My new daily regimen for sight-reading

[kriskicksass]

I'm a horrible reader, so in order to improve my sight-reading, I've adopted an idea I got from a friend of mine. His teacher made him read a beethoven sonata every day until he got through all of them. I've decided that to try to improve my reading in all music I'm going to read a Bach p&f, at least one movement of a Beethoven sonata, a Chopin etude, and a Debussy prelude everyday.

I did the first p&f, the first 2 movements of the first sonata, the first etude, and the first prelude today and it didn't even take me an hour, so I'm thinking that this shouldn't be a huge addition to my practice time or detract from the pieces I'm working on. I figure that even if I don't make myself a better reader, at least I'll familiarize myself with a huge chunk of the standard repertoire.

Any comments? Should I run this by my teacher? I'll keep you guys posted on my progress if anyone's interested.

[mike_lang]

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[BoliverAllmon]

that sounds like a lot. I would love to hear how you progress.

[quantum]

I think it's a good approach, but you've given yourself too much material for one day.  One or two pieces is enough for a day. 

Maybe also add Bach chorales to your list.  It will help with your SATB sight reading, and get your fingers used to the odd positions needed for such music. 

[kriskicksass]

It really is a pretty big load I'm putting on myself, but that's just the ideal set up. Odds are good that there will be days when I don't go through it all, especially since I have such an inconsistent practice schedule because of school and everything.
I've only done the Bach so far today and I can't do any more until I put out at least one of the papers I have due tomorrow, so odds are good that I won't get through it all today. This is probably going to be pretty much typical, but I still want to do my best to get through it all and see where it leads me.

[mikey6]

Fugues are extroardinarily hard to sight read so I dunno if that's a good idea at the start.
The way I learnt was at performance class at school, one of  my teacher's got me to accomapny different instruments - sight reading the accompanying part.  It sucked at first, but now I can do it.  If ya can get people to play with, that might help.

[mike_lang]

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[kriskicksass]

Just beware of diminishing return.

What's that mean?

[steve jones]

It means that the rewards dimish after a certain point, so its wise to identify and not exceed it. Its kind of like if you did scales for 3 hours straight everyday. After the first 30mins you'd probably cease to benefit any further (and would probably damage your technique instead).

Also, I agree about the Bach Chorals. I never considered them for piano sight reading before, but I bet they would work at treat.

[BoliverAllmon]

yeah the chorales are good for sightreading.

[kriskicksass]

Sightreading fugues is horrible, but I'd swear to God that it's already getting a little bit easier.

Incidentally, my teacher fully approves of this plan, and he even encouraged me to get together with a friend of mine who I play duets with and to read through all the duet music we can find. He even told me a story about how he and a friend of his read through all of the Beethoven symphonies while he was in Vienna...

[kriskicksass]

An update on my progress for anyone interested:

It's been about a week and I've put about a year's worth of music under my fingers (9 p&fs, 2 sonatas plus a movement, 9 chopets, and 9 debussy preludes). Some of this reading is really kinda horrible, but I think that it's getting easier.

Also, as strange as it sounds, I think the extra time at the piano is helping my active repertoire too. I've been in the pit of a musical for the past few days, so I haven't been able to practice my music, but I kept up my reading because reading the stuff for the musical was the reason I started all this. Today, when I finally got around to playing the music I'm rushing to finish for a competition next week, I was able to put together passages that have been giving me trouble forever in no time at all. Also, I can finally play through all my music by memory without ever having to pause to consult the score, something I couldn't do last time I played this music.

Doesn't this seem strange? Is sightreading increasing my pianistic abilities or is it a coincidence?

[demented cow]

I was thinking you should have chosen simpler repertoire (e.g. borrow simple things like hymnbooks, books for beginner/intermediate pianists or books with piano accompaniments of pop songs), but maybe you were originally better than you indicated by calling yourself a 'horrible' sightreader.

