Why Do I have to Learn Scales/Circle of Fifths/etc. in Order to Sight Read???

[nickadams]

I hear people on here saying one must learn the circle of fifths and all the scales and key signatures etc. in order to sight read...

But if I get to the point where I can recognise all notes on the grand staff and find them on my keyboard almost instantaneously without looking, why do I need to learn that stuff?

[nyiregyhazi]

in order to think in the key. Don't just learn how to play the notes of scales. Observe how the black notes are laid out in every key- and think whether they are raised from the lower note or lowered from the upper note.

[jimbo320]

Well put Nyir....

[asiantraveller101]

Well, it is not a MUST in order to sight read. However, learning scales with their key signatures, five finger patterns and circle of fifths help one to be acquainted to those keys and their relationships to other keys. Familiarity with them helps to guide your inner ear as you sight read. One does not sight read note-to-note, without any sense of key or tonality. (Qualifying myself to simple tonal music) When one sight read, one of the first thing (among many other things) to look at is the key signature, and immediately one's ear anticipates the tonality and notes found in the key or relative key. Moreover if there is any modulation in the piece, the most common key is the adjacent dominant key or relative key, which is covered in the circle of fifths. One would know that by the additional accidentals and anticipates for the modulation or secondary dominant to happen. Most tonal music is composed using the notes in the scales and their derivatives. Learning all of the above-said, and preferably with all their primary triads/chords, is not lost, but to help you to be a better sight reader.

[Bob]

You can be more aware of patterns in the music.  Take in more on the page at a glance.

[nickadams]

Do you guys still think it's a good idea to learn to recognize notes on the grand staff and be able to find them very quickly on the keyboard without looking?

After I can do that proficiently, should I try to get good at recognizing basic chords and intervals and finding them very quickly on the keyboard?


And then after that should I study the Circle of Fifths, the Scales, and other stuff (what else should I learn?)? What is the best way to study these things to aid with site reading? Any tips?

[asiantraveller101]

Do you guys still think it's a good idea to learn to recognize notes on the grand staff and be able to find them very quickly on the keyboard without looking?

Yes.

After I can do that proficiently, should I try to get good at recognizing basic chords and intervals and finding them very quickly on the keyboard?

Yes

And then after that should I study the Circle of Fifths, the Scales, and other stuff (what else should I learn?)? What is the best way to study these things to aid with site reading? Any tips?

Learning piano, and thus sight reading as well, is an all-inclusive cumulative learning process. It is not a linear learning process: that if one has learned something, it will lead one to the next level. One starts with a small nucleus pool, and as one learns more music and sight read better, one accumulates the skill to sight read more complex pieces and so forth.
So, you may want to start by reading simple pieces first, with no key-signature, then progress to something with a sharp or flat, and then to 2, and so forth. Most of the the time, the best solution to a better sight reading, is to read continually and make it a part of your practice. Just because you have covered the scales, circle of fifths etc, as you mentioned earlier, does not guarantee one to be a better sight reader. You learn all of the above to make you a better wholesome musician, and hopefully indirectly a better reader. Ultimately it is the skill that you gain from multiple/continuous readings that helps to make you a better reader.
Sorry if I sounded confusing, or contradictory. 

[nickadams]

wow thanks for the insightful post, asiantraveller101!

[asiantraveller101]

No prob, nickadams. Just personal insight, after playing piano for 40 years and teaching 30 years! 

[nickadams]

asiantraveler101, do you have any suggestions for good pieces that will improve my site reading as well as my fingers?

