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My thread about "Writing Note-Name Under The Notes" sort of strayed away into a discussion about different approaches to teaching sight-reading. Maybe we can channel conversations on this topic here, instead of changing the subject in that thread.

Here are a few of my thoughts and views on the subject of sight-reading. Please understand that these are my own and may not work for everyone. I think it is only fair to start with my own approach to my own sight-reading, and that which I use in helping my own students.

1. My Musical Background.

I started playing guitar, piano, and trumpet as a child, and I was self taught, beginning with second grade until high school. During these years, I taught myself from whatever book I found and also from doing a lot of listening and imitation of music played on the radio.

I grew up in Europe, and at the time, there was almost no access to music materials. I borrowed some books and I copied some by hand.

When in high school, we moved to the States, and I started studying Classical Guitar and Piano with two different teachers, in a private studio. Prior to this, I had been teaching myself guitar from two classical methods (Carcassi & Carulli) and I taught myself piano from an obscure piano method published in Europe. I also played trumpet from a method similar to the Arban book. I also did a lot of accompanying on the guitar, without the use of a score - by ear. This was during my early teen years.

After high school I completed degrees in Classical Guitar Performance, Choral Music Education, and Curriculum & Instruction.

I now work as a General Music/Chorus Teacher in the public school system, and as Music Director at a large church which is my home church. I also do a lot of composing and arranging. I just published my first piano book for late beginners (original hymn arrangements).

Before anybody jumps to say that I am showing off... ... I just want to say that I am sharing this background information in order to explain how I read music. That is the only reason.

2. How I Sight-Read Music.

• When I look at a music score, whether it is written for a solo melodic instrument, guitar, piano, chorus, orchestra, etc., I hear the notes in my head before I play them. Of course, with thicker harmonic writing I have to actually pluck the notes out on a piano (like in an orchestral score), but I do hear most of the notes even then. In a guitar or piano score, I definitely know what it's going to sound like before I play the notes. Trumpet music for example, one note at a time, no problem. I am not saying it is easy to play it... I am saying it is easy to hear it in my head before I play it. Hearing it is the easy part. Playing it is the hard part.

• I do not think the names of the notes when I play them. I can name them if I have to, but I think the sound, and mostly I hear the relationship of the notes and chords to the root note and the tonic chord. I can name the intervals if I had to, or the chords, but I hear them instead of thinking "sixth, third, augmented fifth, C Major 7" and so on.

• I am not a pianist, guitarist, trumpeter, or whatever. I can play all these, but I come at the score as a musician. The instrument is just a vehicle to get the notes out, and I already heard them in my head to begin with. My main instrument though, is the Classical Guitar.

• When I compose/arrange, I write what I "hear" in my head, or what I want to hear from the instrument/voice. This probably has something to do with the fact that I can hear the music right off of the page, before I play it. Sight-reading ends up being a reverse action of composition. When I compose, I write down what I hear in my head. When I read, I play what someone else wrote, but I hear it in my head first. I don't even know if this makes sense to most people. I know other musicians that read/write/play like this.

Just as a side note, there are benefits and problems associated with this.

One problem associated with this, that I struggle with, is that I hear the notes in my head, but I cannot keep up with it when I actually play it on the instrument... Hard to explain. It is keeping up with the music, but every time you hit a wrong note, or a wrong finger, there's a disconnect. In a nutshell: easy to hear in my head, hard to play on the instrument. It is a constant struggle to keep my playing inline with what I already know it's going to sound like.

Another problem arises when sight-reading atonal music... ugh!!! Then I have to rely totally on note recognition, and there is almost no connection between my ear and my fingers. Almost feels like you are being blindfolded. I like (LOVE) atonal music, but I hate sight-reading it. Very mind-exhausting!

These are some of the problems. The benefits are many. I don't want to make this post much longer than it already is...

3. How I Teach Sight-Reading.

• It is taught every lesson, as we go through methods and repertoire. My students will have their music in front of them most of the time, even during performances. The only time they would not, would be during an improvisation session, for those who play styles other than Classical.

• Note Spellers. Most of my beginning students will complete at least one note-speller book. These have worked very well with most of my students. Sometimes I will make my own note speller, suited for whatever student I am teaching that specific lesson.

• Spot-Testing of note names in any section of the piece.

• Writing of the score by the student. This is too hard for most students, but some will be able to write down their score, after a few weeks of playing it.

• Do what works for each student. They are all different. I TRY NOT TO DO ONLY WHAT WORKS FOR ME.

======================

I took a risk writing this post. Some will think I am showing off, others will think who knows what. Oh well...

I am actually very interested in engaging in conversation on the topic of improving sight-reading, with such fine piano teachers as there are on this board. Not only that, but some members asked me to share about this, on the other thread.

Please share your thoughts and experiences on this. I am looking forward to learning from all of you.

Thanks!

Florentin, much of what you describe resembles my background. I had to relearn what "reading" might mean, and see aspects to notes which others take for granted but were brand new to me. From what you describe, I would not be surprised if you were in a "relative" mode of thinking, within a framework of movable do solfege. If music moves into atonal music or something that isn't in that framework, you probably have to work it out at the piano.

I think reading vs. sight reading should be defined, or at least seen as separate things.

I think that's pretty accurate.



Again, very accurate. Since atonal music has no tonal center, I lose my harmonic (or tonal) reference points. A feeling of being totally lost . Relying totally on note-recognition, nothing else.

Thinking: When people see "guitar" they tend to think "this guy will be chord-oriented" - but your chords are probably also related to tonal centers - I vi etc. - and with classical guitar, you can be in a polyphonic world of juxtaposed melodies.

agreed!

guitar and classical guitar can mean two very different things.
on the classical guitar, we play the Bach solo suites, the Scarlatti sonatas, and so much more...

very much like a piano score
but I play piano also

I wonder if the first step (hearing the notes in your head) is necessary?

Here's my process: 1. see the note, 2. hear the note in my head, 3. reach for it and miss.

I guess I naively thought anybody past a beginner did steps 1 and 2 naturally, and have done all my thinking about the different processes that happen in step 3.

Step 3 requires assigning the note a relationship to a key (if piano; I do other sightreading) which may or may not include a letter name; it requires knowing keyboard geography (some overlap here); it requires a fingering choice; and it requires calculating or retrieving a four dimensional trajectory movement of the hand (4 dimensional because we must not only land a finger on a spot in 3 dimensional space, but it has to land on time).

