Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Reading Music

New to piano
7 months expierence
Practice Major/Minor Scales etc. every day.
Played trumpet many years ago i.e. treble clef, one note at a time.
I've studied the chords. That is, tell me a chord, for example, Cm9(maj7), and I can place my fingers on the correct notes. But I am certaintly not proficient or know the inversions etc,etc (no wonder with only 7 months expierence, I know).
Here is my problem, and question:
I see these ten notes in the base and treble clefs, that must be played at once (unlike the trumpet with one note), and I initially decide that one must master all the chords and their inversions in order to play.
Well, now I've decided that I don't read enough. That is, I think if I just read, read, and read, I can get their.
Am I correct in assuming that some of you guy's are proficient without a chord sheet etc?

You are correct. Sight reading does rely on some chordal knowledge, but not initially. You'll probably get away with knowing I, IV, V, and all their inversions to be able to sight read some easier repetoire slowly. As you get more advanced, and this was the personal case with me, you won't necessarily be able to name every chord you play, but things will look more familiar to you.

Mike

Thanks Mike, that helps.
Main thing I am wondering is:
Can pianists (students) read music, and play fast enough (e.g. piano bar music) before ever becoming real acquainted with chords?
Any comments appreciated!

Newbee, like you most of my experience was on treble clef wind instrument (clarinet and sax in my case). I am much more comfortable playing from lead sheets (melody notated, chord symbols above the staff) than I am playing transcriptions with all the notes marked and no chord symbols available. Given a piece withOUT the chord symbols, I usually end up going through it and writing the symbols in anyway. I practice sight reading because I want to improve my bass clef reading skills, but I still like the chords expressed in symbols because it just seems quicker to me that way. In certain classes of songs, for instance jazz standards, hymns, folks songs, the chord symbols also allow me to experiment with different chord voicings and transitions to end up with an "arrangement" that suits me. I'm not proficient enough to know how this "scales up" to the more difficult classical pieces, but with easier ones, for instance Bach's Solfeggietto, figuring out the how the chords progressed certainly made the piece's structure more understandable i.e. easier to learn. I'm not suggesting tinkering with Bach, Rach or Bartok but if its Burt Bacharach I say learn the chords well enough to experiment and play it the way you'd like to hear it.
(Do they still even Have them piano-bars in the 747's?) :rolleyes:

oh well, good luck,
Bob

I never really learned chords until after I was fairly fluent at sight reading. So take it for what you will. Maybe it's harder but you can just read the notes by sight reading and learn music.