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Akira, for me it isn't a matter of making my brain do anything - it just all becomes part of the flow of music. And it's not one bit of music competing with another, rather one flowing into another. I think that's partly what I meant in my first post about it not being a rigid "play bar 1, read bar 2" thing, which does imply some sort of competition. I'm finding it a little hard to describe, but I just went to the piano and played a random page from a Haydn sonata to see if I was really doing what I thought I was doing, and I am . It can't be as complicated as it sounds, because I'm a person who finds it very hard to play and count aloud at the same time. Truly.

Excellent advice, wdot. Any Protestant hymnal will do -for sight reading at least- but there are hymnals and there are hymnals.

For us Brits the New English Hymnal is just too classy for its own good. Blimey. You know what? One of the greatest hymn tunes ever written is Sir John Stainer's Rest -NOT to be confused with Frederick C. Maker's awful tune for "Dear Lord and Father..." - and that supreme tune by Stainer has been omitted from NEH. Who the heck was calling the shots here?

It's something that brains do automatically, unless you're so tense that you interfere with the process. I think it's the same sort of thing that's going on when you catch a ball. You're looking at where the ball is now, and at where it's going to be in two seconds' time, and if you want to catch it then it's best not to think too hard about the process :-)

It's just like driving. How do you live in that world 20 yards ahead (the only safe way to drive) and still operate the vehicle where you are? The non-conscious mind does the operating for you. It also does a lot of other things, but that's another story.

It probably makes more sense to call it 'peripheral hearing'. You're hearing the part of the page your staring at and are, at the same time dimly aware of what you are playing. If you think carefully about it you'll realize you are much more aware of the music that is going to happen.

But I think I said it better in my first post on this thread. IMHO, it makes more sense than the rather opaque observations above. Did not I mention "snatching glances ahead"?

And a delectable Starbucks coffee for you too..

It seems you are saying two different things, argerich fan. Your peripheral seems is in the future ("snatching glances"), whereas keyboardklutz's perpheral ("dimly aware of what you're playing") seems to be in the now.

I guess my next question is that if one is only dimly aware of the music being played, one would one know they are playing it as they intended to (i.e. how they heard it in their head)?. Is dimly aware enough to make that determination, as opposed who put their entire focus upon the sounds (like perhaps, when you have something memorized)?

Keyboardklutz, I'd like to explore the 'hear the music on the page' concept a little further, if you wouldn't mind indulging me. Are you saying that you can pick up a piece of music that you've never seen before, look at it for the first time and hear what the entire piece will sound like in your head, without hitting a single note? If so, I'd like to ask how one might acquire a skill like that.

I'm afraid the reality is rather opaque, so deep water can't be avoided.

Starbucks? I get a double espresso for 80p at my local. A discount on 90 as I'm a 'regular'.

Most of my professional career involves sight-reading, which is my particular strength.

I might say that - conversely to what others have said - I am dimly aware of what is ahead, but tend to focus on what I'm currently playing. My 'pre-cognitave envelope' is probably one or two beats ahead.

I don't know how I do it, but I can nearly instantaneously play what I see. If the music is easy, I might look ahead; if it is difficult (complex chords, accidentals) I will not look ahead but will focus on the difficulties more intently.

As Alexander Hanysz and Argerichfan mentioned, a good knowledge of theory really helps, along with the realization that most music progresses in a predictable fashion. Logic and muscle memory do help me decide where the next notes are likely to occur.

Being an organist has also helped me a great deal. When you regularly play three staffs at sight, then two seem like a piece of cake!

My biggest challenge remains open score. I had to sightread some Poulenc and Duruflé motets yesterday, and it was at the edge of my comfort limit. Yet I know that if I regularly sightread this sort of material, my skills will improve.

So, while I endorse doing lots of sightreading (including reading lots of four-part hymns), I would add that most pianists would benefit from additional challenges, such as playing from open score (especially if one part requires transposition).

I may be wrong. Perhaps the non-conscious is looking ahead? Another thing to investigate. After all, I suppose you can drive, see ahead and analyse a tune on the radio all at the same time.

It depends on the type of music and level of difficulty.

1) Easy, chordal music (e.g., hymns)--I look one or two chords ahead, not much more than that. Pedal does the legato for me, so I don't worry about finger substitution and finger legato.

2) Easy/intermediate popular music--I look at one group of notes at a time, usually one "chord" at a time. I don't look ahead as I play.

3) Easy classical music--I just play what's written. I don't look ahead at all.

4) Harder classical music--I multi-task! My eyes are all over the place. I look at the chords I'm playing. I look at the keys to make sure I'm at the right place, especially after large leaps. I look ahead to the next chord or hand position to figure out the best finger legato to get there. In this case I constantly look ahead whenever possible, usually when one hand has a long-held note or a long rest. When there are too many notes in a chord or cluster, I have to decide which ones to omit. I also have to figure out where I need to use legato pedal when it's impossible to do finger legato, so looking ahead here is crucial. Finally, when there is a lot of dotted rhythm, I always look at the long notes after the quick short notes, so I don't end up holding down a short note and waiting there to read the next chord.

I think the way I typed that last paragraph is how I sight read--doing a bunch of stuff and eventually (hopefully) what comes out makes sense.

I sight read OK, but I never think of myself as reading ahead. But I must do that in some fashion, since like others, I need the page turned just a bit before the music actually arrived at that spot. It seems to me, though, that instead of reading ahead, what I really do is look at a wider area of the score than just a vertical slice. That area can shrink or expand depending on how dense the information in it is, but (except for the final note of a piece) it always includes more than just the instant of music that is sounding. It is, after all, visual information, not the sound, and so it doesn't have to have an exact linear relationship in time to what is being played. And I think that I rarely look at just one staff at a time; the grand staff appears like one thing to me.