[asiantraveller101]

There are many sight reading series out in the market. I, however, often use "Improve Your Sight Reading" series by Paul Harris, published by Faber Music, London (not Faber & Faber). I like the series because it covers more contemporary pieces, which most students find difficulty in. It moves quite fast, does not coddled the students, and can be challenging (but in a good way!). One will definitely read well after completing this series. Some other series fall short by going too slowly and even if one finishes the series, one can only read intermediate pieces.
If you, however, do not want to spend money in purchasing the series, you can look through some of your books from earlier years that you have not played and try those. I do not know what your level is right now, thus my advice is very limited. Likewise, on how to improve your fingers. What are you playing now? What level do you put yourself at? Are you studying with a teacher? I would need to know that in order to suggest something for your fingers. Are you currently doing your scales, arpeggios, and etc.? Until I know more, it is difficult for me to suggest any exercises or etudes. 

[m1469]

I hear people on here saying one must learn the circle of fifths and all the scales and key signatures etc. in order to sight read...

But if I get to the point where I can recognise all notes on the grand staff and find them on my keyboard almost instantaneously without looking, why do I need to learn that stuff?

Because it's not just about reading from the page to the keys, and physical/technical organization and ability is not just about those, either.  It is about concept, and the circle of fifths and scales are first a concept, or even a principle, whose system is circular, interwoven, and "tight".  Learning scales is not just a skill that allows one to technically play pieces, or to play a scale when one appears on the page, but about getting to intimately know these pieces of the puzzle and how they fit together.  These exist even without the page, even without an instrument, and even without sound; they exist in principle and the sound, the instrument, the piece of music are simply a reflection of this principle, as somebody "grasping" the concept and manifesting them in a way that helps us to peer into that world.

Not everybody is drawn to understanding this deeply, but I believe that understanding it, or at least becoming more familiar with it, makes a very big difference in the entire effect that a musician has.  So, whether or not you "have to" is ultimately up to you and what it is that you wish to be demonstrating as a musician.  An understanding of it is irreplaceable, even if intuition is high and may include a non-descript ability to express some of it.  But, a conscious thought cannot be truly replicated by a non-developed one.  That doesn't mean we don't draw on intuition, but to have a solid understanding only increases one's ability to be creative with the ingredients of what is right before us, and this is truly right before us whether we understand it or not - so why not get to know it?

[nickadams]

Thanks m1469! Super helpful answer!


Now that I believe in the importance of theory for sight reading, how should I go about learning it to maximize my ability? I will buy the Paul Harris sight reading books that asiantraveller recommended, but will those cover everything or do i need to buy additional books?

[nickadams]

Now that I understand the importance of music theory to aid in sight reading, how should I go about learning it to maximize my ability? I will buy the Paul Harris sight reading books that asiantraveller recommended, but will those cover everything or do i need to buy additional books?

[jeffkonkol]

the point of the journey isn't to arrive....

get those books and start working through them.... once you have done that I think you will be in a far better place to evaluate what you need to improve your sight reading.  Further... a lot of the things you are stressing over learning may grow obvious and even intuitive to you will you work through those books. (circle of fifths for instance)

[xerula]

You've been given lots of helpful advice. I just wanted to point out that when you sight-read at an advanced level, you aren't "recognizing all the notes on the grand staff and finding them on the keyboard," as you put it. Specifically, you *aren't* reading individual notes most of the time - you're actually taking in big groups of notes all at once, and understanding immediately what to do with them. It's kind of like when you read English, you're not reading the individual letters, you're recognizing whole words, and digesting whole sentences at a time. Sight-reading a new piece, you'll encounter lots of new "words", but the construction of those words is governed by keys and key relationships.  So, to read an entire chord sequence or complex figuration that covers several bars, and instantly grasp how to play the whole thing, you need to be able to think in keys. Right now you see a mess of black notes and have to figure them out individually, but after training it the right way, your brain will just subconsciously process the entire thing (it's like, your brain will go, "oh, that's just a three-octave diminished seventh arpeggio starting on B with some chromatic fills here and here..." and you'll play it without even analyzing it). This is the main way you'll give yourself chances to look ahead - which is an essential thing to be able to do in sight-reading. I think this is what everyone else was saying, I just thought I'd put it into different words in case it helps.

