Questions about sight reading and more.

[zantetsuken7]

Hi. I have played piano a while now but taken piano classes for 2-3 weeks now and I want to hear tips to sight reading and I also have questions.

I am 19 years old is it too late to be pianist?
Is sight reading necessary to be a good pianist?
How long will it take to be good at sight reading?
Is sight reading gifted or can it be learned over time?
Any tips to share for sight reading?

And how do I know if my piano teacher is good at teaching? The lessons are kept in her house.
it is not like "School" based there is no Grades or something like that. Should there be G1 G2 etc. ? She also sight reads straight from the sheet music is. I live in Finland by the way. Sorry for bad explanation.

Thank you and sorry for my bad english.

[jimbo320]

I never had a teacher so I can't help you there but as far as being too old, heck no.
I believe that when you seriously embark on learning and playing you are a pianist to a certain degree.
The level of expertise and knowledge is totally up to you to judge.
That's my humble opinion anyway...

[autodidact]

I am 19 years old is it too late to be pianist?

Not at all.

Is sight reading necessary to be a good pianist?

Not at all. There are certainly very skilled pianists that are terrible readers.

How long will it take to be good at sight reading?

Exactly 9 years, 7 months, and 23 days.

(This question can't be answered quantitatively; it depends on the person, and on how much practice is given to sight reading.)

Is sight reading gifted or can it be learned over time?

Some people seem to get good at it easier than others, but it definitely is something to be learned over time. The more you practice sight reading, the better you get at it, regardless of whatever "natural talent" (whatever that means) you might have.

Any tips to share for sight reading?

The important thing to try to focus on doing while sight reading is looking ahead of where your fingers are playing. You need to know what's coming, so that you can be prepared, and at least make some attempt at not using too horrible of a fingering.
But more important than anything, practice. You can't help but get better at it if you practice, and you aren't going to get any better at it without practicing.


I can't help you as far as your teacher, because as per my username, I have never had one.

[zantetsuken7]

Thank you for helping out but I have one more question.

How do you learn a piece without sight reading?
Do you just try to remember the whole song and not using the sheets to that song? ( its hard to remember 10 pages).

[pianoplayjl]

You learn a piece hands separate over and over again for a few weeks. If it is 10 pages then do 3 pages hands separate for a week or two and then move on to the next 3 pages and so on. You continually do hands separate until you are confident. Then you do the first 3 pages hands together. And then the next 3 and so on. You will eventually get the hang of the piece and get it memorize. Some parts may be more easy to memorize than others. Memorize them forst. For long pieces it is best to draw up practice spots in the music i.e small sections. Each practice spot shouldn't be more longer than 15-20 bars. Of course the easiness of learning the peice depends on what you are learning. For example some sections may be repetitive and you might be able to do 5 pages hands separate in 1 week. My advice is basically what I do with long peices and I may be wrong.

JL

[gsmile]

Hi. I have played piano a while now but taken piano classes for 2-3 weeks now and I want to hear tips to sight reading and I also have questions.

I am 19 years old is it too late to be pianist?
Is sight reading necessary to be a good pianist?
How long will it take to be good at sight reading?
Is sight reading gifted or can it be learned over time?
Any tips to share for sight reading?

And how do I know if my piano teacher is good at teaching? The lessons are kept in her house.
it is not like "School" based there is no Grades or something like that. Should there be G1 G2 etc. ? She also sight reads straight from the sheet music is. I live in Finland by the way. Sorry for bad explanation.

Thank you and sorry for my bad english.

It's never too late! You won't know if a teacher is good unless you've tried lessons with them. Sometimes their teaching style just doesn't work with your learning style.
There are online resources for you to get started with music-- youtube.com has video tutorials and artiden.com has resources (e.g. 5 Secrets for Efficient Practice). If you hunt around, you'll find tons of help online!

[outin]

Hi Zantetsuken7 and welcome!

I am a terrible sight reader, but I hope to get better with time. I will not push it, it's not my main concern at the moment. You'll just have to wait and see how long it will take for you. You will find a lot of useful tips on this site if you search the old topics on the forum.

From my own limited experience from teachers:
Since you are just beginning lessons I would say a good teacher will start working on your technique from day one. He/she will probably annoy you with correcting your posture, hand movements and other stuff all the time. It may seem just a distraction at first, but if done correctly your playing just mysteriously gets better. At least this is how it has been for me.

If your teacher just hands you pieces to play and then comments on your mistakes on the notes, I would not think he/she is good for a beginner student.

Whether your teacher teaches at home or at a school makes little difference. Of course it would be good if your teacher would encourage you to take grades if you get serious about playing.

Too late? Definitely not, I'm more than 20 years older and just started again where I left at the age of 10 or so...

