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Topic: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes  (Read 8519 times)

Offline marijn210999

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #50 on: April 04, 2015, 07:58:06 PM
When you are sitting down at piano, it doesn't actually mean you are repeating something over and over.

You took me too literally. It was just an example to show you how easy hand memory is established and when sight-reading trough something, wether for fun or practice purposes, you will very easily establish this too, since you read through it with hand together.

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Marijn


Offline outin

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #51 on: April 04, 2015, 08:11:03 PM
It was just an example to show you how easy hand memory is established and when sight-reading trough something, wether for fun or practice purposes, you will very easily establish this too, since you read through it with hand together.


How would reading a piece through hands together necessarily establish hand memory? To establish hand memory would require one to repeat something THE SAME WAY several times. I have small hands and I need to experiement a lot with different fingerings and differenmt movements to see if I can play something the way it's written or if I am forced to change it. I hardly ever play the piece (or section) twice in the same way in the early stages, so nothing is established. I concentrate on establishing a mental image of what I WANT it to sound, experiment until I find a way to do it and only after that I will try to establish any kind of memory. And all this I do at the piano.

Offline j_menz

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #52 on: April 05, 2015, 12:05:57 AM
I had to think about this but I see what you mean and I agree.

Piano skill isn't an absolute level, but a mastery of multiple specific elements, and that's why playing Mozart doesn't automatically allow you to play Brahms at the same degree of difficulty. 

But doesn't that apply even more strongly to sightreading?  People who can sightread Mozart might not be able to sightread Brahms, and certainly would struggle with Gershwin?

The proponents of "just do a lot of sightreading" seem to be assuming a single common skill level of sightreading, which I think is even less true than a single common skill level of technique. 

Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "a technique". I'm not talking about a "level of technique", say grade 7 technique or such, I'm talking about the basic components. For example, a standard alberti bass (simple triad, regular pattern) would count as "a technique", which you possess if you have it in a generalised form (ie, you don't sweat the individual notes, you just read/play it as one).

Over time, the basket of those (individual) techniques we have increases. Some of them through particular study, others through perhaps development from a previous core.
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Offline michael_c

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #53 on: April 05, 2015, 10:55:50 AM
How would reading a piece through hands together necessarily establish hand memory? To establish hand memory would require one to repeat something THE SAME WAY several times. I have small hands and I need to experiement a lot with different fingerings and differenmt movements to see if I can play something the way it's written or if I am forced to change it. I hardly ever play the piece (or section) twice in the same way in the early stages, so nothing is established. I concentrate on establishing a mental image of what I WANT it to sound, experiment until I find a way to do it and only after that I will try to establish any kind of memory. And all this I do at the piano.

So do I. Luckily for us, the brain has great plasticity, capable of learning and re-learning. Even if we do spend a week playing something in a particular manner and then decide we want to change the way we are playing it, it shouldn't take more than a week to install a new habit to replace the old one. In fact I find that I can change habits of many years (fingerings, for instance) in a few days.

Offline michael_c

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #54 on: April 05, 2015, 12:41:13 PM
But doesn't that apply even more strongly to sightreading?  People who can sightread Mozart might not be able to sightread Brahms, and certainly would struggle with Gershwin?

Of course (as I said above) reading through many pieces in a style gives you a global feeling for that style, therefore making you specially good at sight reading pieces in that style. But sight reading Mozart will also help in sight reading Gershwin, and vice versa: they both use the same basic language with the same notes, the same key signatures, the same rhythmic values, the same intervals... It's just like reading a language: once you have got over the stage of having to decipher each individual letter and can see a collection of letters as a whole word, you improve your skill at reading by reading a lot. Neil Stannard says it thus in his book, Piano Technique Demystified:

Quote from: Neil Stannard
... the best way to learn to sight-read well is to do it on a regular basis, the way you learned to read words.

Offline pianoplunker

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #55 on: April 05, 2015, 08:04:39 PM
Hi.

Before you even start sight-reading through any of your music - which I suggest you don't do at all behind the piano - you should ask you two simple questions:

1. What is the reason you want to sight-read through this piece? If you have no reason to do it, then don't, and the only reason I can think of is to find out what are the most difficult bars/passages (for you) of this piece. But that, you should do away from the piano.

