Levels of sightreading goodness...

[allchopin]

I am always jealous when i hear that someone can sight read well.  But then i wonder "wait a minute they dont seem better than me, so what do they REALLY have that i dont."
When you can sight read does it mean:
1) You can sight read simple pieces by Mozart, Chopin, etc?
2) You can simply take out taht piece of music and immediately play it?
3) Up to tempo at all?
4) Getting most notes and chords right?

Is there anyone who can sight read tougher pieces (such as mozarts sonatas, betthoven stuff, chopin preludes etc)? This literally seems unreacheable!

[Irock1ce]

last time i checked.. good sight reading means u can simply get the overall hang of the piece. when u sightread the goal isnt to get all the notes right or to get it to tempo.. the goal is to get the overall hang of the piece... but obviously.. if ur good at sight reading ull probably learn pieces faster since you can skip a whole big part of the whole learning notes part in the beginning..

[BoliverAllmon]

Agreed, sight reading speeds up the learning process. My teacher can sight-read quite well and told me once that because of this, she could have most pieces concert ready in 2 months if she could have just 2 hrs. a day! I agree with her she learned 10 pieces in 5 months and will perform them in Sept. All pieces are Chopin and Ravel.

boliverallmon

[allchopin]

wow thats really impressive-where i want to be in the future.  Has she told you how she does it? What tricks does she use?  How far does she look ahead in the music?

[BoliverAllmon]

What she does is this:

First be playing for forty years! LOL

Seriously though what she does and has me doing is this. Take a new piece every day. Study the piece, don't just look over it. Figure out passages in your head that look difficult or tricky. Once you figured out this part, you set the metronome for about half speed or slower. The thing is once you start you can't stop until you are done with the piece. If you make mistakes you just keep going on. You continually do this day after day and you will be surprised how quickly you improve. ONe other thing she has us doing in Theory class is take a very notey piece of music and write down the names to all the notes. It helps you get faster in recognizing them. We are currently doing both Prelude and Fugue NO.2 from WTC due Tuesday. Even though I have played the prelude it is still good practice.

boliverallmon

[ThEmUsIcMaNBJ]

You write in the names of the notes for practice?  Well if you don't know the names of the notes as fast as you know that this "A" is the letter "A" then there's definately something wrong, if you're playing at an advanced level.

What is the "most" pieces we're talking about here?  Rach sonatas?  Concerto's?  Or chopin etudes and beethoven sonatas?  Tell me if I'm wrong here but if it's things like etudes and advanced repertoire not including concerto's and the sort...  Then isn't 2 months pretty average?  But then again if she can get difficult 40 minute concerto's ready in two hours a day for 2 months then I'm impressed      

[allchopin]

o cmon could u get Chopins whole set of etudes Op. 10 done in just over 2 months?  No, im sorry to say.  I think this is very good.  But with sightreading, I have tried playing straight through, and although i am supposed to just ignore wrong notes, like the whole thing is pure wrong notes and just confusion.  So i dont think just goin through like this will help me.  What then?

[ThEmUsIcMaNBJ]

When did I say ALL the Chopin etudes?   I meant one, that's what I took it he meant by "My teacher can get just about any piece to performance level with 2 months 2 hours a day!".   I didn't know he meant the WHOLE op10 chopin etudes!  That is definately not what I meant.  If she could get all 12 op10 etudes down in 2 months that's just insane.      But one of the etudes in 2 months?  That's the rate I'm going at right now...

[NetherMagic]

allchopin: if you keep on getting the wrong notes, maybe try setting the metronome slower than 1/2 speed =]

I wonder if Boliver's teacher used taht method with Liszt's Paganini Etudes, wonder how long that took

[BoliverAllmon]

Ok, first off. I go to a community college and the theory I class is full of very beginners and then more advanced music majors. Of course I can read the notes as fast I as I can write them. It is mainly to help others, but does give one practice.

As for her pieces, she hasn't done a concerto in several years so I don't know how long those would take. She can do Chopin's etudes, waltzes, nocturnes, and polonaises in that time period, as well as Ravel's Gaspard De la Nuit and other Ravel pieces. I don't know if she has every done a liszt Paganini etude. I haven't known her that long. I haven't even played piano that long.

boliverallmon

[ahmedito]

Play duets. Take Beehotvens quartets for piano fourhands and lpay them with a firned (WITHOUT STOPPING) you improve fast.

[BoliverAllmon]

Playing duets has helped me alot. I play alot with my teacher. Of course, she is not going to mess up, and that gives me something to keep up with.

boliver

[BoliverAllmon]

I wonder how good some of our playing really is? My teacher sight-read through Revolutionary Etude without ever working on it before and she can get it performance perfect in 2 months. Some of you say that that is average. Is it average just to get it completed, or average to have it where you can sit down in any situation in any place and play the piece perfectly?

boliver

[eddie92099]

If she can play all the notes on first sight, why does it take a further two months to get the piece to performance standard?
Additionally, it is certainly not average to be able to sit down and sight-read perfectly a Chopin etude...
Ed

[BoliverAllmon]

It is not sight-reading perfection, but near perfection. The next 2 months are for memorization, expression, and the time for the piece to become an extension of one's hands.

boliver