BTW, I'm also from Finland

[zantetsuken7]

Of course it would be good if your teacher would encourage you to take grades if you get serious about playing.

How do I take these grades. is there something I have to do?

 

Since you are just beginning lessons I would say a good teacher will start working on your technique from day one. He/she will probably annoy you with correcting your posture, hand movements and other stuff all the time.

Well I've been amateur pianist for about 2 and half years now so I know lot of the basics like reading from sheets(not sight reading), rhytms  and so on. My teacher has commented about my fingering quite alot . My teachers also teached me stuff about chords.

[outin]

How do I take these grades. is there something I have to do?
Well I've been amateur pianist for about 2 and half years now so I know lot of the basics like reading from sheets(not sight reading), rhytms  and so on. My teacher has commented about my fingering quite alot . My teachers also teached me stuff about chords.

The normal system in Finland is different from the ABRSM grades that people usually talk about on this forum. I believe you can do ABRSM where ever you live, but you could also do the Finnish exams. Unfortunately I don't know much about that, since I am not interested in taking them myself. But my teacher asked me about that quite soon after I started lessons. I think it's better to ask your teacher. I guess you are also still young enough to apply in music school (musiikkiopisto), where the exams will be taken automatically. Some information about the exams and other useful stuff in Finnish can be found on this site: https://pianopolku.net/etusivu.html

Depending on what kind of music you want to play, you may be quite fine without too much emphasis on technique (I don't mean fingering, but dynamics of the fingers and hands and arms), but if you are into classical piano stuff you might need the teacher to be more involved in this.

[lostinidlewonder]

Many of your questions are answered in detail from many members spotted throughout this forum, if you have time to search through the forum you will find some good ideas.

I am 19 years old is it too late to be pianist?

Do you mean that you want to play/teach piano for a living or just play for yourself and loved ones? Either way the answer is to your question is no, but to take it professionally requires that you understand what niche of the musical industry you fit into and there are certainly many there and those still waiting to be filled.

A music school I worked for was quite large with over 1000 music students every week attending, the man who owned it fixed guitars, but he makes most of his money now from teaching even though he doesn't do the teaching. He started off with a small music store selling/repairing guitars and it grew to a large music school teaching all sorts of instruments with 20+ teachers. So you may want to be a pianist but where it actually takes you you need to solve that for yourself and you may go unexpected directions.

Is sight reading necessary to be a good pianist?

A master musician needs to master many different aspects of music and sight reading for their instrument certainly is one of them. Sighting music for piano in my opinion is probably the hardest of all instruments to learn (next to multi tiered and pedal organs). The better you read the faster you learn, I do not know any master CLASSICAL pianists who are not excellent readers, if you say Jazz then I will show you a large amount since their music is rhythmic/improvised not so much relying written notes.

The faster you read the more music you will memorize at the end of your life, this is by far a skill that no professional classical pianist would want to miss out on by choice.
 

How long will it take to be good at sight reading?

How long is a thread of string? Sight reading continually improves sort of like reading words. If you read a lot of words then your reading speed will be much faster than others who do not read as much. If you learn special techniques of speed reading you may read much faster than anyone else who doesn't know such tricks. The same applies for music, if you do not know the tricks then you will never improve your speed/accuracy to a masters rate. Your reading speed/accuracy will improve constantly based on your perception of what it means to read music, you need good direction and advise and a high IQ in pattern recognition in my opinion to read at a masters rate.

The biggest problem with reading is the fingering, if you always use the correct fingering then reading becomes a breeze, however if you read well but your playing is riddled with incorrect fingering you will hit massive problems improving your reading. You also need to be able to play without looking at your hands to be a good sight reader and this takes many years experience playing the piano before the contours of the keyboard itself becomes ingrained into you consciousness. Also the feeling of chords, scales, arpeggios, keysignatures etc etc all cause a physical reaction to the contour of the keyboard for all good sight readers simply when they think about it.

Is sight reading gifted or can it be learned over time?

Anyone can learn to read competently and learn music at their playing level at an efficient rate. I have only met one person who read at an extraordinary rate, my highschool piano tutor who literally read bars ahead of her playing all the time. I remember the first time thinking I was reading wrong when she told me to turn pages and she was still playing a line before the page turned! I didn't believe that she actually could do it and printed off some obscure music and she did the same thing. I cannot understand how to read ahead of my playing several bars (for music that is simple it is possible but not normal standard music) but some people can do it, I seriously believe that is a gift since I still can't crack it with music I have never read before!

Is Any tips to share for sight reading?