And if you have to sight-read complex atonal music, good luck.

[jeffkonkol]

think of it just like reading.

when people start out they learn to sound out every letter.  Eventually they quickly recognize full words... then phrases...... and eventually full sentences.

Once you are practiced at it, and the keys and progressions are intuitive, you will be able to see the page and know how the piece will feel under your fingers.  What you actually end up reading is the differences from what your brain has figured out is going to transpire....

i dont know if that made sense or not to you.... but here's hoping   

[nyiregyhazi]

The thing is though, when we read we are capable of comprehending very letter in an instant- even if we don't think about it in normal playing. I think there is a similar thing in music. I suspect it's more that we start to organise individual elements into bigger ones- AFTER learning good reading skills that allow us to take individual letters as a given and without conscious thought. It's not so much that understanding chords helps the reading itself. I did tend to think that way myself in the past, but I'm no longer so convinced. I think that understanding harmony etc. is more an organisational tool that furthers an already accomplished reader- rather than a means of developing reading itself.

Scales are useful physically, but I think you already have to be rather advanced before harmony can aid reading- rather than give a way of organising what you have to have read first.

[nickadams]

@jeffkonkol and xerula: super helpful, illuminating answers. Thank you.


@ nyiregyhazi: i don't get what you mean. Can you explain another way please?

[nyiregyhazi]

@jeffkonkol and xerula: super helpful, illuminating answers. Thank you.


@ nyiregyhazi: i don't get what you mean. Can you explain another way please?

Well, does understanding the concept of harmonies necessarily make it quicker to read an 8 or 10 note chord? Or is it simply that those who can read extremely well are in a position to start noticing what harmony is formed by all the notes that they read in an instant? Until you have a very large amount of experience, I believe it's primarily the latter. Later, you can afford to fill in gaps with educated guesswork, should it be needed, but first you have to acquire enough reading skills to spot a harmony at once. I think you first have to be able to look at a thick chord and know every note in the first instant, before you can then go to read harmonically. Thinking in intervals is much more important earlier on.  

[keypeg]

Actually I think that understanding harmonies does help read music.  If you are a beginner then you are likely to be reading simpler music with lots of I, IV, V7 in a few keys.  If you play those chords and their inversions for, let's say, C, G, D, F and Bb major and maybe their parallel minors (at least the V7 which stays the same) then you will have something familiar in your hand.  You can play their inversions.  You can start recognizing them because in simpler music the block chords have a certain "look".  You can anticipate where they're going to go long before getting a complicated intellectual understanding formally.

[nyiregyhazi]

Actually I think that understanding harmonies does help read music.  If you are a beginner then you are likely to be reading simpler music with lots of I, IV, V7 in a few keys.  If you play those chords and their inversions for, let's say, C, G, D, F and Bb major and maybe their parallel minors (at least the V7 which stays the same) then you will have something familiar in your hand.  You can play their inversions.  You can start recognizing them because in simpler music the block chords have a certain "look".  You can anticipate where they're going to go long before getting a complicated intellectual understanding formally.

I'm not so sure. You can certainly learn a physical feel that will help transfer that which you have first read to the hand. But what about the reading? There are so many ways a chord can be written. It's not quite like the reading analogy. For example, if you know the word "bed" that is exactly what you will see over and over again. For a C major chord, you will have to read many different layouts merely in order to deduce that it is a C major chord. And you're supposed to play those layouts as marked, not as any old C major. To seek to memorise "words" is not enough in music because there are too many possibilities for each one.

And even to know the word "bed" you have to know each individual letter. What good reader would read the "be" and start guessing whether it's followed by a "d"? There are many other letters that could follow and fluent readers do not make such levels of speculative guesswork. What if a musician reads a C and an E? Should he start guessing that it's going to be C major? It could be A minor- not to mention a wealth of more chromatic chords. I don't think good reading skills come from being assumptive. I believe that good reading comes from the ability to pick out every note in an instant. From there, you can start to organise them into chords. Good musicians can make educated assumptions when under pressure- but that's not how they develop their reading skills. That's how they cope with emergencies.