To me, calculating the trajectory is what I call "pure" or prima vista sightreading, but is enormously less efficient than recognizing and retrieving a pattern that has been well practiced.

The earlier in the process you recognize and retrieve, the better. My hands can find a D chord in a hymn probably 10 times faster than they can figure out how to get finger 5 moved to D and 1 to A.

Typists can type material without comprehending it, so I'm not sure about the hearing part.

Sightsinging requires hearing the note in my head more accurately than on an instrument. I don't always sightsing as well as I think I hear the notes when playing them, so there's something wrong or incomplete in my thinking here.

That is an interesting way to put it. I don't know that hearing the note is 'necessary'. I think it is unavoidable. Or maybe I should try to shut it down and see what happens...



Ha, Ha, Ha. That is the funniest thing I read today! The 'miss' part is awesome and fully describes MY process

The rest of your post is pretty much spot-on, with small differences here and there.

I am not alone!!! I am not weird!!!
Wait... maybe I shouldn't speak too soon

Thanks for the replies so far.

Florentin, as a sight-reader, you sound very much like me!

When I read a score, I hear a melody in my head, but I don't know which notes it is composed of. TimR writes: "see the note, hear the note, reach for it and miss." That sounds like a pretty accurate description of my process.

I am a frustrating student to my piano teacher, I think, because I tend to have scores memorised long before I can play them. After all, once I can hear the music in my head, all I need to do is find the keys that go with it. I no longer feel the need to look at the score This leads to bizarre situations in lessons, where my teacher will say: "that's not the right note", and I will say "I know." Then she will ask me what note I was actually trying to hit, and I will sing it to her, but I will have no idea what it is, and probably not know where it is located on the piano, either. Sometimes, this leads me to a 'hunt and peck' approach, where I will try different combinations until everything sounds "right" to me.

I hope my teacher understands how I function now. She used to think my problem was that I was trying to play without the score too soon, before I had the music properly memorised. Actually, my problem is that I memorise music without being able to play it, at which point reading the score starts to just feel like tedious busywork.

I wonder how you teach sight-reading to students like me.

I take music theory lessons in which we sing a lot, naming each note as we sing it. But even so, I tend to remember the melody, not the note names. My piano teacher has done some of the things that you mention, such as ask me to write down a score from memory. But like you when you're composing, I just write down what I hear when I do this. And I hear intervals, not notes. Or more accurately: I hear a progression of semi-tones between the last note and the next, and when I'm unsure, I just count the semi-tones, which is how I arrive at the right note. This does not help me memorise note names: as soon as a note has been written, I move on to the next one and forget what it's called.

Do you have any insights as to how I might learn to avoid the "reach for it and miss" stage of reading music at the piano?

Saranoya, I have read your post, here:

Subject: Re: Sight-Reading: Thoughts, Ideas, Procedures

Florentin, as a sight-reader, you sound very much like me!

When I read a score, I hear a melody in my head, but I don't know which notes it is composed of. TimR writes: "see the note, hear the note, reach for it and miss." That sounds like a pretty accurate description of my process.

I am a frustrating student to my piano teacher, I think, because I tend to have scores memorised long before I can play them. After all, once I can hear the music in my head, all I need to do is find the keys that go with it. I no longer feel the need to look at the score This leads to bizarre situations in lessons, where my teacher will say: "that's not the right note", and I will say "I know." Then she will ask me what note I was actually trying to hit, and I will sing it to her, but I will have no idea what it is, and probably not know where it is located on the piano, either. Sometimes, this leads me to a 'hunt and peck' approach, where I will try different combinations until everything sounds "right" to me.

I hope my teacher understands how I function now. She used to think my problem was that I was trying to play without the score too soon, before I had the music properly memorised. Actually, my problem is that I memorise music without being able to play it, at which point reading the score starts to just feel like tedious busywork.

I wonder how you teach sight-reading to students like me.

I take music theory lessons in which we sing a lot, naming each note as we sing it. But even so, I tend to remember the melody, not the note names. My piano teacher has done some of the things that you mention, such as ask me to write down a score from memory. But like you when you're composing, I just write down what I hear when I do this. And I hear intervals, not notes. Or more accurately: I hear a progression of semi-tones between the last note and the next, and when I'm unsure, I just count the semi-tones, which is how I arrive at the right note. This does not help me memorise note names: as soon as a note has been written, I move on to the next one and forget what it's called.

Do you have any insights as to how I might learn to avoid the "reach for it and miss" stage of reading music at the piano?


_________

Interesting post. As a person, you are not required to read and write a language and in this case it might be English. So for the life of the person, the person can do quite well only ever speaking the English language.

It is also true that a person can - if they want - only play the piano by ear and never ever learn to read the music to be able to play the piano. If a person wants to learn to read the music, they may do by themselves, like I am doing - I am self-taught because I can't afford a teacher. But I don't have to learn to read the music, I could take a recording of the song and listen to it a billion times or 2 billions times until I was able to play the song by hearing it played and trying to find the right note on the piano of 88 keys and then making a diagram of the piano so I can find the note that matches the sound that I heard on recording.

We are fortunate that as human beings we have many ways of doing things and in a free society we aren't restricted to playing a piano in a specific way. And for most people, if you have enough money, you can usually find the right teacher to teach you the things you want to learn and in this case, it would be piano teacher of your choice.

cheers,

3B26SR

I think the way you describe your sight reading is similar to what I do. As a singer, you have to hear the note in your head before you can sing anything. It is impossible to make a pitch without this first step, in anticipating the note you will sing. So then that also translates into playing for me in general. No matter what I'm playing, I must hear it first. If I do not, that means I don't know it and there will be tension when playing because then I'm relying completely upon my reading, but I'm not playing with thought.

So I do think one could sight read - and even do it well - based completely upon note reading vs. hearing it first. But for me, it will always sound better if I can anticipate the sound.

I wonder: do you do your first step even when the tempo is allegro or presto or something?

I think as a musician it is very important to be able to hear a piece in your head at any tempo. It sounds to me like you hear it only at the tempo it should be at, way before your hands are capable of playing that tempo, thus you hit wrong notes.

It's not a bad thing to memorize so quickly, but more importantly, you should try to keep your eyes on the score for now, and also play much, much slower. Especially when first learning it, resist the temptation to learn it at the speed it should eventually be. Force yourself to keep it slow, or at least in areas where you tend to play wrong notes. Those wrong notes are telling you that you didn't really know it as well as you thought you did. Hearing the note in your head and sounding the note properly are two different things. You need to be able to do both to play well.

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your reply.

