Cite Reading

[stevped]

Hi,

I have been playing for around 2 years and I cannot cite read worth anything and I think that me not being able to cite read at all is holding my back from more challenging pieces.  Like, I'm still counting All Cars Eat Gas, so.

If you guys know any techniques or good cite reading books, please let me know.
Thanks

[popdog]

Hi Stevpad

Sight reading has always been my weakest aspect as a musician, and has held my back immensely.  It is good that you realise you need to work on it so soon - it took me a little longer. 

Do a forum search for "sight reading" and you will find mounds of info.  I am also working through "Super Sight Reading Secrets", which I would recommend.  Learning to sight read takes a lot of discipline, so be prepared to practice virtually every day, even if only for a short time each day.   

Regards,
popdog

[dan101]

Sight read at about three grade levels lower than where your skills currently are. Remember that sight reading is all about the speed at which you temporary memorize. Good luck.

[keypeg]

Memorize?  In sight reading?

[musicrebel4u]

Memorize?  In sight reading?

Yes! And we'll read and hear about it over and over and over again. 

[anna_crusis]

If you guys know any techniques or good cite reading books, please let me know.
Thanks

Paul Harris's 'Improve Your Sightreading' series, grades 1-8 (plus a supplementary volume for grades 1-5).

These books provide hundreds of examples which gradually sculpt an understanding in the player of what they're supposed to be doing and thinking while sight reading.

Obviously, you also need to know all the scales by heart too. And later on the major seventh and dominant seventh arpeggios. Without that basic personal resource you haven't got a hope!

[pianochick93]

Obviously, you also need to know all the scales by heart too. And later on the major seventh and dominant seventh arpeggios. Without that basic personal resource you haven't got a hope!

There I beg to differ. I certainly don't know all of my scales off by heart, and while I can't sight read perfectly, I can sight read pretty well. All I do is look at the key signature, see what sharps or flats there are, and go from there.
To read chords I use the base note and the general shape of the chord, and my ear will tell me if I am wrong. To sight read a melody, it is much the same. I will find a note, and look a few notes ahead and see the shape of the melody. (Next note up 4, next note down 3 etc.)

It works for me, but may not work for others.

[popdog]

I've been sight reading through Schumann's 'Album for the Young' - the main advantage of this is that it's not mind-numbingly boring. 

I agree that knowing common scales/chord patterns is helpful.  Music theory is really important - if you can't read a chord fully but know it's the second last chord of the piece, you can fake by just playing a dominant chord (depending on context) and many won't even know. 

One big hurdle is relying on finding notes visually.  This really slows the sight reading process.  For ways of improving this, check Bernhard's post in this link: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,2577.msg22208.html#msg22208.

popdog.

[anna_crusis]

There I beg to differ. I certainly don't know all of my scales off by heart, and while I can't sight read perfectly, I can sight read pretty well. All I do is look at the key signature, see what sharps or flats there are, and go from there.
To read chords I use the base note and the general shape of the chord, and my ear will tell me if I am wrong. To sight read a melody, it is much the same. I will find a note, and look a few notes ahead and see the shape of the melody. (Next note up 4, next note down 3 etc.)

It works for me, but may not work for others.

Well, the scales help me because it allows me to understand what is happening and anticipate things. They aren't absolutely essential to begin with but they sure make an enormous difference.

The greatest advantage is that accidentals no longer appear accidental. If a piece is in D major and a G# suddenly appears, I'm thinking, 'Ahh, it's kicked up into A major for a moment.' I'll then be ready for the natural sign a moment later, or possibly a D# if it goes to a higher key. Seemingly random notes in minor keys make sense because you understand it's slipped into harmonic minor for a moment. That sort of stuff. It allows you to get inside the head of the composer.

As for the arpeggios, the main advantage they gave me was a vastly improved feel for intervals and keyboard geography in general. Your fingers feel like their running on tracks.

[anna_crusis]

I've been sight reading through Schumann's 'Album for the Young' - the main advantage of this is that it's not mind-numbingly boring. 

I agree that knowing common scales/chord patterns is helpful.  Music theory is really important - if you can't read a chord fully but know it's the second last chord of the piece, you can fake by just playing a dominant chord (depending on context) and many won't even know. 

One big hurdle is relying on finding notes visually.  This really slows the sight reading process.  For ways of improving this, check Bernhard's post in this link: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,2577.msg22208.html#msg22208.popdog.

I find that the common chords are no harder to read than single notes. I don't think I even look at the notes in the chord half the time. I just recognise its shape and location. When you think about it, why should it be any harder to memorise a G major triad than a single G note? More exotic chords present a problem because you can hardly memorise every single chord and inversion, but even then the shape of it seems more important than the actual notes somehow.