I agree on the thing about chords having a "look" but I believe this is where intervallic reading comes into it. I think the look is primarily due to having good skills of reading in relative shapes. The ability to identify the harmony is more the result of comprehending the shape, rather than the cause of identifying it. The hardest thing about playing modern music is keeping up with the sheer variety of accidentals (and remembering which ones carry through the bar). However, a decent reader should pick out the shape of intervals as quickly as when playing tonal music.

Not especially modern in timescale, but when I play through the Tristan Prelude, there's no way in hell that my knowledge of harmony gives me anything more than a handful of prompts. I can pick out intervals and shapes very quickly- which allows me to mentally organise them as harmonies as the next step.

[xerula]

I'm not so sure. You can certainly learn a physical feel that will help transfer that which you have first read to the hand. But what about the reading? There are so many ways a chord can be written. It's not quite like the reading analogy. For example, if you know the word "bed" that is exactly what you will see over and over again. For a C major chord, you will have to read many different layouts merely in order to deduce that it is a C major chord. And you're supposed to play those layouts as marked, not as any old C major. To seek to memorise "words" is not enough in music because there are too many possibilities for each one.

And even to know the word "bed" you have to know each individual letter. What good reader would read the "be" and start guessing whether it's followed by a "d"? There are many other letters that could follow and fluent readers do not make such levels of speculative guesswork. What if a musician reads a C and an E? Should he start guessing that it's going to be C major? It could be A minor- not to mention a wealth of more chromatic chords. I don't think good reading skills come from being assumptive. I believe that good reading comes from the ability to pick out every note in an instant. From there, you can start to organise them into chords. Good musicians can make educated assumptions when under pressure- but that's not how they develop their reading skills. That's how they cope with emergencies.

I agree on the thing about chords having a "look" but I believe this is where intervallic reading comes into it. I think the look is primarily due to having good skills of reading in relative shapes. The ability to identify the harmony is more the result of comprehending the shape, rather than the cause of identifying it. The hardest thing about playing modern music is keeping up with the sheer variety of accidentals (and remembering which ones carry through the bar). However, a decent reader should pick out the shape of intervals as quickly as when playing tonal music.

Not especially modern in timescale, but when I play through the Tristan Prelude, there's no way in hell that my knowledge of harmony gives me anything more than a handful of prompts. I can pick out intervals and shapes very quickly- which allows me to mentally organise them as harmonies as the next step.

This is an interesting perspective. Part of me thinks that you've presented a false dichotomy, that there's a positive-feedback relationship between recognizing clusters of notes because they belong to a harmony, and recognizing a harmony as a property of a cluster of notes a posteriori. A mechanism that serves to ratchet your sight-reading abilities into the realm of proficiency, given enough time and effort. I've always recognized that a c major chord could have a million different configrations all over the keyboard, but my theory was that the human brain's astonishing capacity to generalize, extrapolate, and infer patterns meant that I had built up an internal encyclopedia of all of those millions of possibilities, so that I could instantly recognize each one.

I just went to do some experimental sight-reading and I found it very difficult to mentally disentangle which process takes precedence, if any. My impression was that I was instantly recognizing many groups of notes in terms of their harmonic identity, whereas my brain had to do some additional processing to figure out what was going on in less straightforward passages.

But as I hinted earlier, I find sight-reading tonal pieces much easier than reading atonal pieces of similar technical difficulty. This is not just because I can't remember which accidentals to carry through the bar - it's because I don't really have a paradigm for approaching the task without a sense of key. According to your criteria this makes my sight-reading deficient, and I'd have to agree. So it seems I should concentrate more on an intervallic approach.