I don't think you understood what I was saying, though. It's not that I can't read music. I can, in the sense that when I look at a score, I know what's there. I can sing it, although I might not be singing in the right key.

What I can't do is quickly and effortlessly identify notes by their name, or quickly and effortlessly find the piano key that goes with the sound in my head.

I also don't need to hear a recording a hundred times before sitting down at the piano and trying to play it. Usually, twice will suffice. After that, it's there in my auditory memory for me to listen to, pause, rewind and slow down as much as I like (within certain limits).

I recently started learning a piece that had been haunting me for months, but which I couldn't identify. I finally sat down at the piano and haltingly played half a page or so of it for my teacher, who then told me what it was and pointed me to the score. The process of learning to play even those few bars from memory was by no means effortless. But I had heard it only once, on the radio (and maybe a few times before, much earlier in my life, although I don't consciously remember it), and yet I was able to reconstruct it from that.

Reading sheet music while playing isn't much faster or more natural to me than just trying to make the piano produce the sounds that are in my head, and I tend to default to the latter because I've just always done it that way. This is why my reading ability, in terms of linking a certain note on the page to a piano key, hasn't progressed much since taking up lessons again. I'm wondering if there's a way to force myself to 'bypass' my natural tendency to 'hear' the music on the sheet, instead of actually reading it by note name (and then associating it with keys on the piano, for which I do know the note names).

I do tend to play too fast from the get-go, especially with music I've never heard before. This is because if I play slowly in the beginning, I can't 'hear' the overall shape of the piece, and so it won't stick in my memory.

Which means that, yes, I should force myself to play more slowly more often, for more than that reason alone. I recently heard another one of my teacher's students play a piece that I'd heard before, but very, very slowly. And I didn't recognise it! That was a weird experience for me. Before I heard that student play, it never even occurred to me that people could play *that* slowly.

But reading sheet music (as in, identifying each note separately) is tedious to me, and because I have this other option (to rely on my inner ear), I usually just skip it. However, it is true that people who are good sight readers tend to progress much faster, so eventually I will have to bite the bullet and just play everything at 30BPM, to start.

I missed the original thread, so I might be overlapping with discussion that's already happened, but perhaps not, so here goes.

Tim said:


I cannot do step 2, in other words, I cannot hear the the note in my head just by looking at the score. But I'm definitely not a beginner, so here's some background. I started playing piano as an adult, but I have now been playing for 14 years (and I have taken lessons pretty much continuously). I also played classical guitar, and could tune my guitar myself, which I mention because it demonstrates that I have a fairly decent sense of relative pitch.

I am fairly good at sight reading (playing new music from the score) for music that's just below my level. And with pieces I am currently working on or pieces in my (polished) repertoire, I tend to always play from the score because I am always trying to expand my repertoire and I find that using the score allows me to maintain more pieces. I have a few pieces memorized, and I can memorize fairly long pieces, but I tend to return to playing from the score because it helps me keep a piece playable even if I don't play it every day. I call this "read-playing" to distinguish it from sight reading an unfamiliar score. But back to sight reading.

When I look at a score for the first time, I can get a pretty good idea of the timing of the melody, because I understand the notes and tempo markings. But I can't *hear* the notes unless I have a piano, and even if I use the piano to play the first note, I can't sing the rest of it because I can't sing the intervals, I don't hear the intervals in my head (unless I know the music, and that's different).

However, when I look at a score for the first time, I am pretty good at judging its difficulty for me, whether the piece is playable in terms of my ability. I can also think about fingering and imagine possible options, I think this is because I can "see" the intervals and imagine the keyboard geography in my head. So because I'm pretty good at sightreading and have this piano landscape in my mind's eye, I am pretty good at step 3, in other words, see the note on the page and play it (as opposed to reaching for it and missing).

I should add that over the years, I've sometimes made specific efforts to work on sightreading, for example using a sightreading book or working on unknown pieces of music that are below my playing level. I also have a few collections of Christmas music in easy arrangements that I use for sightreading at Christmas, although it's questionable whether we can really call this sightreading because the music is so well-known

I have always described myself a very "score-oriented" pianist, because I'm very good at working on/with a score at the piano. I also have gotten into the habit of putting scores on my phone and reading along as I listen to a recording of the piece, I do this when I'm on the bus and it's very helpful for when I'm learning a new piece. But I cannot learn new music from a score without a piano, I can't sing even the most simple melody line from a score if it's music I don't know, and I cannot play by ear, even something simple like the Happy Birthday song.

So, to use Tim's steps, what I do is 1) see the note on the page, 2) play the note (I generally reach for it and don't miss), and 3) hear the note I play. Because I have a good sense of relative pitch, I can tell if I play the wrong note because it doesn't sound right, but that judgement happens based on hearing my playing, not on hearing/imagining notes in my head.

Another comment (sorry this is getting so long!) Florentin, as I said I didn't read the original thread (although I'll go read it next!) but on the subject of writing the note-name under the note on the score, I never did that regularly or for more than one isolated note here and there. As a beginner I'd write the name of a note far above or below the staff, and I still sometimes write a note-name if it's a very low bass note or maybe if I tend to play it wrong a lot. Or if there's a lot going on in the music, I'll write a note name for a LH note, especially if there's a big jump to a low note, or to give myself a hint or make it easier to focus on the RH.

And I'll add just one more comment on the subject of hearing music in your head. The comments above are all mainly for new music, either first time ever looking at a score or a score that I am in the progress of learning. Once I know a piece, I can hear it in my head and anticipate it as I look at the score, but that's because I now know the music and the key, and then the score gives me the timing/tempo/melody information. I also am good at playing a piece slower than the ultimate tempo because when I read-play, I'm following along on the score rather than playing something from memory. And with music I'm retry familiar with, I can look ahead in the score while playing and this helps me play a piece with a more demanding tempo.

Sayonara, in addition the advice to play slower, another skill you might work on is looking ahead in the score, this has been an important skill for me.

Ok, sorry this is so long, but sight reading and "read-playing" are topics I'm very interested in.

That's very interesting.

I have a speculation about this, too vague to be called a theory or even a hypothesis.

But since we've been talking about sightreading the past week, I've been practicing a bit.

Take the 3 step simplified process I described, where step 1 is see the note, step 2 hear the note, step 3 reach as a model for now, however inaccurate it may be.