I think sight reading is mostly perceiving structure, and not sequences of notes. You see the phrase, you see the keys in your mind's eye and you play it out loud. I think that is another reason to master scales and chords, because otherwise I don't see how it would be possible to see it played in your head - you'd have to keep looking at the keyboard or groping to find the keys. Maybe that is what some people are doing wrong?

It's certainly an interesting subject. And sightreading is great fun.

[mike_lang]

One big hurdle is relying on finding notes visually.  This really slows the sight reading process. 

Right now, I am playing a trio for clarinet, viola and piano and I am less than fluent in reading alto clef, so I sympathize with this problem.  Something that is helping me a great deal right now is the chapter on alto clef from Dandelot's "Manuel pratique pour l'étude des clés."  The method involves learning points of reference, esp. C and G, and working with the notes surrounding them, little by little adding more points of reference until the entire staff is covered along with what seems to be a sufficient amount of its ledger lines.  I can tell you that even with just three or four days of using this book, I have made a pretty fair amount of headway in my ability to read this clef, so I would suggest you find either this book or something like it to become more quick at reading the treble and bass clefs.

Best,

ML

[mike_lang]

Well, the scales help me because it allows me to understand what is happening and anticipate things. They aren't absolutely essential to begin with but they sure make an enormous difference.

I think that it would work well in tandem with the scales to play the first 30 (or even just the first few) exercises of Hanon in all keys - of course, this could work with many other five-finger exercises.  One of the many benefits of the scales is that one internalizes the feel of various tonalities on the keyboard, so that there is a nearly nonexistent lag time between recognition of a tonality and its topographical application.  Though I have found some parts of Hanon to be of quite limited use as written, one modification that I have found to be rather effective is, as I have said, to transpose the exercises chromatically in addition to continuing the pattern diatonically within the same tonality.

Best,

ML

[mike_lang]

There I beg to differ. I certainly don't know all of my scales off by heart, and while I can't sight read perfectly, I can sight read pretty well.

I would like to suggest to you that the part of sight-reading which needs scales is distinct a more fundamental part.  Anyone can certainly read well without being able to play what the read - consider one of those French children who learn solfège from the age of four.  They know what every note is on seven different clefs, but can they play it?  No, they have not yet learned how to play the piano.

The reason that it is a good idea to learn scales is that is gives you the tools which facilitate the second part of the sight-reading process, which is to play what you read.  I suggest, even as just an experiment, for you to learn well several scales in the keys in which you most frequently sight-read.  I am sure that you will find at least some small difference in your playing of unseen music.   

Best,

ML

[mike_lang]

Memorize?  In sight reading?

To some degree - but it is not memory in the same sense as with a repertoire piece, since we deal with short-term memory, not long-term in sight reading.  Actually, a good exercise is to look at a new score away from the piano, try to memorize the first measure (or two!), and then to go the piano and see what you can play.  The further ahead you can read (and store in short-term memory) while you actually play, the more able a sight-reader you will be.

Best,

ML

[mike_lang]

I am also working through "Super Sight Reading Secrets", which I would recommend. 

I am curious, what have you learned from this book?

Best,

ML

[keypeg]

To some degree - but it is not memory in the same sense as with a repertoire piece, since we deal with short-term memory, not long-term in sight reading.  Actually, a good exercise is to look at a new score away from the piano, try to memorize the first measure (or two!), and then to go the piano and see what you can play.  The further ahead you can read (and store in short-term memory) while you actually play, the more able a sight-reader you will be.

As I understand it then, for those who use this approach, it is not a technique of memorizing and playing what is remembered, but a system for developing short term memory which is considered necessary for those who do thus memorize because ....... because? .... because you need to be paying attention to present matters without losing sight of future matters?

I think my sight reading on single-note instruments is an affair with a zoom lense that permits panorama-mode.  The panorama takes in a vista of the landscape: you see modulations coming in the form of accidentals patterns, straight lines of runs going from X to Z, stair cases of arpeggios, blobs of doublestops and chords. Thus armed with the panorama you zoom back in on the individual note groupings glancing ahead from time to time in a kind of present-future moment.  I do not see memorization ever playing a role.  Rather I would say I carry a visual snapshot of the panorama and feel myself being within a certain place in that landscape.  It is also an auditory landscape because sometimes I will hear a dissonance in anticipation, or feel the closing of a story that I am moving toward.

With its many voices the piano might be different.  Does everyone memorize in short-term in sight reading piano?  Do you teach this, Michael?  I am wondering how easily students adapt to it at first encounter.

[mike_lang]

Does everyone memorize in short-term in sight reading piano? 

For me, I think it is what happens - I don't deliberately cultivate it, but it seems to be the way that sight-reading works in my case.  What is without a doubt a part of sight-reading is the ability to read ahead, and thus, I believe it follows that part of what is read is memorized in order to be able to look still further ahead.

The exercise I suggest with memorizing a few measures before playing is a supplementary exercise to develop the visual short-term memory.

