score reading before practice

[colette]

I wonder how many of you read a piece before you go to the piano and start practicing it. How many times do you read the music? I've been experimenting with this, I found that I can't memorized a piece after reading it a couple of times. My visual memory is not so good because I have a visual impairment, but my aural memory is excellent and I have perfect pitch. I've found that although I it is easier to read the bass clef and treble clef separately, it did not help me remember the music, probably because I found it boring and I was only imagining half of the piece. I've been reading some easy music with bass and treble together, and that seems to work better. There comes a point for me where the harmony and rhythm are too difficult to imagine or percieve clearly, that is usually when I am forced to read each stave on its own. What do you do in this situation?. I also find it difficult to imagine very high and very low notes, and I sometimes represent these in my mind with an enharmonic that I can imagine easily. Do any of you have any thoughts on the subject? Is it a case of me having quite a lot of developing to do?

I suppose that I could learn everything I want to learn, away from the piano by reading the score at least seven times before attempting to practice it. So far, I havn't tried this method, and I feel that it might be a little bit impractical since it can be very time consuming to read a score depending on how difficult it is to read. Unless the music is quite simple, I have to take my time to imagine the music when reading it, and it would probably take me twice as long as the piece lasts to read through the music, imagining all the notes and their rhythms. Am I using a very slow method of reading? How do you people read? Bear in mind that my aural memory is my biggest strength, forget visual memory, I'm never going to have a crystal clear one of those.

[lani]

We went with a suggestion by Bernhard to listen to a cd or sample of the piece while reading the music.  This has been really effective in learning and detailing (especially for children), but she is a visual learner and can memorize the notes on the page after she becomes familiar with the fingering.  I'm sure others here will help you with your topic.  Regards, Lani