I'm at best average at step 2, hear the note. One line is no problem, a couple lines okay if they're harmonically related, or predictable chords, but add texture and you quickly overload my brain. (It's something I'm working on, because the handbell music for my group usually has six or more notes stacked in a chord)

Even so, my step 2 skills turn out to be way ahead of my step 3 skills. Whatever playing skills I had have degraded while I've put my practice time into trombone the past couple of years. I keep painfully reminding myself that I can't sightread something I don't have the skills to play!

And that's a point I think we forget. We envy people who can sightread complicated stuff, forgetting that maybe we can't play that stuff at all. Let's call those the step 4 skills, the skills required to play more difficult music.

In your case, your step 2 skills seem to be far above average. They are always going to exceed your step 3 skills. But a significant component of the step 3 skills is the existence of the step 4 skills.

Make sense, maybe?

Do you mean that you don't know the note names or the place to find them on the piano?

If you don't know the note names when you hear the melody in your head (I think one should) you might benefit from singing single-line music, and naming the notes you are singing: not DO RE MI, but C, D, E, A#, Eb, whatever.

If you don't know where the piano notes are, when hear the score notes in your head (I think one should) you might benefit from working from a note speller, and PLAY THE NOTES IN THE NOTE SPELLER also. Naming the notes out loud as you play them is also good.



I know what you mean, but aural memorization can only take you so far. Also, as the pieces get longer and more difficult, your aural memory will not suffice.



I always look at the score, even after I know the piece well. I think one should NOT use the ability to 'hear the score' as a means to move away from the score as soon as possible. Instead, one should use this to help them understand the score, and the piece, better. Memorization is just one of the steps in learning a song.

I don't look at the score because I do not know it. But again, this is just me. Everyone's a bit different.



See, teachers don't like that. Most don't. When you play like that, it sounds to the teacher as if you did not practice your song and you do not know your notes. Sight-reading is not about trying different combinations. It is about reading the notes on the page (whether you hear them or not) and playing them on the instrument as they are written.



No bragging here... ... but it would be easy and quite a pleasure. I think
We ALMOST speak the same language.
You just seem to use your ability to get away from the score as soon as possible. I use it to understand the music better. I never leave my score, except for when I perform, and many times I perform with the score.



I didn't know if this was a joke or if you are serious. A previous poster posted this and made me laugh, because it describes a bit of what happens when I sight-read something hard for the first time.

As a short answer, I believe that if you "reach and miss" too often, the piece you are trying to sight-read is above your level, or maybe you have to learn your note-names better, and also learn to find them on the piano better/quicker. Not you personally... I am talking in general.


phew... this thread is going places
can't answer to all replies right now, but I will get back later

thanks for all the replies so far

What a great point you made here!
Singers have to hear the sound before they sing it, because there are no physical reference points that they can follow. One cannot see their vocal chords and the sound happens inside. You can't see the instrument.

By the way, I think Tim reversed his first two steps by accident. I think he means this: 1. See the note 2. Hear the note 3. Reach out and play the note.

That actually makes a lot of sense to me, Tim!

I think that I tend to jump on music that is far too ambitious for me, in terms of technical skill, because if I can read it (which, in my case, means 'hear' it, and keep it in my head), I should be able to play it, right?

Except that I'm not -- at least not without a whole lot of practice.

Sometimes this means that I pick out a piece way beyond me, and I have to drop it after a few weeks of struggling with it. But sometimes, I jump on music that is far too ambitious, I put in a whole lot of practice, and I actually manage to learn it. It may take me months, but I can do it. And the fact that I'm then able to play something that is clearly beyond 'beginner level' is actually a major motivator.

In the meantime, because it's actually beyond me on a technical level, learning a piece like that doesn't help me in the sight reading department. Reading and playing at the same time, when the technical demands of the piece are already taking up all of my concentration, is an impossibility. So I memorise by default, not just because I can, but because I have to, or else I wouldn't be able to play some of the music I'm choosing to tackle.

I'm not sure what value the note name adds.

If you know that the space at the bottom of the treble staff has a one-to-one correspondence with that white key between two black keys, do you really care that somebody somewhere calls it a D?

There are other very good reasons to know the note names, but I'm not sure getting a finger onto the right spot is actually helped by it.

Nothing wrong with that. You are using relative pitch.



This is where most students who can hear the score sort of 'go astray'. The fact that they can quickly learn a piece by listening to it, or by glancing at the score, causes some of them to spend less time learning the note names and the note positions on the piano.



The "certain limits" you are referring to will increase as the music gets longer and more difficult... Let me ask you this. If you listened to a Beethoven sonata, could you remember it note for note? If the sonata was at your level of proficiency, or close to it, could you play it after having listened to it once or twice?

How about a Bach Three-Part Invention?

Not picking on you at all
I am actually enjoying this conversation a lot, and you bring up some wonderful points.

My point is this, and I am repeating it from a previous reply... It is my opinion that all musicians, even those that can 'hear' the score, should always use the score and learn it note for note.

Thanks for the replies so far.

Florentin, I don't know about three-part inventions because I haven't gotten there yet, but to give you an idea of where I'm at right now: I learned BWV 930, and then 928, much in the way I described above ('from memory').

I've never learned an entire Beethoven Sonata, but I have learned the first and second movements of Beethoven's (admittedly overly famous and arguably uncomplicated) 'Moonlight' Sonata.

I'm currently working on a Chopin Nocturne, which I don't know that I will be able to finish, because there are some awfully fast and rhythmically irregular runs near the end, and I think maybe my fingers won't go there.

None of those pieces are things that I could have just sat down and played before I started working hard on them. They are all examples of music that was, at least initially, way beyond me. But all of them were in my head note for note long before I could play them.

To me it is important.

I love music theory and analysis. I step away from the instrument and study the music. I also compose and arrange a lot.

In a way, that is like asking a Grammar teacher why the letters in a word are important. To the person having a pleasant chat with a friend, the words simply flow, and they would never stop to think of the letter combinations that make the words they are uttering, let alone the letters or punctuation marks. It just comes out. Sort of like a Jazz jamming session

When president Obama reads a speech, he tries to convey a message, and he combines the written words with his emotions and facial expressions. But... the person who wrote that speech, well, that person paid attention to every word, every word combination, spelling, correct conjugation, punctuation, and so on...oh please, don't turn this thread into a political discussion

Playing from a score is sort of like reading that speech. Playing in a Jazz jamming session is sort of like having a spontaneous conversation.

I guess it all depends on how deep one wants to get into understanding the music they are playing, beyond the performance stage. If one's only concern is playing the piece, there may not be the need for knowing all the small details.

But here's the question... wouldn't one play a piece better if they understood it better?