Please know that I don't profess to know how every person's mind works during sight-reading, but wish only to share my experience with it.

Best,

ML

[keypeg]

Thank you, Michael.   

[popdog]

anna_crusis, you are exactly right - triads might be easy to read, but more complex chords are much tougher.  In Classical music most of the chords seen are triads/7ths, but when the types of extensions (9ths, 11ths etc.) seen in modern music come in it gets much tougher.  They get tougher to fake too, because they are often harmonically complex.  Sight reading modern music is a trick in itself. 

I think short-term memorising is hugely important in sight reading.  For instance, when I sight read through a short piece, often I could play the whole last line with my eyes closed (granted there's no jumps) because I've played it 1-3 or so times before.  When I play a piece, it sounds progressively better as I continue as the movements become familiar to me. 

I am curious, what have you learned from this book?

Best,

ML

I think the keyboard orientation section is really good.  Developing the ability to play without looking at your hands is, in my experience, an under-emphasised aspect of sight reading.  The visual perception sections is what drove me to Schumann since it is incredibly boring.  I'd rather be sight reading music instead of drills. 

Another good thing is the way he explains the sight reading process.  I think learning the note names of the lines and spaces without using "every good boy" phrases is a better method. 

I am looking for sight reading material.  Having sight read through numerous pieces from Schumann's op.68 I was wondering if anyone knows of a book of containing many short, easy pieces similar to these?  Schumann's op.68 only has 43 pieces, of which the last few are much more difficult than the first.  If there was a series of pieces which increased in difficulty more slowly, over a greater number I believe that would be ideal.  Does anyone have any ideas? 

popdog.

[pianochick93]

I would like to suggest to you that the part of sight-reading which needs scales is distinct a more fundamental part.  Anyone can certainly read well without being able to play what the read - consider one of those French children who learn solfège from the age of four.  They know what every note is on seven different clefs, but can they play it?  No, they have not yet learned how to play the piano.

The reason that it is a good idea to learn scales is that is gives you the tools which facilitate the second part of the sight-reading process, which is to play what you read.  I suggest, even as just an experiment, for you to learn well several scales in the keys in which you most frequently sight-read.  I am sure that you will find at least some small difference in your playing of unseen music.   

Best,

ML

I think you misunderstand me meaning. I know quite a few scales, but they don't enter my mind t all when I sight read. By sight reading, I mean playing it as I sight read.
I simply look at the key signature, note what accidentals I need to use, and start to play. If there is a natural, then I play that note natural, if not, I play it as it is meant to be as shown in the key sig. If an accidental happens, when I sight read, I don't even think something like 'Oh this must be modulating into a nother key' etc. I just accept it, play that accidental, and keep going.

[mike_lang]

I think you misunderstand me meaning. I know quite a few scales, but they don't enter my mind t all when I sight read. By sight reading, I mean playing it as I sight read.
I simply look at the key signature, note what accidentals I need to use, and start to play. If there is a natural, then I play that note natural, if not, I play it as it is meant to be as shown in the key sig. If an accidental happens, when I sight read, I don't even think something like 'Oh this must be modulating into a nother key' etc. I just accept it, play that accidental, and keep going.

I understand your method, but what I am suggesting to you is that the better that you know the scales of the keys in which you play, the less you will have to think about the accidentals.  Your fingers will know what D Major feels like, for example, and you will not think about the accidentals unless there is an alteration, like C natural for example. 

Also, I believe it will serve you well to think more about "this must be modulating into another key," since it will help you to read faster.  If you recognize that the piece is modulating to the dominant (A major in this case), you will take it for granted as you read that it is in A Major and not have pay attention for every G# that shows up. 

I know that you have a method that works for you, but I am merely suggesting to you that it would bring your reading to the next level if you were to play more scales.

Happy sight-reading,

ML

EDIT: As for the scales entering your mind as you play, in my case they don't - but they are under my fingers, so they do enter on a subconscious level.

[keypeg]

One of the interesting effects of not having been taught and only having movable do as reference, is the way I perceived modulations.  Supposing that a piece modulated a fifth to the dominant, so that it modulated from C major to G major.  My ear would tell me, "Ah, that now sounds like do", and I would mentally begin renaming the G as do, and be blithely on my way.  By the same token, the strong home tone (tonic) would want to call itself "la" and then I was in a minor key.

Addressing Musicalrebel4 for a moment - This is what would concern me about acquiring fixed do at such a late stage.  Movable do is impregnated in my mind in that relative manner, including the subtleties of tone which the piano doesn't permit.  Absolute pitch is fixed as the name of the tone or frequency, so that I can hear a tone, go tot he piano and unerringly play B and it is a B.  The word "B" and the tone of B are already fixed.  If I start calling it "ti" because "words crate imagery", when I already have imagery, might what I have not crumble or tangle up?  Currently when I sing or play I have both pitch and relativity with me at the same time.