BW,
Marijn
 

One would sightread through the piece to practice sightreading, but why would one care what is the most difficult part?  Certainly after stumbling through, one could go back and examine why or what, but then a decision is made to actually learn it or move on for now. The reason I would practice sight reading in the first place is because I have had too many experiences where sightreading would have been a great skill to have at the time.  I also like to explore large music books with lots of different music from different composers, and that is where sightreading skills come into play. Sometimes I cannot sightread well  because I have never practiced the techniques involved in the music I am trying to play, or because I  have some physical or mental problem between my eyes and the keyboard. Anyhow, I would love to be able to sightread as well as I can read a book - but even then some books could be difficult to read if not familiar with the language. 

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #56 on: April 06, 2015, 01:47:07 AM
I think poor sight readers misunderstand how sight reading can work. It is not important if you can't sight read difficult works on your first attempts but multiple reads allows it to become eaiser and easier. This is the reading/memory path rather than brute force segmented memorisation. As we sightread multiple times a piece with all the correct fingers you just start memorising it, this memory is in terms of reading efficiency, you can play more notes without having to focus on them but you still need the sheets to cue the movements, it is not muscular memory alone but a mixture of it combined with conscious observation in the reading. The problem is that sight/memory only works if you use correct fingers at all times, you can start out with bad fingering but unravelling that is often an inefficienctly long process and you are better off with pieces that don't stump your fingers as much.

That is an important point, to play pieces where you can realize the correct fingering predominantly immediately. Sure some little tricky sections require us all to analyse but the majority needs to be routine for your fingers. If it is not well known you have little hope sight reading it fluently.
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Offline timothy42b

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #57 on: April 06, 2015, 11:54:01 AM
I think poor sight readers misunderstand how sight reading can work. It is not important if you can't sight read difficult works on your first attempts but multiple reads allows it to become eaiser and easier.

That is a good description of how reading music works, but I think it is not the same as sightreading. 

I have many instrumental musician friends who play very well from sheet music but cannot play Happy Birthday by ear to save their lives.   They are sheet music musicians, even though they've played Stars & Stripes or In The Mood more than 10,000 times. 

But that's not the same as sightreading. 
Tim

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #58 on: April 06, 2015, 02:38:51 PM
What do you mean Timothy? Sight reading surely does not mean reading something the first time only.
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Offline timothy42b

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #59 on: April 06, 2015, 03:17:24 PM
What do you mean Timothy? Sight reading surely does not mean reading something the first time only.

It doesn't have to mean that, but that's mostly how we are using it in this discussion.

I distinguish that from music reading in general, which includes playing a well studied and practiced piece from the sheet. 

Players who learned by ear often have trouble with music reading, and vice versa.  But sight reading the first time (or at least without having worked on it) is a different set of skills (not a unitary skill as some here are alleging.)
Tim

Offline michael_c

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #60 on: April 06, 2015, 06:17:00 PM
Players who learned by ear often have trouble with music reading, and vice versa.  But sight reading the first time (or at least without having worked on it) is a different set of skills (not a unitary skill as some here are alleging.)

I don't see anybody here alleging that sight reading is a unitary skill. It's clear that sight reading is a conglomeration of many coordinated skills. The only way to develop and improve this coordination is through the regular practice of sight reading.

Many would-be virtuosos are prepared to spend hours a day practising technique, but balk at the idea of devoting half an hour a day to reading through music they don't know. Then they wonder why their sight reading sucks.

Offline gr8ape

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #61 on: April 06, 2015, 06:55:29 PM
I like how here no one has really discussed then how to become a better sight reader...

better technique? Is that it?

Offline timothy42b

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #62 on: April 06, 2015, 07:30:13 PM
I like how here no one has really discussed then how to become a better sight reader...

better technique? Is that it?

It is a combination of doing a lot of sightreading in an intelligent manner, using it diagnostically, and working focused practice on the styles and techniques that the sightreading shows needs work, fixing one area at a time with dedicated practice before moving on to another.

Most of us can get get very good at sightreading any given genre but few will master all of them, so we pick what we like.  You can get good at Bach, and you can get good at Gershwin, and there is essentially no transfer.  So if you need to do both, you spend enough time to make real progress at one before confusing yourself bouncing between them. 
Tim

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #63 on: April 07, 2015, 01:34:50 AM
It doesn't have to mean that, but that's mostly how we are using it in this discussion.
Well I reckon it's a little wierd to say it is not sight reading after the first go. It would mean even after hearing the piece played once it is not sight reading if you go and try to play it because you are not using only your eyes to read but knowledge of the past. You unavoidably use knoweldge from the past while reading pieces you have never heard of before, whether it be fingering (coordination of hands, scales/chord forms etc) or sound (chord progression, rhythm etc). So you never are just reading and not filling in the gaps with past knowledge.

