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this is hardly a new topic, but i don't see it here anywhere.

i'm forever amazed when i see someone sit down to a piece that is unfamiliar to them and just play the notes there.

would like to know how you all do it, i mean from the sound of this forum most of you can do this.

i assume you all had trouble with the left hand, no? i can play the right, but playing the left is always thinking of it on the treble clef, then upping it by two and then playing it.....seconds later.

seconds later doesn't cut it. any suggestions? flash cards hardly help. reading just the left hand on various pieces helps hardly.

any other methods i might try?

Hello Reggie, welcome to the forums!
You did not tell us for how long you have been playing, so I'll assume you're a beginner.

Don't be disheartened, it only sounds as if everybody here is an excellent sightreader (of course, if someone asks for advice, mostly those will chime in who know how to do it). A lot of people (including me, ahem) would love to be able to sight read but are struggling.

The keys are patience and practice. Remember how long it took you to learn to read? Learning the letters, learning how to put them together to words and sentences, interpreting punctuation and finally, after all these preliminaries, reading ahead with your eyes so you could read an unknown text aloud, understanding and conveying its contents and meanings - it probably took you years. Sight reading is similar: Music also has its kind of "grammar". And the task becomes even more challenging as what you read has to be translated into unfamiliar movements. As if that were not enough, your two hands, sometimes even your ten fingers, do different things at the same time.
A recommended method to approach it is to take (dozens, hundreds of) pieces WAY below your current level and to play them at first sight - dead slowly if necessary, but make sure that the rhythm is correct as well as the notes. Sounds easy, huh? ... well :rolleyes:
What helps me, too, is to force myself to read along in the scores of pieces I know while I am playing. (since I memorize fast I tend not to look at the score after a while anymore)

The technical term for what you are after is "sight reading". If you enter this in the "search" form of these forums you might find more advice.

With regard to the left-hand-problem ... you're right, it's hard for everybody. You describe very clearly what is going on in your brain. Thinking in the treble key then counting upwards to translate it seems like giving your brain a lot of extra work. It might be helpful to skip that translation step. This seems hard or tedious in the beginning but will pay off in the long run.
One idea might be to memorize just one or two notes in the bass clef (say, middle f on the second line from top and g or a at the bottom). Then you can still count your way up or down or learn to recognize the other notes by interval but make sure you don't think about treble clef. After a while you'll notice you don't need these crutches anymore. Your flash cards can be used whenever you are not at home.
Again: practice and patience - but keep at it, it's worth the effort. You know you've swallowed bass clef when the left hand is written in treble clef and things sound really funny because you played in bass clef automatically.

Hi Reggie,

I have to give my standard answer here, because there really is no other one: Practice Practice Practice and Patience Patience Patience.

I can understand where you are coming from with flash cards. Flash cards are great for learning note names, but that introduces another step into the process with sight reading or reading from the score. You need this step when you are discussing music, but when playing you want to look at the note and know what key to press. There have been some postings of online websites that test you on this, and it would be better yet if you have a keyboard or digital piano and can find a program that works on this skill also.

Some other tips:
- The grand staff is really one big staff - bass clef to middle c as the line in the middle to the treble clef. If you recognize this, then the distinction between the two becomes less important.
- Do you have a good understanding of landmark notes on both clefs? These are usually G, C, F and Middle C in the bass clef. In the teble, it goes Middle C, G, C, and F.
- Practice reading by intervals.
- What level are you and what level are you trying to play? When learning to sight-read, it is way important to be playing pieces that are easier than your current level. You need to learn to be able to get everything right At First Sight when sight reading. You may need to just find a big stack of very easy music and work through them. For sight reading practice, play them at most once or twice each.

Hope some of these ideas help.

Rich

Hi Reggie,

I think you already have the answer but may not have realized it. You said Actually, it helps tremendously. I think after you spend some more time reading the left hand, it will come just as easily as the right hand. Practice and Patience are key here. Did someone already say that?

One needs to be cautious about so-called
sight-reading demonstrations. These are
often carnival sideshow type stunts, that
is, the player has practiced the score before
and is very familiar with it. What is
particularly disturbing about this is
that this trick only works if the person
pulling it is someone you know and trust,
as a stranger doing it would immediately draw
suspicion. The question that immediately
arises is why a person whom you trust
would pull something like this on you.
Alas, that is indeed the question.

I've never seen a planned demo. The first sight reading I ever saw was in a choir. The new accompanist was late, and during her absence the choirmaster decided that we would be performing a different piece. It was Brahms. The choirmaster apologized to her about the change of material, and produced the orchestral open score which she opened at the piano. She then proceeded to play the four voice piece prima vista with a simplified accompaniment (I assume) almost at tempo. The second time she emphasized the the line of the altos, and then the tenors, in turn, as we ran through the piece for a first time. I had to bend down and retrieve my jaw a couple of times.

This is the kind of situation that is ideal
for a sight-reading stunt. The pianist
and director are in cahoots, and this thing
about changing the piece at the last minute
is all for effect. And the pianist had a
copy of everything at home and had practiced
it thoroughly beforehand.

Yeah, Gyro. That's how I do it. I have a copy of absolutely every piece of written music in the entire history of the world and practise them all assiduously (only takes about 500 hours per day). That's how I'm able to sight read for all the singers and instrumentalists I accompany. You've seen through me!

Gyro, that's complete nonsense. How can you possible say that in every case that someone plays a piece that they must know it beforehand and it's all a cheap carnival type stunt?

There are people out there who can sight read and play through properly on first sight.

Since when did Sight Reading get tangled up with a plot from an X Files episode???

I know about this kind of thing because I
had it pulled on me when I was a child,
and I fell for it hook line and sinker,
never suspecting for a moment that it
was a trick, as the person pulling
it was a trusted figure. Now, decades
later, I see it was all a con and wonder
how I could have been so gullible.