I'm just getting into this. Betty, the bit of Clementi I sent you was prima vista sight reading to see what it is that I can do now, and how I do it.

Decades ago when I was self-taught I went by what I heard in a pseudo-solfege fashion, fixing the tonic "doh", hearing the melody go up and down by the pattern shapes of notes (staircase-like arpeggios, linear runs), while chords and inversions were pattern shapes and sounds in my hands. But I could well be playing a piece written in G major as C major and never notice, except that a note here and there sounded like it should be a semitone up or down and I'd adjust to what it "should sound like". That was 30 years ago.

What I have now: Learned that the first thing you do is to scan the piece quickly. Fix what the key signature is, whether it's major or minor, be conscious of what positions on the keyboard the hands will be traveling and audiate ahead of time if you can. After a while that sequence should become natural (said the book) and will only take a long moment. Apparently I've learned to do that. So I'm in the right key signature starting with the right finger off the bat, and I can use some of what I used to do, including hearing what I'm playing. I'd say that I see the notes in handfuls, and then move on to the next handful of notes while I'm playing, and that while scanning the handful I must be scooting along both clefs in turn, making note of significant things.

I'm aware that Clementi seems to use predictable patterns that I'm familiar with so that there is less to watch for. That Alberti bass is so often there and if my right hand is playing a C then I practically anticipate that my left will be playing something like CGEG depending on the key, and the cluster of notes have that "look" to them. If I see a sharp coming up in the LH I'm anticipating a modulation, hear it, and sure enough, there it is. I don't know how I would fare trying to read something wildly unpredictable. I chose that snatch of Clementi because it seemed to have a modulation, had large intervals somewhere in it, and I started in the middle of nowhere as it changed themes to make it as unpredictable as possible.

I suspect that having scales and arpeggios in different keys under your belt makes sight reading easier, because then those patterns are in your hands. Music is made up of the stuff of scales, chords, arpeggios. I'm a babe in the woods for chord progressions - have some of it by instinct - but I imagine that practising the I IV I V I see in Cooke's scale book will end up creating a familiarity in all the keys, that will find its way into sight reading. I imagine that in a sense you prepare for the ability to sight read by internalizing patterns you get through working with things like scales, and that you also draw on these internalized patterns once you start to sight read. Is this plausible?

Does an open score mean a score for multiple instruments that is not transcribed for piano? Would multiple instruments be on the same staff?

Also, what if playing all of it is humanly impossible? Leave notes out?

And wow...transposing one staff and not the other sound very complicated. But, I suppose theory knowledge might come in here as well.

Sorry, Akira I seemed to have missed your post. No, I'm not very good at hearing the whole score but to be honest we only focus on one element at a time, don't we? I've been practicing hearing 2 and some 3 part species counterpoint. Also Bach 2 part chorales. It's a wonderful experience to hear more than one part in your head.

You'll have noticed I'm now not sure which, conscious or non-conscious, is ahead and which 'in the common now' . I'm rethinking that one.

In an open score each instrument and voice is on a separate staff. You may have your usual treble clef and bass clef, as well as the C clefs in alto and tenor for such instruments as bassoon, viola and cello (which can be changing clefs within the staff).

My question: would transposed instruments be in that form in an open score, or brought into concert pitch? (Not that I have any ambitions to learn to play from open scores this late in life. Just curious.)

Yes, like an orchestral score, or a string quartet, or a piece for choir. One staff per instrument or voice.

Score reading and transposition used to be considered an important part of a general musical education. Yes, you have to be able to scan the whole score, decide what's most important, and leave things out.

There's a nice book called "Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading" by Morris and Ferguson; I think it's been reprinted.


Traditionally, yes. Nowadays, many composers write everything at concert pitch in the full score, and trust computer software to transpose it to the right pitch for the orchestral parts.

Which also tells me that it is originally written in closed score, with harmonic patterns etc. in the composer's mind, and I suppose that in reading an open score you are recreating that process and trying to keep the same patterns in mind in order to know what is important and what to leave out. Fascinating.

I am also beginning to understand why people on this board are writing that knowledge of theory helps. It seems that sight reading can in part be a kind of intelligent anticipation which you verify by actually reading what should logically be there and see whether it varies, and how. Would that be part of the process?

I'm really not consciously aware of the sight-reading process, I just look at the notes, and I end up playing, analyzing, and whatever happens.

If I were to pay deep attention to my eyes, I'd say that I were looking about 3/4 of the way ahead, but not too far to the point where I can't see exactly what the current measure is.

If pushed to analyse it, I reckon I look at entire 'chunks' at a time, patterns and shapes being translated pretty much directly into finger/hand/arm movements. Once a 'chunk' in under way, I would start looking towards the next one, whilst still peripherally viewing the one currently being 'processed' and being 'dripped' out of the 'buffer' as it were. E.g. in a medium pace 6/8 piece a 'chunk' might be a whole bar (if mostly quarter and eighth notes) or perhaps half a bar (if there are lots of 16ths). Despite what others say above, I don't believe I dart between the staves, but see and digest both at the same time[1]. Whatever the actual mechanics and processes involved, it seems to work OK, as I scored 13/15 in the sight-reading element of my recent DipABRSM examination; the minimum for a pass is 6/15.

Michael B.
[1] Recently I have been playing quite a lot of music with passages written across three staves (e.g. Albéniz's Almeria) and find that I can read all three, just the upper and lower one perhaps more peripherally given the wider distance the field of the eye's vision has to cover.

Michael has a point. When you reach cadences you know what they sound like but you don't hear them in time. There was this bogus letter by Mozart where he talks of experiencing an entire piece in one moment. The letter was forged but there is some truth there - much of what you sight read is done in chunks i.e. taken out of time. So, where do the chunks go between being seen and being heard?