If you are reading something without being able to fill in the gaps then you are reading a piece much too difficult for yourself no matter how many times you try to sight read through it. You learn new skills in reading by doing pieces which are predominantly well known with small spots which challenge your reading. It is important to determine what s easy for you to read so you can build from there. Yes it is ok to try and read difficult pieces if taken slowly and all fingerng is correct but predominantly you should practice your reading with pieces which generally flow efficiently with your abilities.

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Offline gr8ape

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #64 on: April 07, 2015, 04:10:18 PM
It is a combination of doing a lot of sightreading in an intelligent manner, using it diagnostically, and working focused practice on the styles and techniques that the sightreading shows needs work, fixing one area at a time with dedicated practice before moving on to another.

Most of us can get get very good at sightreading any given genre but few will master all of them, so we pick what we like.  You can get good at Bach, and you can get good at Gershwin, and there is essentially no transfer.  So if you need to do both, you spend enough time to make real progress at one before confusing yourself bouncing between them. 

I dont buy that theres zero transfer.... theres as much as transfer as the similarities between the music!

Question is, what is intelligent? Sight reading veeery easy pieces very slowly? Sight reading hard pieces slowly? Easy pieces quickly? Reading and mastering two bars at a time?

Offline michael_c

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #65 on: April 07, 2015, 06:24:51 PM
I dont buy that theres zero transfer.... theres as much as transfer as the similarities between the music!

Of course. And all classical music has much in common, using (mostly!) the same signs to mean the same things. If you can recognise a D major chord in Scarlatti, you can recognise a D major chord in Brahms. You'll find the same rhythmical building blocks in music of all periods.

Question is, what is intelligent? Sight reading veeery easy pieces very slowly? Sight reading hard pieces slowly? Easy pieces quickly?


Yes, a bit of all of that. Each serves a different purpose. Whatever tempo you choose, keep in mind that the objective is to make music, not just to get notes right. I would also add "reasonably hard pieces up to speed". The point is not to play the music perfectly, it's about recognising what's essential, thereby allowing you to leave out less important stuff and find the essence of the piece.

Reading and mastering two bars at a time?

I wouldn't recommend setting a two bar limit: it's arbitrary and probably won't fit the music. As for "mastering", if you mean "playing perfectly", that's not the point here. You should try to understand the essence of the piece and immediately reproduce that essence on the piano, even if you are leaving out or faking difficult parts.

If the piece isn't horribly hard, it's better to keep going: that's the ultimate goal in sight reading. But if the music is just not making any sense when you keep going, or you get into a panic, do cut it into shorter sections but make sure that the sections are whole phrases, or parts of phrases that still make sense when played alone.

Think of sight reading as if you were reading a book. If you're reading a book, you are not concentrated on checking that you have correctly identified every letter: you are constantly moving on, making sense of a story. If the story doesn't catch your interest, you will have to concentrate harder, it'll be more tiring and you may find you have just read through a paragraph without absorbing any of its meaning. If you find the story exciting you will plough on, living the situations in your head and wanting to know how it will all end.

Reading a piece of music should be a similar experience: you want to get a feeling for where the music is leading you, what the composer may be wanting to express. If you treat the whole thing as a technical exercise to be slugged through, you'll find it tiring, you'll get bored, you won't stick it for very long and you won't get much out of it. If you are interested in discovering the music, noticing a charming lyrical passage here, an exciting build up there, neat rhythmical ideas, interesting harmonic progressions, and how these things all fit together to make a whole, you will keep going on your voyage of discovery and may find that you have exceeded the time you allotted for your reading practice.





Offline therealfolkblues

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Re: Sight Reading Difficult Pieces Like Chopin Etudes
Reply #66 on: April 07, 2015, 11:52:21 PM
I am very curious what you would sound like sight reading a chopin etude.
Liszt?>

I have nothing but room to grow concerning sight reading,but I ENJOY my tortured first readings of new pieces. It just gives me I believe a bit of insight into the piece and I get to SLOWly.. lol, experience the melodic etc genius of the composer.

Just started the first and 12th etude.
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