The choir stunt works because the director
is known and trusted. If it were a new
director and a new pianist, you'd immediately
supect something. When are these so
called sight-reading demonstrations
ever verified? They never are, because
that would mean calling a trusted figure
a liar. Note how the poster currawong
can talk about his sight-reading ability when
there's no way to verify it.

There's no way to verify most of anything anybody posts on the internet forums, Gyro, including all of your claims. You can go on believing nobody can sight read if it makes you happy. My work (which includes oodles of sight reading) makes me happy - so we're both happy, aren't we? Have a nice day .

And I was playing badminton tonight but I can't verify that either on this forum.

It doesn't make me a liar!!!

Sometimes what you see before you is what is actually happening.

And how can you verify that all sight reading demonstrations are never verified. Can you verify that statement???

Of course you can't. You're falling foul of your own twisted logic me thinks.

Can I just add ... Some people think it's amusing to trick children, but seriously, Gyro, you shouldn't let one disillusioning childhood experience warp your whole view of musicians.

Gyro, I pity you as I`d pity a village idiot. I really do.

I saw this once during choir practice as well and the piece was modern with odd rhythms too! It was astounding and the circumstances were similar. I have no doubt this young pianist was really sightreading. She was not even the regular accompanist; just a stand in.

I can do this "stunt" too (when I am playing first year piano pieces,) but like most of us, I slog through new music note by note and it takes a long while for the muscle memory to set in.

Oh, I should add: If I've heard the music before, the sightreading goes much, much faster. It's when I'm starting from scratch that I really bog down.

Gyro,

do you think someone can type a report someone shows them, on a keyboard, without ever seeing the report before, complete with punctuation? I would surely hope so.

Music is not much different. Its reading something, and transcribing it into the instrument. With practice, there are people who can sit down at a piece they have never seen, and bang it out quite nicely, with little to few mistakes. This skill is not even incomprehensible, there are so many other things humans do that is more impressive, I don't see why someone would doubt this, especially a piano player.

Can you "sight read" a level 1 book? if so, then I argue that sight reading bach for example is the same thing, but with higher complexity, just as playing comes with higher complexities, so does sight reading.

Sending morse code is another analogy. You are seeing letters, words, etc. and basically playing a morse key. People can do this at ridiculous speeds and accuracy.

http://www.emusictheory.com/practice.html which would lead you onto :-http://www.emusictheory.com/practice/speedNoteNames.html

Hi Reggie,

The link above can be found on the first page of the Adult beginners forum...
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/4210.html


This link to practising recognizing notes helped me a lot..Im no great sight reader, still beginning but the practise exercise helped me move along.

The only qualification to learn sight reading is 'Eye sight', the rest will definitely come to you...All the best.

Warm regards,

JG

Good link there Jim

I'd also recommend the Piano Finder on that site. That will drill notes to keys.

Rich

I am a beginning beginner so I can't read squat. However, I have been involved with the high school band for about 15 years; not in a musical capacity but photographing them, helping load equipment buses etc. I am always impressed with them when they go to sight reading contests each year. They have about 10 minutes for the director to talk them through a piece they have never seen before and then they just play it. And very well most of the time. This is a little different than a solo as one horn can cover another's mistake, but it does add the complexity of playing together with another 60 or 70 people. It usually is not the easiest of music either. I am always impressed! You can't prove it by me, but I am confident there are a lot of people who can sit down and play a new piece sight unseen. And then there are those who can hear a piece once and sit down and play it - Amazing!

Back to the original topic, I agree with Dragon, think about it as one grand staff and not two separate ones. Trying to think of the bass staff as a treble and then adjusting is too much extra work. I think what I am striving for is to see a note on a line or space and reflexively knowing that it is finger 1,2,3,4,5. I don't believe it should be a note location to verbal note to finger translation. I think this is why I like the Faber method, and I assume the Alfred's method is like this. Faber introduces only one or two bass notes at a time and then has you work a number of pieces using those notes. Then they add different hand positions or additional notes. Before you know it you are playing a G or a C or a G cord instinctively without even thinking about them as specific notes. It turns into a "see this-do this" reflex.

Good luck and keep at it.

In piano one needs to be cautious about
seemingly fanatasic demonstrations, because
there is a lot of room from sideshow-type
stunts.

For example, a while back a poster attended
a big-time classical concert performed by
one of the top concert pianists in the
world. At the end of the concert, rather than
the standard encore, the artist instead
asked for suggestions from the audience
for a theme to improvise on. This is of course
very unusual since this type of improvisation
is unheard of today. Someone in the audience
shouted out a symphony, and the pianist
proceeded to play an elaborate improvisation
on it, absolutely flooring the audience.
The poster marveled at this demonsration.

But I cannot see this as anything but a carnival
stunt: the person in the audience was
a plant, and the improvisation was carefully
written out and practiced and memorized
beforehand. Note how the stunt works:
if it were performed at the start of
the concert, it wouldn't work, because many
in the audience might have never seen the
artist before, and he would be a stranger
to them, and people are naturally cautious
towards a stranger. But by the end of
the concert the artist is now known and admired
by the whole audience by virtue of his
marvelous performance of memorized repertoire.
Now the stunt can proceed and everyone
is taken in because the person is now
known and trusted.

At the next concert there will be another
plant and another "improvisation." And
no one questions it, because that would
mean calling a respected figure a fraud.

A similar principle is used in ponzi schemes:
the lure of money in itself is not enough
to make the con work, since these are transparent
and no one would fall for them. So what
is essential is for the con artist to
first gain the trust of the victims. Once
that's accomplished, world-wise and tight-
fisted people, who would not toss a nickel
to a homeless bum, will willing hand over
their life savings.