My previous piano teacher was a terrifyingly prodigious sight-reader, but it was such an intuitive process for her, she didn't have any real insights to pass on. You could put a fantastically complex orchestral score in front of her and she would immediately re-conceive the whole thing as a piano piece, with nearly every detail in place. She would also give me sight-reading drills where I had to read a difficult piece in one key but play it in another key. That used to give me migraines.

The other thing I wanted to add is the importance to sight-reading of some kind of unified theory of fingering. Often, it's not the comprehension of what notes to play that lets me down, it's running out of fingers, even if I've looked far ahead...

[keypeg]

I'm going by my experience and some things I'm being taught.   I'm going to write about music which is not advanced, because we're also talking about beginners.

 My earliest experience was self-taught as a child using the books that were passed on to me.  Most of the pieces were sonatinas.  The chords were not too complicated and the patterns were predictable.  By pattern I also mean what the ear expects because harmonically the music tends to move a certain direction in these pieces.  A root position triad looks like a snowman, a first inversion looks like a triad with its feet floating above its head and a seven chord has two notes squished together.  A C chord in root position has its feet on the second space in the bass clef and looks like a snowman.  So what I saw was a chunk that told my hands and ears "C chord".  I'm also seeing it taught that way now.

My first thought is that reading is NOT exactly like typing.  It is not just recognizing one individual element after another with the "names" sitting on lines and spaces to be deciphered.  You have sound that moves up and down, and notes that move up and down visually.  You have a predictability in simple music that goes I IV V7 I.    Instead of learning one element at a time ---- First you learn to see C, then E, then G, then another C, got it now play all three; eventually you'll see them; then next stage ---- I think that going back and forth between different elements works better.  You recognize the I chord on the page as a chunk.  You get familiar with it in its inversions on the page.  You play around with it on the piano.  You relate your piano playing around with the written notes recognition.  You start to recognize interval patterns such as notes on two adjacent notes make a third.

I think that an adult beginner, for one, can learn that there is such a thing as I, IV, V7, I progression - and to get at those respective chords in a key.  He can start listening for their sound in the early music he plays while it's still simple, and listen for them in music he hears.  He can try to start recognizing them in his score, and also do analysis of his music early on so he starts developing an eye for things.  These are things that I am doing now.

There are other things that help with reading.  For example, you learn your key signatures so you know where you'll have a Bb or F#.  If you know that you have a I chord but the chord that you are playing sounds minor, then you know it's wrong because it has the wrong sound.  If you've also fooled around with chords and their inversions and you have a first inversion chord you'll know half instinctively that it's the bottom note that needs jiggling up a half step, and you can check what the notes say and what you are playing - you'll know where to look.  I'm talking about internal processes.

I don't think learning has to be linear.  I'm thinking that it's more like toggling between different elements, and letting them come together.

[nyiregyhazi]

"This is an interesting perspective. Part of me thinks that you've presented a false dichotomy, that there's a positive-feedback relationship between recognizing clusters of notes because they belong to a harmony, and recognizing a harmony as a property of a cluster of notes a posteriori."

But how is this possible? How can you recognise a cluster of notes "because they belong to a harmony"? I can look at a chord that consists almost exclusively of C major. Look at particular parts of the chords and I might think it's C major. But all it takes is a single A natural somewhere in the chord and any expectations I might have had based on looking at just some of the chord would be totally in error. My reading has to be up to processing all of the information or I will miss out on details and make mistakes.

I think the thing is that the brain works so quickly, that subjectively we seem to experience recognising notes "because they belong to a harmony". Cause and effect have been reversed, however. The brain first processes what the the notes are, largely through thinking in intervals around points of reference. If we did not work that way, we'd make a a huge number of false assumptions and have a vast number of resulting errors.