I found the following things helpful when I used to practise sightreading:
Are there particular phenomena that give you trouble? If so, you should practise them in an isolated fashion (just as we practise pieces by isolating the bits that give us trouble), e.g.
a) extremely high or low notes: composer writes a note impaled on the 7th line above treble cleff instead of using the 8ve sign, and you hit a high B instead of a D. It helped me to write down a few random instances of these notes on separate slips of paper, and pick one up randomly and try to guess what the note is till it's second nature. (Separate bits of paper are better here, because you don't end up guessing correctly for the irrelevant reason that you've remembered that the first note on the page is a high B.)
b) The same goes for whatever unusual rhythms/combinations of rhythms you can't read spontaneously: write em down on bits of paper and test yourself (also away from piano).
c) Maybe practise a balance between music with and without fingerings written on it. (Most hymnbooks, popsong arrangements, ragtime, some concerto accompaniments, and some editions of classics don't have fingerings). This is good because the scores often don't have enough fingering on them.

Question: Does anybody have a good way to improve the ability to look further ahead? I find myself getting lazy there (still looking at the bar I'm still playing, giving myself too little time to deal with the next bar). Ideally there would be some sort of programme connected to a keyboard that covers the notes you are playing so you're forced to look ahead. And you can adjust it as to how far ahead the notes are that are still visible.

[nanabush]

Ya gl sight reading bach fugues... they're probly some of the most difficult things to sight read...

[sevencircles]

I'm a horrible reader, so in order to improve my sight-reading

So were some of the best sightreaders in pianohistory like Lazar Berman and Josef Hofmann.

The Bach fugues are nowhere near the hardest works to sightread.

Check out modern composers like Ligeti, Xenakis etc. for some truly demanding sightreading.

[mike_lang]

So were some of the best sightreaders in pianohistory like Lazar Berman and Josef Hofmann.

The Bach fugues are nowhere near the hardest works to sightread.

Check out modern composers like Ligeti, Xenakis etc. for some truly demanding sightreading.

Also Brahms I find to be good for sightreading.  So many accidentals, not always pianistic writing, interesting voice leading, sometimes duplicate notes on the page.

[sevencircles]

OOOPS!

I meant that Hofmann and Berman were 2 of the best pianists in history but none of them learned to sightread properly.

[pianowelsh]

Yeah I find duets work really well with my students.  I even get my beginners doing them.  We sightread through their part once then we go fo a performance of their part with all the detail. Then we put it together and I do my best to put them off.  its usually not demanding stuff but it keeps them actively looking ahead, observing and listening.  Spend time mapping out pieces - sont just sit and play though- tempting i know but you only develop so far that way and never get very efficient. I wouldnt sightread the chopin etudes because you miss the fundamental elements of some of them if you play them at slow tempi.  Also you will find some of them pretty impossible to sightread well. I would go through the preludes of Chopin and also of Scriabin. They are not so long but are more varied and escpecially the sciabin ones more harmonically complexed. The debussy preludes are good to do but you'll have fun with the wind preludes and ones like ondine and feux d artifice - NOT easy! Mendelssohn songs without words i often use too. Bach preludes and fugues are excellent but dont be too discouraged if you find the fugues too challenging.  I still find them very hard to sightread - the fingering is a nightmare! Still if you project the fugue subject you should survive. Sonata mvts are very long to sightread and probabky not that efficient. I would look at works in variation structure ie 32 cmin variations etc and start there. Also look at the big suites and partitas of Bach and contemporaries as the movements are shorter and often ornamented(slower ones) so this developes sense of style and also your counting.  Slow mvt of tempest sonata is fun to sightread.  I wouldnt suggest sightreading Ligeti or Xenakis for a few years yet.  Some people can never sightread these kind of works - part of it you need and aural affinity wih the style of work your reading so do lots of listening tooand listening wit the scores.

[kriskicksass]

I've too lazy to see if I've already mentioned this, but my teacher has told me to get together with a friend of mine and read through duet music as much as possible. He says it'll do wonders for our reading for the same reasons that you mentioned.