I've been liking this thread a lot, because there is one truth demonstrated again and again: everyone comes at this a little bit differently.

I don't doubt that. I am also able to do that.
But I like to combine that with looking at the score.
I never get tired of the score.
Everyone's different.

Thanks for the reply

That's the thing: I'd like to be like you. While I enjoy having good musical memory, I *would* like to learn to look at the score, and actually read what is there, while I play. There is no musical skill I could gain that I think would help my progress on the piano more than being able to look at a sheet and instantly know where all the notes are on the keyboard.

But when I'm actually sitting down and practicing, I find myself slipping into 'memory mode' without even realising it. In this way, I am sabotaging my own progress.

I mean both: I don't know the note names, *and* I don't know where they are on the piano. Which is to say: there is a limited range within which I do know these things. But once we go beyond, say, a chromatic C scale in either clef, going up (treble) or down (bass) from middle C, then I'm lost.



This is what we do each week in music theory class. We do sing DO RE MI, but then we also use DO RE MI in piano class, and we name scales and chords using solfege syllables, not letter names.

For obvious reasons of voice range, though, solfege lessons don't go much beyond the aforementioned chromatic C scale in either clef. Also, the pieces are way too easy, and the tempos too slow, because it's a group class and everyone needs to be able to follow. Not every adult beginner has secretly been playing one kind of musical instrument or another all their life, even on a self-taught basis. But because of that simplicity, once we've read and then sung a piece once, it's game over for me: I slip into memory mode.



Naming the notes as I play them. Yep, sounds good. I would have to play much slower than I usually do, but it's already been established that I need to do that anyway, much as it seems like a chore. Thanks!

maybe you can make copies of the score, or many different piano scores, or whatever scores... and write in the note names. It's not going to yield benefits right away, but in the long run it might.

Now, by "write in the note names" I do not mean for you to then play from that same score, after writing in the letters... The point is to learn the note names.

Also, doing a lot of work with note spellers might help with locating the notes on the piano.

Since I've come on PW, I have mostly seen people whose way of relating to music did NOT include anything that I experienced. By and large, it is visual - even trying not to watch hands since they give clues - maybe related to note names which are locations on the piano - and a huge relationship to chords (which to me was tiny). The chords often seem to be patterns of white & black keys felt in the hands, and these may be heard as chord qualities or colours, esp. for by ear players.

What is described in this thread is how I first related to music. In regards to piano, when young I sounded out the written music in solfege and my "reading" became some rough hybrid of solfege hearing - probably much in the manner of a singer. Written music was sound (melodic above all) which could go to any instrument. I played what I heard in my head. It was relative so it was no sweat to move from a descant recorder to an alto F recorder. For those who can relate to this, we may have something that others learning or playing piano don't have (some may have this as well), but it's also possible that they have what we don't have.

In my responses to Florentin's first posts, I was pretty accurate in my guesses of what he could do, and what was more difficult.

There are OTHER WAYS OF DOING & PERCEIVING. This is a hard thing to grasp, and extremely powerful if you catch it.

Ok, so you hear a sound from the page and then reach for that sound on the piano. You might miss it. Another way of reading music is this: You see a note on the page and you immediately associate that "picture" with a piano key in its location. It is as automatic as feeling thirsty and reaching for a cup. Or the light turns red and your foot goes on the brake. You may think "stop" afterward - not before. I have actually trained toward this. While doing so I turned off the "sound - find that sound somewhere on the keyboard" reflex, turned on the purely mechanical "red light - foot" reflex; got that strong, and am slowly bringing in both.

Another: In your head you are hearing a lyrical legato flow of notes and somehow your fingers hunt among their motions until they produce that sound, you don't know how ... your hand sort of gets tired, and maybe your shoulders hurt. Or: you learn the mechanical process of producing legato through press-release timing, wrist action, and possibly timing with the pedal - and end up with the result of this beautiful legato. n life you would probably use a combination of both.

The bottom line is that there are other ways of doing things than the ones we know, from totally unthought of angles.

For me, what I started with (what we seem to have in common) was something I could use, but it also was a handicap. It painted me into corners. If the music is not tonal, and esp. if it doesn't fit into Solfege, you're stuck. You can miss the piano key, and then twiddle to find what sounds right. You can't play complex dense music without "working it out" and then hopefully memorizing it. The answer is not to try harder, but to try differently.

How?

That is exactly what I need!

It may be that you've already given me the answer to this question. I recall a PM conversation on the topic. And I had a chart with note names directly above my piano keys for a while. But while that has helped me immediately think the name of a note as I press a key (playing --> hearing --> naming), it hasn't (yet) helped me make a strong connection between the 'picture' of a note, and its place on the keyboard (seeing --> naming --> playing).

Ideally, I should be able to directly identify the sound in my head as this or that note, and then play it on the piano (because I do know where notes are on the keyboard). But because my hearing is relative and not absolute, I sometimes start learning to play things in the wrong key when I try to do this. And usually, I don't even realise this until my teacher tells me.

AH HA!

That's what I meant with my comment about the letter name maybe not helping, and maybe the sound not helping either.

When I was a beginning trombone player, I sight read very well without knowing the names of the notes. I made a connection between a visual image on the sheet music and a distance on the slide, and played the right note without caring what it was called.

A couple of years later not knowing the letter names became a limitation, and I sat down and learned them. They didn't help my sightreading, but they were necessary. The use of the conversion from visual to letter name to position was a mental process that did not add value.

Now things are a bit different. I see a note and that visual image connects to a sound, and a letter name, and a tonal relationship. On trombone I need to process concert pitch treble clef, transposed (Bb) treble clef, bass clef, alto, tenor, and mezzo soprano clefs on a regular basis. For this initially the letter names were part of the process, but with some work they recede into the background. I think they're always there but subdued.

Uh, when I say a visual image connects to a sound, that isn't complete. I am high functioning Asperger's, and no sound is heard pure without a connected visual image. So the visual representation of a note on a page of sheet music connects simultaneously to a sound of a note and a visual image of the sound of the note. I'd guess that is unlikely to be true for most of you.

In a private conversation earlier today, a member and I further discussed this topic, and I think a few paragraphs I shared with them might help others understand their own way of sight-reading as compared to my own.

============

"If you think like a pianist, or any other instrumentalist, naming the notes may not be of great importance.

I do think as an instrumentalist but I also think as a composer. My reading of the notes on the page is a sort of reversal process of writing them there in the first place.