"A mechanism that serves to ratchet your sight-reading abilities into the realm of proficiency, given enough time and effort. I've always recognized that a c major chord could have a million different configrations all over the keyboard, but my theory was that the human brain's astonishing capacity to generalize, extrapolate, and infer patterns meant that I had built up an internal encyclopedia of all of those millions of possibilities, so that I could instantly recognize each one."

This is clearly backwards. If it's a configuration you've never seen before, first your brain reads at least some of the notes and says "that's C major". Otherwise, what's to tell you it's C major? And if your brain didn't process all the notes, it could easily miss an A or a 7th that might be present. Observing a C E and G does not automatically mean a C major. Quick as the process is, the brain starts with individual notes first (likely organised by interval, rather than completely separately) and organises into a harmony in the next split second. Realising this matters little to a good sight-reader. However, I think it has significant consequences with regard to teaching less experienced readers. You can't easily make somehow who is slow to read individual details think harmonically. First they have to be able to read off enough details, at high speed.

[keypeg]

The brain thinks in different ways.  Also people are wired differently.

[nyiregyhazi]

The brain thinks in different ways.  Also people are wired differently.

Sure, but I'm talking in terms of possibility. How can a person know that a C major chord is indeed a C major chord and that it does not contain any notes outside of the harmony- unless they actually read the details? People can perceive things differently, but people who can read with consistent accuracy simply cannot be making huge conjectural leaps. You cannot identify a harmony without first having the ability to read enough detail to know what that harmony is with certainty. You cannot be sure that there are no notes outside of that harmony without processing enough initial detail to be certain that it's only a C major, say, and not a C 7 9. Harmonic thinking is the means of organising the information we read- not the means of reading. For the best readers, these things blur into a single whole- but only when you can identify notes well enough to also identify what they make up.

[jeffkonkol]

"But how is this possible? How can you recognise a cluster of notes "because they belong to a harmony"? I can look at a chord that consists almost exclusively of C major. Look at particular parts of the chords and I might think it's C major. But all it takes is a single A natural somewhere in the chord and any expectations I might have had based on looking at just some of the chord would be totally in error....."

this is actually largely my point, nyiregyhazi :  A lot of sight reading is specifically looking for the differences.  My eyes dont see the C major.... I see the A natural in the chord and that colors it.  By the same token in any linear run its the accidentals and the places where the run jumps, turns or pauses that scream off the page....not the scale itself.

Leaning is a process, and I think in the context of the OP's framing of the question a lot of the simpler analogies hold up.  This is NOT to say that your analysis is incorrect.  There are so many colorations of a chord..... so many variations with which notes are held over, how things need to be fingered to create the correct phrases... which note is actually supposed to carry the most stress to create the correct tonal picture....

but one has to walk before they can run...

(in fairness, I would suspect that true students of literature and poetry could fairly argue that there are the same levels of depth and interpretation in the written word as there are in written music..... but that is a different discussion for a different thread I would suspect)

[nyiregyhazi]

"this is actually largely my point, nyiregyhazi :  A lot of sight reading is specifically looking for the differences.  My eyes dont see the C major.... I see the A natural in the chord and that colors it.  By the same token in any linear run its the accidentals and the places where the run jumps, turns or pauses that scream off the page....not the scale itself."

Absolutely, I think more conscious attention goes to the unexpected than the expected. But how can your eyes not see the C major? Rationally, they must- even if you do not perceive it. What's to say it's not an E minor with an A in? There's a lot of information that is processed well beneath the surface of the conscious. This is without even going into how many different ways chords can be spread out. Just because we do not process these things fully consciously, doesn't mean our brain is not processing a whole lot of detail. It's all too easy to forget that a beginner does not just instantly see C major- not necessarily even in a scale! They need to learn both the constituent parts in reading, and how to build up the ability to organise the information they read into bigger chunks. All too often, beginners actually make too many assumptions too soon. For example, they see a series of notes ascending and miss the fact that one interval skips a note and is a third. You have to be able to perceive every detail before you can forget the "obvious". Assumptions can actually be a dangerous thing, unless you maintain an eye for detail. Advanced players can afford to forget such things, but beginners need to look at individual details if they are to have a hope of acquiring the organisational skills to simply see harmonies straight off.