[mike_lang]

I've too lazy to see if I've already mentioned this, but my teacher has told me to get together with a friend of mine and read through duet music as much as possible. He says it'll do wonders for our reading for the same reasons that you mentioned.

Yes - the instructor of my accompanying advocates this.  Fantastic idea because it kills two birds with one stone (sight reading, collaborative playing).  And, of course, it prevents you from stopping in the middle.
 

[ahinton]

If the object is purely to improve one's sight-playing abilities at the piano, there would at first glance appear to be little useful purpose to be served by trying to play at sight music which is too far beyond the reader's technique to play at all (that's to say even after practising it); there might be other useful purposes in so doing, however - i.e. discovering more about how the music is made, both musically and pianistically - and the exercise can sometimes have the additional pay-off of inderctly improving one's playing techniques in any case. I know this for a fact - at least in terms of my own experience years ago - for, although I am not a pianist per se, the act of trawling through sheaves of Liszt, Alkan and Godowsky certainly helped me to come to terms with writing for the piano, even if it did little to improve my sight-playing, let alone turn me into any kind of pianist!

To return to the question proper, I would say that, to improve sight-playing facility, trying, for example, the "48", Beethoven sonatas, Chopin's, Liszt's, Alkan's and Godowsky's Études, the Brahms Concerti, Carter's Sonata and Night Fantasies, Prokofiev, Messiaen and Xenakis - to the extent that any of the works concerned are not unduly beyond the player's technique to get the fingers around in the first place - would be good ways to start; that said, simple score-reading exercises are also indispensible.

Best,

Alistair

[pianowelsh]

Yes its very important that you pitch sightreading at an appropriate level.  Exploratory work of 'difficult' pieces is very usefull but it is not really sightreading.  Sightreading should be a good approximation at a performance from sight.  Which is why i suggest shorter works and generally straightforward works (preludes, slow mvts etc) If you try work that is too far above your level you will end up discouraged ultimately and actaully not improve your sightreading much. take a short and relatively easy piece to begin with and study it for 5 mins without playing it then go beginning to end as if you were trying to sell that piece as a door to door salesman - milking all the detail for as much as its worth.  There will be imperfections but you have to convincingly put across the piece.  This is one reason why i dont suggest etudes (espec Chopin/Liszt/Debussy etc) because there are very few people who can sightread these well straight off.  If you have two of three plays at a piece very slow and then go through - what you are doing is not sightreading - its quick study! and its a slightly different technique.  Both are good to practice!

[stevie]

hahahaha

yes another thing one could do if they dont have a partner is sight read with a metronome keeping the beat, mistakes will be made, but always try to recover and stay on beat.

you can also play along to recordings, sight reading to slow movements from beethoven/mozart sonatas is a good start, possibly.

[pianowelsh]

Yes when practising on your own a metronome can be a helpful tool to force you to keep going.  i also set a timer sometimes before i begin - setting myself acertain amount of time to skim the piece and think through what im about to do.

[kriskicksass]

A metronome never occurred to me. I recently lost mine, but now that I have another reason to use it (the other being scales), I'll have to double my efforts to find it.v

[BoliverAllmon]

any updates on the progress?

[kriskicksass]

I gave up on it when I hit the 18th day (g# minor P&F, Chopin 25/6, etc). It was cutting into my regular practice schedule too much, and I felt that I'd gained as much benefit from that dose of reading as I could.

Results? Well, a couple weeks later my school musical had was going to a theatre festival and the entire pit band dropped out. I saved the day and read the score of Footloose for the festival performance. 

I'm planning on taking another dose of reading this summer, probably while I'm at Ithaca College for their summer piano program. I'm hoping to do some left hand-only reading because my LH hasn't been feeling very coordinated lately. If I can find the money I'll probably buy the Godowsky/Chopin (I have a pdf, but it's more convenient to just buy the books).