I wonder how a composer could notate his/her music, if they couldn't name the notes or even find them on the piano.

It also goes farther than just writing a new composition. The composition has to fit well on the instrument. In writing a piece for classical guitar, a composer has to create the music, but then he/she will have to adjust it so that it works for the instrument. In order for that to happen, they have to know the note names and their places on the instrument.

When I read music, it is almost like a backwards-composition exercise. It's just that someone else wrote the music."

============

I thought I'd share this. Maybe it can help someone. So far, I would like to say that reading the notes on the page, hearing them in one's head, and playing them, are three steps of equal importance. For me anyways.

I also think instrumentalists ought to be able to write down the scores they play. Yes, on blank staff paper.

My (admitedly rather long) post seems to have gotten lost among the other posts here, but I would just like to add something about this comment by Florentin:



I don't do (or more accurately, can't do) the second step (hearing the notes in my head) until I've played a piece enough to know it. Since I don't play jazz, don't improvise, and because I learn and play music I have access to through written scores, not having step 2 is not a problem for me. I can see where that skill might come in handy, but because I can translate what I see on the page into what my hands do on the keyboard, I don't think missing step two is a problem that has a negative influence on my piano-progress. (If you missed my earlier post, I talked more about not having step 2). But I am certainly biased because I am so score-oriented!

I wouldn't call myself a composer -- not by a long shot. But I have written down some of the music I have in my head. If I had been born in Mozart's time, or even in Rachmaninov's time, I couldn't have done this -- or rather, I could have, but it would have taken me a monstrous amount of time: hear a note or chord in my head --> find it on the piano --> look at the key(s) and name it --> write it down.

These days, there's MuseScore and Finale and other things like that. Software makes the process much more streamlined. I write what I think I'm hearing. I have to computer play it back to me. If it's not quite right, I make adjustments until it is.

Yes, but you left out the next three words in my paragraph: "For me anyways"

I will agree with you that not hearing the notes in your head before you play them should not be a hinderance in your progress. In fact, it is clear from this thread that for many is a hinderance that they DO hear the note before they play it.

I had to work hard, and still do, to bring together the three steps: seeing, hearing, playing.

You make a great point!

My daughter has written a few songs that she's had me transcribe.

Here's the process, apparently.

she writes the lyrics and music in her head, and when she's finished she goes to the piano and hits keys until she figures out what notes her melody contains.

She writes this down without time values - everything is a quarter note.

Then she sings it to me and I adjust quarter notes to be dotted half, sixteenth, etc.

I notate it in software, then play it back. she listens and we correct it together.

The results are so far beyond my own creative abilities it's amazing.

The point is not that I am a composer. In one way or another, every person on this board is a composer. I am simply trying to explain how I read music, and why.

You mention Finale and MuseScore. One needs to know the note names, and their place on the instrument, in order to notate a piece accurately. Finale and MuseScore are not much different then handwriting. It just looks more neat on the paper

Actually, I think it is. When you're writing by hand, your piece of paper will not play what you've written back to you. A computer will. I need that step to verify that what's in the score actually matches what my inner ear is hearing.

But it's not that I don't know the names of the notes I play on the piano. I do. It's that I don't know the names of the notes in my head, and I don't know the names of the notes on the page, so I need *some* kind of intermediary to make the connection between the two. That intermediary could be a piano. A piece of software just makes it easier.

You're right, pardon my oversight!

Tim, your description of your daughter's method of composing is really interesting! Does she play piano otherwise, or take lessons or anything? I wonder if she keeps at it long enough, if the process of finding the notes at the piano will get easier and faster?

Is the topic of learning to read piano music, with this reading being an effective skill, being lost?

Ah, I see. I usually turn the sound off when I use Finale

For me, having to "guess" which note needs to be written on the score, and keep guessing until I hit the right one (talking about Finale) would be quite annoying.

We just look at it differently. We don't have to all do it the same way.

I don't know. Is it?

I think all of us come to the instrument with our own musical background. Maybe that's why the discussion seems to wonder off into mini sub-subjects.

It is. Quite annoying, I mean. But the good news is that as I've been doing this more often, my ability to "guess" correctly has actually improved quite a bit. While I still can't fatom (or, perhaps, won't risk) writing down an entire piece of music without listening in-between to make sure that I haven't made any huge mistakes, I will now often write entire phrases, piano or harp plus voice (or oboe, or violin, or ...) at the same time, before going back to listen.

That still doesn't help my ability to read, and strangely, it also doesn't help my ability to find notes on the piano all that much. I guess in that direction, I still need to play a note first (thereby hearing it) in order to name it correctly.

I think it isn't.

The mini-subjects are interesting. I would disagree (on the piano playing plane) that one needs to be able to write out the music ones plays. In fact, at some stages, depending on the person's background and where they are in piano playing skills, it may even be counter-indicative.

If writing out things, then understanding of theory should also be there, otherwise it is just a kind of parroting. And that theory, in turn, should be rooted in real and practical things (which goes back to teaching). It's not a small topic.

Again, I am referring to myself and my own students. Some of them anyways.
Writing down scores of the music I play has always been beneficial for me. Also, many of the students have improved their understanding of the piece, AND the performance of it, after having written the score down at least once.

One small benefit I could think of right away is a "space perspective" of where one is in the piece at any given moment: eight measures away from the Coda, on the second page after the exposition, in the second half of the third variation, and so on. This can help with anticipation also.

Not really thinking memorization, or "parroting" here, even though I do see how you could think that from what I wrote. It is possible that it could slide into parroting, if the player loses the perspective.

Interestingly enough, I tend to know/remember where something is on the printed page. If it's a piece of music, I can think to myself "that section starts in the second line of page 2" or when I have studied foreign languages, I can remember whether something was introduced on the left-hand or right-hand page, and on the top, middle or bottom of the page. I think this must have something to do with how I process visual information with a spatial element... I suspect this is a big part of my comfort-level with read-playing.

good for you! that's great.
we arrive at similar results from different perspectives

I have been staying within the context of your original topic, reading skills, what they are, approaches to teaching and learning reading piano music etc. At the start of this topic we isolated strong and weak areas that you yourself have found. Most of the participants in this thread seem to have similar backgrounds (not usual ones for this forum) and also similar strong and weak areas in reading, similar areas of difficulty. I was there myself originally.

I understand what you are saying. I was writing that what is done depends on where the student is at, and what that student's learning needs are. This goes straight to the topic.

