Sight reading frequency question

[_achilles_]

For the last week I've been sight reading a Sonatina by Clementi everyday. I feel like this is a great exercise to begin my practice sessions. I'm wondering how long I should wait before going through these again? If I try sight reading them in a month or so will I still be remembering things from the first time I played through them?

Obviously there's no clear cut number but I just want some opinions from people who have been practicing sight reading longer than me.

[mcdiddy1]

When you play a piece the second time you are no longer doing true sight reading. What you are doing is playing through which is useful although you would benefit more from learning a piece throughly and then having some sight reading practice.playing through a piece you do not know is ok sparingly but not if you want substantial improvement.Playing a number of pieces that are half learned or incomplete does not teach you how to prepare a piece for performance or to polish a piece to the best of your ability becaus your attention is too divided in a multitude of different directions. If you want to practice sight reading I recommend finding pieces that are below your level, have a clear melody, be consistent with practing it daily and after you have sight read it learn it fully.

[quantum]

First time sight reading only happens on the first read/play through.  Your brain will already have processed a lot of what is happening.  On subsequent "sight readings" of the same passage your mind may still be in the reading phase, however, it will not be a totally new experience of the music. 

If you wish to practice sight reading new material, it would be better to seek out music that is completely unfamiliar to you with every session.  This has the benefit of increasing your knowledge of piano repertoire, and scoping out pieces for your "to do" list. 

Then again, it is not always necessary to practice sight reading solely with unfamiliar music.  You can practice reading techniques music you have played previously.  Things such as increasing your read ahead buffer, playing ensemble music with other musicians, reading open scores, practicing sight transposition, and reading in C clefs. 

[keypeg]

I considered when I first decided to learn to read music well.  the definition of sight reading as being prima vista kept coming up.  Ok, so what is the purpose of that?  I would think that it is to get the ability that a pianist would need as an accompanist who is suddenly presented with new material, or someone playing in a group, or maybe a teacher whose student suddenly thrusts something in front of him/her and says "Can you teach me this?"   I decided that as a student relearning piano, this was not really the skill that I was after.  Which makes me think that the first thing might be to define what the goal is.

I wanted to get the skill of reading music.  I needed to become familiar with notes, chords, intervals, and responding to them on the keyboard.  From what I know about how we learn, I know that we cannot do more than one thing, or learn more than one thing at a time.  As things become familiar, however, several things will already be part of us.  So I chose simple music, and I read it over several times.  Once I read, concentrating on note names and the corresponding keys.  Once I read, concentrating on intervals and naming them as I followed them.  Once I read, recognizing the chords.  When reading chorales, I might read one voice at a time, then combine two, and eventually all of them, over several days.  I might also try recognizing chords.

What happened over time is that I no longer needed to name the notes because they were there for me.  I recognized intervals instantly.  I came closer to being able to read prima vista at a decent tempo.  My thinking is that in learning to read for the first time, we are acquiring various skills that go with that reading, and it is not the same thing as learning to do prima vista sight reading for their usual purposes.

[trhmusic]

If you are simply reading through it a time or two and then coming back to it a few months later, it will help with sight reading. However, if it is a piece you are working on and practicing regularly, you will mostly be retrieving it from your memory, when coming back to it at a later time.

The best way to increase your sight reading skills is to play through pieces you have never played before.
www.trhmusic.org

[nickadams]

I decided that as a student relearning piano, this was not really the skill that I was after.

I wanted to get the skill of reading music.

I don't understand the difference between the "prima vista reading" and what you were trying to accomplish.

[keypeg]

I don't understand the difference between the "prima vista reading" and what you were trying to accomplish.

I tried to describe the difference in the paragraphs I wrote.

[_achilles_]

thanks for the input everyone. I'll probably hide these somewhere for a few months.. or maybe just try learning one. I find it weird that my repertoire is so small.. I feel like memorizing simple songs would be good practice given that I only know about six songs from memory.

I also think I'll start trying to learn more based off chords and intervals.. seems quite advantageous.

[ian_f001]

Some students develop the ability to read and execute music pretty accurately at first sight. Usually they can only do this with repertoire that is a couple of grades or so BELOW their actual playing level.

Other students can plod through a piece slowly and deliberately the first time through, but the second time render a much more satisfactory performance.

The second skill is generally more beneficial, as the opportunities to exercise the first are, as already mentioned in previous posts, rare.

An example of each:

My church job requires me to sight-read on the spot. Music is often thrown at me at the last minute which I am expected to render in front of the congregation without practice. This is true sight-reading, and involves additional skills such as making reductions to the score at sight- knowing what you should attempt, and what you will have to alter. It's an adrenaline rush for sure, but there aren't too many situations in "real life" where most people are called upon to do this.

In my teaching, I often like to demonstrate pieces for my students. For more more advanced students, this is not music I can sight read. But I am fairly proficient in analyzing music (recognizing chords, motivic ideas, deciphering rhythms quickly), so I can play through something very slowly once through and then give a pretty good performance of it the second or third time.

What most students are after is the ability to LEARN MUSIC FASTER. To do this, you become a better reader. And to do that, you concentrate more on a larger number of pieces that are slightly below your playing level, rather than putting all your focus into 2 or 3 super difficult pieces that are truly pushing your technical abilities.

Unless you are truly destined for a performing career, most amateur musicians would benefit more from becoming proficient readers than from focusing on playing repertoire of an ever-increasing difficulty level.

[cjp_piano]

There's a difference between READING and SIGHT READING. Both are good skills to practice. If you pull out the Clementi Sonatinas every now and then, you're definitely working on your READING, which is beneficial, of course, as others have said.