent in English, so I have no trouble reading through a Shakespeare soliloquy. I've also done some amateur theater work and there is definitely a difference between "cold-reading" and reciting something I've looked over. I would like to become similarly "fluent" at reading sheet music and I think that reading away from the piano can help with that. I find it's very useful for learning to identify notes reflexively, especially on ledger lines, rather than slowly figuring out what's written on the score; similarly, it can help learn patterns of notes, either vertically (chords) or horizontally.
I think this kind of fluency is different from "prima-facie" sight-reading. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to 'perform' a piece of music at first sight (that is, play it musically, expressively, etc); at the moment, though, my goal is simply to become fluent at reading sheet music, even if that doesn't (yet) map directly to an eye-hand connection and smooth playing. Your post is very interesting, Thurisaz. I am honored that in only your second post you support my ideas in such a well-thought way.
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Sight-reading in Italian IS prima-vista. Music you are seeing for the first time. If you've seen it several times, you are not sight reading, you are just reading it. The dictionary definition is pretty clear, but so is the logic. I don't know why there is always so much discussion about what constitutes sight-reading.
You don't improve reading (text) by reading the same book over and over and over and parsing each sentence. You have to read lots of books, find lots of common structures, "chunks" of set phrases, grammar structures, standart collocations, idiomatic expressions and so on......(and in English of course you have the ever confusing illogical and semi-incomprehensible combinations of letters that seem to have no correlation with how the words are pronounced!)
Likewise "reading" one piece of music and playing it until you've got it really polished does not help you (greatly) with your overall ability to read music.
As for saying that not many people can really sight-read well, I can't buy into that either - tons of people I know personally can be handed a sheet of music and not only play it well, but also add a lot of very interesting flourishes should the opportunity arise. Would that I were better at it myself!
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/12291.png) 18 ABF Recitals, Order of the Red Dot European Piano Parties - Brussels, Lisbon, Lucern, Milan, Malaga, St. Goar Themed recitals: Grieg and Great American Songbook
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I would like to point out that in some countries a beginning music student, be it a child or an adult, typically has a half-hour lesson each week on his instrument, and two hours of reading class each week.
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I don't know why there is always so much discussion about what constitutes sight-reading.
It appears to me that the discussion isn't really about how to define sight-reading, and that Sail's OP was a kind of plea. In any case, I'd like to differ on one point. If you've seen it several times, you are not sight reading, you are just reading it.
I'd say "If you've never seen it before, that is, if you are sight-reading, you are still just reading it". Also, in fact I wouldn't say "just reading it", because I don't consider that reading music is such a banal accomplishment. It merits better.
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When I think of someone who can sight read I think of some one who can sit at a piano with sheet music they have never seen before and play it as if they have played it a thousand times. Who can live up to that? Hollywood studio musicians. That's one place where sight reading of stuff you've never seen before is a job requirement.
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Andy Platt #1772106 - Today at 10:03 AM. I was not talking about some extremely simple thing, Happy Birtday, a few middle C's or anything like that. I was talking about complex pieces.
Okay, maybe geniuses like Lizst are exceptions. But I ask, had he never heard the piece before? I said never saw the sheet, or never heard the piece.
If he had heard the piece a few times before, he must have studied it, at least with his ear. Not saying that it makes his achievement any less remarkable, it's amazing, just like when Mozart sat down, 3 or 4 years old and played a complex musical piece (don't remember which one), which he had never been taught to play, astonishing everyone.
Me on YouTubeCasio PX-5S. Garritan CFX, Production Grand 2 Gold, Concert Grand LE, AcousticSamples C7, some Sampletekks. Pianoteq 8 Std (Blüthner, SteinGraeber, NY/HB Steinway D).
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When I think of someone who can sight read I think of some one who can sit at a piano with sheet music they have never seen before and play it as if they have played it a thousand times. Who can live up to that? Hollywood studio musicians. That's one place where sight reading of stuff you've never seen before is a job requirement. Of course, but there you are talking about people who really know how to read well and really know how to play. Whereas this thread concerns people who can barely do either and who really need to see how to begin.
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I meant no disrespect to Sail, who was asking a sincere question and I don't think that was implied in my comment. I was refeffing to the debate. I still don't understand why other people endlessly feel the need to debate a defined concept.
Likewise, I was not belittling anyone's ability to read music. By "just reading" I meant remove the adjective "sight". If you have read a piece a number of times, you are not sight-reading it you are only/merely/simply/just/plainly/ no adjective needed reading it.
Did I really need to explain that? Sadly, it seems I did.
18 ABF Recitals, Order of the Red Dot European Piano Parties - Brussels, Lisbon, Lucern, Milan, Malaga, St. Goar Themed recitals: Grieg and Great American Songbook
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Likewise, I was not belittling anyone's ability to read music. By "just reading" I meant remove the adjective "sight". If you have read a piece a number of times, you are not sight-reading it you are only/merely/simply/just/plainly/ no adjective needed reading it.
Did I really need to explain that? Sadly, it seems I did.
OK, OK. Still, I think that it helps to see that sight-reading is only/merely/simply/just/plainly reading (with an adjective). And that it is this relationship of the two that is the most important. And that the distinction isn't pedantic. One's sight-reading ability is limited by his reading ability, and not the other way around. One can't sight-read better than he can simply read. If one hopes to improve his sight-reading ability he must work on his reading, and good prima vista sight-reading, even with relatively simple music, is the result of a great deal of study of which prima-vista sight-reading is only a small part.
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