To whit: One reading skill consists of seeing the note on the page, and having an instant reflex that goes to the piano key. It is a visual, physical, and tactile thing. For those of us who are auditory more like singers or maybe winds players, we see the note, hear it, and then search for the sound on the piano. We bypass this reflex - we don't get it. That is why several posters here write of missing the note, having to decipher the music, and similar things.

So IF you are working in this scenario, writing out the music will NOT bring you to that reflex, and it may reinforce other things that you don't want to reinforce at that time. I don't know if this is more clear, or just mud.

I see what you are saying.
It probably makes complete sense, for those readers that look at the score EXACTLY as you do.

I come to the score from the player's point of view, but also from the other side, the composer's side, as if I wrote the piece.

I read a lot of music without sitting down at an instrument. I also write a lot of music, on paper, without sitting at an instrument.

I guess each person has their own way of looking at the score, with some similarities and some differences between the different musicians. Trying to fit everyone in one box wouldn't work in my book.

Reading the posts in this thread has been very helpful, even for just seeing all the different approaches to sight-reading. That was the whole idea from the start.

I can attest that this is true, at least for me.

I've said once before on this thread that I took on the task of writing down one of my pieces from memory, once. My teacher told me I should try it some time, but in hindsight, I think she was joking. Or if she wasn't joking, she was trying to get me to see a point that I missed at the time, because (contrary to my teacher's expectations, I think) I *was* in fact able to do it.

But it didn't help with any of my issues. I didn't learn to name notes more quickly; I didn't suddenly start to find notes on the keyboard more easily. I didn't even remember the notes that were in the piece, afterwards. To me, it was like an advanced version of the simple single-line music dictations we do each week in theory class: in one ear and out the other, after a quick interval recognition (or semi-tone count, where necessary) and then an equally quick write-down. When such a dictation is played back to me afterwards, I will recognise where I made my mistakes, if any, provided that I'm still looking at the notes I wrote down. I will be able to sing the end result. But don't ask me to name the notes on my paper, or play it on an instrument. Or rather: with a single-line dictation, you can. Anything more complicated than that ... no.

In other words, writing down a score reinforces my strengths, but does nothing to remedy my weaknesses.

and how many times have you done it? how many different scores?

I will concede that I've only done it once . But that's in part because once I had done it, my teacher told me that the time I had spent doing that could probably have been better spent elsewhere.

Given the influence (or lack thereof) this task had on my note recognition abilities, even for that specific piece that I wrote down, I'm inclined to agree with her.

I can relate to what you describe as "the composer's side". That was my original way of relating to music for a long time, and I still have that side of it, and can draw on it any time that I want. When you come "from the composer's side", you are anticipating where the piece is going, understanding the whole picture, and that is a valuable aid in playing a piece. None of these things are without value. Like you, I can write music without resorting to an instrument, and for the same reason.

But ......

You have asked about ideas and approaches. Additionally, you have listed weak spots. Now first, when we learn as students, we are coming into the unfamiliar. The worst tendency is to filter everything to what we already know. To really learn, one must be ready to go into totally foreign water. That is easy for the child, but hard for the adult. A teacher is also a learner; you have come into this forum seeking and asking for new ideas.

When you write:

What I described are some of the ways I learned to look at the score. I went out of my comfort zone and tried things that were foreign to me, like visiting a different planet. I worked with someone whom I had reason to trust, and it is in working that way that I gained that trust. The reason that I didn't stay only with what I had is because there were weak areas. You have also listed weak areas:

- You hear music in your head, but when you actually go to play it, you hit wrong notes, and when you hit those wrong notes, you also get thrown
- You find reading atonal music to be "mind-exhausting"
- It is a constant struggle to keep your playing in line (with how fast it should go? with how quickly you hear it vs. how fast you can play it?)
- you can relate to TimR's description of reaching for a note / sound, and missing it.

So some things are working well, and others are not. That is also where I was. The trick is to keep what works, but also be open to explore new sides that may be brand new and foreign. Some of those sides may be nonsense. Some may be misunderstood. But some may open doors we didn't know existed.

Good for you!
I would never ask a student to disagree with their teacher.
But, as a teacher, I have been wrong many times before.

I can see how that would be, though I couldn't explain it - internally from my past I can understand it.

The starting point in learning, imho, has to be "what is it that I need to learn?". The answer should not be an end-result like "be able to play piece X fluidly". One of my "need to learn" was: - create the reflex of note n on the score connected to piano key n1. I worked directly toward that. Fortunately I was given a way to do it.

This is just one example.

This sounds like an interesting idea that I should actually try some time. It's the same idea, at its core, as the slowing *way* down thing someone else already suggested.

The only problem is: playing the piano isn't fun for me when I can't hear the musical meaning anymore. It feels like a chore, and it will be treated accordingly (i.e., it will only happen when it absolutely has to happen, such as when I'm preparing for an online or real-life recital).

That said, it appears that if I really want to learn to sight-read some day, making piano into a chore on at least a semi-regular basis is an unavoidable necessity.

I wanted to think about this a bit before answering.

When working on pieces, I used to see music as a "whole" - as the music that we produce or hear as an audience. I did have a "bits" side but that was when I experimented: I'd diddle around with a few intervals and turn them into something. But that was a different side.

At some point I saw music itself from a different, maybe "craftsman" angle. It might be the distance of time between two notes or even the space between the stopping of one, continuing of another, or overlap. Any detail or aspect. It was like when you put a drop of water under the microscope, and see the wondrous detail. It became fascinating on its own.

Something else happened, however. I learned that when I take elements of music like that, and craft and shape them, which feels "unmusical" at the time, when it comes together it is more musical and more beautiful than when I did it just by 'feeling'. And when I went by 'feeling', sometimes I just seized up from not knowing what to do at this moment, so it wasn't musical anyway.

There seems to be a balance in this. You cannot be totally mechanical because that is dead. You cannot go only by feeling and instinct, or something will go sloppy or wrong. It seems to be a balance between the two. At that point these things were not boring or dead: they were very rich. And they led somewhere.

When I mention the "composer side" I am not referring the actual creation of the piece. I am referring to the mechanics of notating the music that has already been created in his/her head. Sometimes, reading music is sort of the reversal of that process. For me, anyways.



I am a learner. I will always be a learner.
No shame in admitting that.
If I gave a different impression, that was not my intention.
Is it because I do not fully agree with everything that was said, or because I did not have time to reply to every single post, that you would think otherwise?



That is great. We all improve ourselves continuously.
I am sincerely happy for you



Agreed. Some things are working better than others.
Other things I am still working on.