"but one has to walk before they can run..."

Sure, that's my point. I don't think harmonic thinking will offer much help in the earlier stages. Thick chords need to be mentally organised into big chunks, but I don't think knowing circles of fifths will have the slightest impact on sightreading early on. Advanced players can recognise virtually any spelling of a cadence due to the quickness of their reading. A less experienced player still has to figure the notes out before they can try to associate with a cadence. If they don't puzzle the notes fast, in many cases they might try to associate with something else altogether and simply go wrong. You can't associate something unless you already know it's constituent parts. I'm not saying harmony shouldn't be learned anyway, but I think you need some advanced reading skills before such things will make a notable difference to playing at sight. When advanced players see a harmony and don't believe they read the details, it's an illusion. A beginner cannot just "see" harmonies until they have an eye for detail.


"(in fairness, I would suspect that true students of literature and poetry could fairly argue that there are the same levels of depth and interpretation in the written word as there are in written music..... but that is a different discussion for a different thread I would suspect)"

Well, in subjective ways. But, objectively, a word is a word. Once you've read it, you can read it over and over. Something as simple as a C major has infinite spellings that have to be understood before you can even identify it as C major. And once you know it's C major, you're still supposed to reflect the exact spelling on the piano- not just any old C major. The brain needs to be vastly more attentive to fine detail in the reading of music, than in the reading of text.

[xerula]

nyireghazi, what you've said has made me examine some of my longstanding assumptions. I agree it was backwards to say that I recognize a cluster of notes "because they belong to a harmony". In a neurocognitive context, you're right, that statement is pretty retarded. This got me thinking about why I wanted to hang on to the notion so much in the first place. Which leads me to the original question: "Why Do I have to Learn Scales/Circle of Fifths/etc. in Order to Sight Read???"

This will sound obvious to any good sight-reader but... when I successfully sight-read, my awareness of harmonic structure is not merely an organizational principle I impose on the music to render it more comprehensible to my fingers and make my reading more efficient. The point is that the harmony is the substance of the music itself. When I say I read music in terms of harmony, what I really mean is that I understand what it's going to sound like before I play it - I don't actually visualize little chord identifiers labeling the notes, but my subconscious incorporates a harmonic scheme into its attempt to present me with as vivid a picture as possible of what this music actually is. That allows me not just to play the correct notes in the correct order, but to subtly shape a melody, balance inner voices, give a passage a rhythmic impetus in keeping with a particular modulation, conjure an emotion, and, you know, generally achieve an engaging characterization of a piece of music even though it's the first time I've ever seen it.

So yes, these are all things going on in the nanoseconds after my brain has first understood what the actual notes are. But the illusion that it all happens at once is important for me to maintain. It achieves fluid, musical results, and, having got to that level, why deconstruct it? (Except I just have, and it's been interesting.)

I remember as a young child sight-reading pieces and sometimes having absolutely no idea what the next notes would sound like, even though I knew which keys to press far in advance. I remember not being able to imagine the flavor of larger intervals and complex chords before playing them. This did not result in good music.

To get to my real message (nickadams): yes, accept the fact that you have to attend to minute details of the score on a note-by-note basis, but trust that the process by which you do this will become increasingly internalized, and don't neglect to incorporate harmonic understanding into your sight reading as early as possible, because that will guide you to convey musical meaning rather than just notes.

[keypeg]

When I say I read music in terms of harmony, what I really mean is that I understand what it's going to sound like before I play it - I don't actually visualize little chord identifiers labeling the notes, but my subconscious incorporates a harmonic scheme into its attempt to present me with as vivid a picture as possible of what this music actually is.

Exactly. And that may start happening sooner than one may think.