Sunday, March 2, 2014

I Can't Sight Read (Music)


I often have people tell me, “I'm not a good sight-reader”.   I don’t think this statement is totally true, because sight-reading is a matter of degrees for those who play a musical instrument.

As a former school teacher (for 32 years), students would often say to me, “I don’t know my times tables”.  I would respond, “What is 3 x 1?”  They would generally know the answer.  Then I would ask, “What is 5 x 6?”  Again, the answer was generally correct.  So then I would begin to narrow down which of the times tables they didn’t know.  After helping the student realize that there were only 12 multiplication facts they didn’t know, it became a much more manageable task to finish learning the times tables.   What this student was actually saying was, "I don't know 8 x 8, 8 x 6 and 7 x 7 (or at least I don't know them quickly).  But I do know all of the 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s, and 5s."  So, the student actually knew more multiplication facts than facts which were unknown.  Knowing the multiplication facts is somewhat a matter of degrees.

Sight-reading, in some ways, is similar to knowing the multiplication facts, although it's more complicated.  Sight-reading requires good visual acuity, good eye-hand coordination, good memory skills, and lots of practice.

I have taught piano lessons for about 40 years. I have come to realize that sight-reading (actually sight-playing) is a process and is a matter of degree.  It is not an absolute. If I point to middle C on a page of printed music and ask a student to identify and play the note, most students will get it correct.  So, they just sight-read middle C.  They are sight-reading.  But put the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto in front of them, and it might be a different story.  

So, what is sight-reading and how does one say with confidence, "I am a good sight-reader?"

Sight-reading is a process.  One's ability to sight-read well depends on the level of difficulty of the music and the tempo at which it is played.  If someone puts a beginning piano piece in front of me and tells me to play it at 1000 beats per minute, I might struggle. 

I have several students who play the piano very well, but reading individual notes from flash cards is a challenge to them.  Why is that?

First of all, reading a single note from a flash card is different than reading music in context.  And music is generally read in context.   If a passage of music moves step-wise from middle C, it is easy to read the passage.  Also, students tend to memorize what they have played.  If a student practices a piece of music five times per day, every day for one week, she/he has played the piece 35 times by the end of that week (did you notice how well I performed that multiplication problem?).  After playing a piece 35 times in one week, one tends to remember much of what was played without even looking at the notes.  Sight-reading is not even essential to good piano playing.  Students with excellent memorization skills often play the piano very well, but don't sight-read nearly as well.  

But still it is important and relevant to continue to improve one's sight-reading abilities.  You may ask, why is it so important to be a good sight-reader?  Here are a few reasons:
1. It is helpful in learning to play a piece much more quickly.  
2. It is helpful in learning a piece independently without a parent or teacher helping you.  
3. It is absolutely fun to be able to look at a piece of music and just play it.  It is like having a mystery open up before one's eyes and ears.  Discovering the sounds of a new piece of music is an incredibly joyful experience.  

There are several aspects of sight-reading, some of which are mentioned below: 
1. Reading and playing the correct notes
2. Reading and playing the correct rhythms
3. Reading and playing the correct dynamics (how loud and soft it should be played)
4. Reading and playing the articulations (staccatos, accents, etc.)
5. Playing with correct phrasing and fingering
6. Doing all of the above at the indicated tempo

So, I ask the question again, what is sight reading and how does one say with confidence,  "I am a good sight-reader?"  Maybe these aren't good questions.  These questions are a lot like asking, "How can I become perfect?"  Perfection is an elusive goal.  We should strive for it, but it's really not totally attainable in this life.  Another question to ponder is, "What is mastery?"  How do I know if I have mastered sight reading?  Again, it's a matter of degree and and has a lot to do with the level of difficulty of the music and its tempo. 

Perhaps a better question is, "How do I become a better sight-reader?"  I offer a few suggestions below:

1. Work at it daily.  Spend a few minutes every day playing something  you've never seen.  Keep the music somewhat in your ability level, or maybe a little above what you're comfortable with.  But don't break out the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto, if you're still working on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. 

2. Play slowly enough that you can read the notes and get the rhythm.  It's like trying to read a passage from a book faster than you are able.  It just doesn't work.  So be patient and go slow.  

3. Use flash cards if you like.  But don't try to master too many notes at once, focus on 2 or 3 until you have mastered them.  Perhaps mastery here could be recognizing and playing notes at one note per second (set a metronome at 60).

4. Find sight-reading flash cards.  For example, the Alfred Premiere Piano Course flash cards are an excellent source of short sight reading activities for students of the piano.  Here is an example of two of their flash cards, one uses individual notes and the other has a short phrase:

5. Work on interval training.  If I know what a 3rd looks like (e.g. from C to E), I don't really have to read the E at all.  I just read the C and know where the next note is.  If I know that 3 notes stacked a 3rd apart form a root position triad, I can just read the bottom note and I know where the other notes are (of course, keeping track of the sharps and/or flats in the piece).
6. Find a website that provides sight-reading practice.   

7. Focus on patterns in the music.  For example, an Alberti bass in the left hand is a somewhat easy pattern to play once you've discovered the pattern.
8. Practice looking ahead.  By seeing what's coming up, one is not "caught off-guard" and one can play what has been stored in the short-term memory. 

9. Find books of music with short pieces and play a new one every day.  Some sources might be hymnals, Schubert's Album For the Young, or Bartok's Mikrocosmos.  If these are too difficult, get a music book from a different publisher that you are not currently playing from.  For example, if you are learning from the Alfred Piano Course, get a book from the Bastian Piano Course and use it to sight read from.  This is my favorite method of practicing sight reading.
 
And finally, be patient!  It can take years to become a good sight-reader.  But it is worth the effort.  It is so liberating to have someone place a piece of music in front of you and be able to just play it.  It's one of the great joys of my life, to be able to open up almost any music and be able to play it well enough to at least recognize what it sounds like.  I've been practicing my sight-reading for over 50 years now, and I think I'm now a pretty good sight-reader.  But I'm still working at it.