Have you arrived at a point where sight-reading presents you with no challenges at all? If you have, that's awesome. This thread would be a great place to share that knowledge.

So far, I can say that almost every musician that replied in here comes to the score a little bit differently. I don't see a problem with that, really. Everyone does what works for them, and everyone can learn a little bit from everyone else.

I also feel this is turning more into an argument than an open sharing of ideas, at least with some of the posts. I know that is NOT why I started this thread.

Yes, that is how I understood it.

What I have been writing about is not what musicians or music students might do, but teaching approaches by teachers that I have learned about. They are things that I have been taught and am still learning, both as a student, and in pedagogy. I have also shared, like everyone else, how I read music originally. Yes, we can also learn from that side.

The types of problems that I had before no longer exist, because I no longer approach music as I had done before. There are many things I can do, and accurately, that I could not do before. Can I sight read a piece with dense chords in music that is largely atonal prima vista and at tempo? No. But I can get at it much faster than I once could. I can also work on a piece of music much more effectively than before.


I don't think I can explain in a few lines or even paragraphs what goes into it. There are concepts and approaches that intertwine. People try to write books on such things, and they don't always succeed in bringing their ideas across. I am not trying to be obtuse. I have tried to sketch out some general ideas as starting points.

Then something is not coming across as it should.

Thank you all for the replies.
Lots to learn from everyone.
Good day.

Do let us know if anything new comes from it. And thank you for sharing.

This week, my sight-reading was a bit different.
I think that had to do, at least in a small way, with this discussion.

I think I became more conscious of the sounds I 'hear' on the page.
I think I can 'turn them off'... or at least a little bit.

When I focus on the harmonic structure of the piece, or anything else that is theoretic about the piece, the sound seems to be able to be stopped.

Thinking of the type of chord I am playing (Major, minor, minor 7, augmented, whatever) seems to shift the attention from the sound to something else - a more cognitive awareness of the piece, instead of a more auditory awareness of it.

Would someone even want to do that? As they play the piece, that is.
Weird.

this has been a very interesting thread. As a beginner one of my early questions was how does one sight read and what exactly is the thought process going on. Surprisingly the internet failed me, despite some exhaustive searching. Even my teacher could not verbalise how she was able to sight read it was so ingrained. Only here on Piano World have I got first hand accounts from sight readers and the truth as they say is stranger than fiction.

Florentin, it was interesting to read of your new experience. I'm thinking that you are entering new dimensions, and that this is a good thing. I'm going by the new things I learned in the past few years, and experience from them.

I'm thinking that when we do music, there is the sound and sequence of sounds and melody-harmony still all in sound; there is the physical reality of the instrument; there are the structures of music. All these things are present at the same time for us. If you began music like I did, then the "grammar" of music meshes in like it does for a child learning to speak. Preschoolers use sentence structure unthinkingly - it is part of them. It is subconscious, automatic, "all together".

Then we go to school for our 3R's. The professional writer, the stage actor, the orator - they bring the elements to the surface and use them consciously. They study to learn to do this. It becomes a different thing in their hands. So for music it must be the same thing.

Back to the elements that are "all together at the same time" in a semi-conscious way. I learned to take one element, shift my attention to it, and let it fall back. Also to learn it in a new way, and learn new things. That goes with what you described:

That is one such shift.

I think that it brings that element into focus, and that stays with you. It is like your perception is sharper and you are more present as you play.

I have another shift: I make myself aware of the physical elements, which is something I was almost totally unaware of. For example, as I play these major chords: D, A, E - all of them have two white keys, and two black keys that are raised. This is visual, tactile, and brings you further in on the keyboard. When you add these senses to an A chord, it also does something for your accuracy.


I'm anticipating that possibly you'll find the two meshing: that the cognitive awareness will feed back into your hearing, so that when you shift to hearing, some of the cognitive will have filtered in with it.


As I work on a piece, and practise the piece - yes, something like that - i.e. not necessarily the same, but along those lines. Then these things are also there for me to draw on as I play the piece.

I've had a silly cartoon in my head since reading this. It is where Homer Simpson falls into 3D. Ofc Homer is a cartoon drawing and his world is represented in 2D on a flat plane of L X W. The third dimension is height (L X W X H). It makes a huge difference. I can't put into words why this comes to mind. The 3D experiences starts around 1:30 3D adventure - Simpsons

Today, during the Halloween parade at my school, I did not participate. I don't dress up. I think you can forgive me for that

I was in my room, sight-reading some pieces, and there was very loud Halloween music blasting on the speakers in the room, played from the office into each classroom and throughout the hallways.

It was very interesting to sight-read like this!!!!!!!
The sound in my head was obviously turned off, involuntarily.
All I could hear was the silly, goofy, gooey music in the speakers.
It was loud.

So I had to rely solely on note recognition, finger-pattern recognition, and a pure reading of the music on the staff, without using any auditory input.

Quite an interesting experience!
I almost felt blind-folded... deaf-folded, that is
Gonna try it again soon.
Just not with Halloween music

Florentin,
Here is a small snip from a similar thread 8 years ago. If you find the author useful I'll post a link to several of his comments on sight reading.

*******
Personally I don’t like Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, so I do not use it.

For total beginner’s my favourite is Edna Mae Burne “A dozen a day”, which are nie exercises besides being excellent sight-reading material.

However, as soon as I can I will get away from this, since it is not real music.

What I use next is accompaniments.

Since I play the recorder, I will give my students the piano part (there is a variety of difficulty levels available). There are huge advantages to using this sort of material:

1. It develops musicality.

2. It is incredibly motivating, since making music together is a great pleasure.

3. The student learns that mistakes are of no consequence, the only thing that matters is to keep going.

4. The student starts to learn several tricks of the trade: Simplifying chords, waiting to catch up the soloist later on, understanding harmonic structure.

5. Since the melody is usually the responsibility of the soloist, the accompaniments are difficult to play simply by ear, so the student has actually to read the music.

6. The student will have to cope with 3 staves (two for the piano and one for the recorder), so his skill in sight reading will improve tremendously.

7. It develops everything: ear training, sight-reading, being in time, musicality.

I am surprised it in not used more often.

If you do not play another instrument, you can still do it by using the 4-hand repertory.

*************

On second thought I'll PM you the link.

Thanks Tim!
I appreciate it.

"A Dozen A Day"... I know that series.
I've used it with some students.

I play other instruments as well, so I can introduce accompaniments in some of my lessons.
Thanks for the information, and thanks for the links you sent.
Much appreciated.

Florentin