You need to work out what is easy, average and difficult for your to sight read now. Focus your attention on reading lots of easy music and pushing up the difficulty until you start making fingering errors. Reading fingering constantly is a bad habit as it distracts you from reading ahead, so you need to ensure that you have good sense of fingering with the music you are predominantly sight reading, but don't make it too basic for yourself, you do need some little parts which challenge you fingering but does not leave you lost. Learn to play without looking at your hands.

You also need to learn lots of music and build your repertoire as this will indirectly improve your sight reading also. The more music you memorize and the more you learn about the routine of playing the piano you will also see the same pattern in your reading and thus things can be absorbed faster.

And how do I know if my piano teacher is good at teaching?

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=30543.msg353574#msg353574
 

[zantetsuken7]

Thanks for your help everyone but I have more to ask about sight reading .

When I sight read should I look at the note individuals or
should I use "stepping" for example if i start with C note then the next is D note im not reading it as D note but reading it like one up from C note if you know what I mean by this. Or should I read the notes as a group?

If I should read the notes as a group then is there any tips how?

I am currenty practising sight reading with very basic stuff and metronome tempo is about 40-50% slower than the original tempo.

[autodidact]

Reading every note individually is definitely not the best thing to do. Recognizing intervals quickly like you mentioned can be helpful. Grouping notes together in your mind is definitely the best thing to do. If you see a large-ish scale of some kind, it is definitely much more time consuming to read every individual note, than to recognize a long run of steps, and just read the first note, last note, and take note of (pun intended) any accidentals in it. The more you practice sight reading, the more patterns you will begin to recognize and be able to group together. It is really just a matter of practice, I think.

[zantetsuken7]

The normal system in Finland is different from the ABRSM grades that people usually talk about on this forum. I believe you can do ABRSM where ever you live, but you could also do the Finnish exams. Unfortunately I don't know much about that, since I am not interested in taking them myself. But my teacher asked me about that quite soon after I started lessons. I think it's better to ask your teacher. I guess you are also still young enough to apply in music school (musiikkiopisto), where the exams will be taken automatically. Some information about the exams and other useful stuff in Finnish can be found on this site: https://pianopolku.net/etusivu.html

I think that im not going to take those grades or exams because I dont have any intensions to play piano for living ( for now) all I want is to learn sight reading which will take a lot of practice apparently. Im also going to army in 01.2012 and probably be there about 9 - 12 months.

I have I graduated as an electronics assembler and planned to continue studying in University of Applied Sciences after army.

Depending on what kind of music you want to play, you may be quite fine without too much emphasis on technique (I don't mean fingering, but dynamics of the fingers and hands and arms), but if you are into classical piano stuff you might need the teacher to be more involved in this.

I listen and play all kinds of music ( from classical music to videogame soundtracks )

[gsmile]

Thanks for your help everyone but I have more to ask about sight reading .

When I sight read should I look at the note individuals or
should I use "stepping" for example if i start with C note then the next is D note im not reading it as D note but reading it like one up from C note if you know what I mean by this. Or should I read the notes as a group?

If I should read the notes as a group then is there any tips how?

I am currenty practising sight reading with very basic stuff and metronome tempo is about 40-50% slower than the original tempo.

Practice is key! There are tons of sources online that can help you, e.g. Quick Tips for Accurate Sightreading, etc.

[samuelsun]

Sight-reading is really a great topic in piano learning. Here are my opinions.

1. When a piece is practiced for a period, the hands can play it automatically. We call it Finger Memory (FM). FM makes the note reading process become confused since the player can partially read the score during playing. Besides, FM also has close relation to note reading and sight-reading.
2. When practicing a piece, it needs to focus on the coordination of eyes, mind and hands instead of merely using FM to play.
3. The use of eyes is another important issue in note reading and sight-reading, especially the reading pattern used for both hands.

Concerning the issues above, a book named The Key to Piano Learning (by R.A. Manson) covers most of them which specifically focuses on note reading and the use of eyes in piano playing. You can preview it in Google books.

[zantetsuken7]

I planned using program called Synthesia as a Sight reading tool for now. Until I get little better at it.
Then I could notate some random notes and convert it to Midi for Synthesia. This way I cant memorize how it sounds and improve sight reading.

Is this a good method for learning sight reading with easy songs (Beginner level) not complex songs (Intermediate - expert)?

Synthesia Official Website: https://synthesiagame.com/

[chidzuyo]

hi i think sight reading is like learning another language. the more time you spend on it, the easier it gets. if it helps, i suggest that you write out the notes (e.g. C D E F G) on the music sheet.

that's what I do when I've scores that go beyond 2 octaves on each hand.

If you're a beginner, I don't think it should be much of a concern on your teacher's capabilities (unless she absolutely can't play!). As for grades, don't get too obsessed with them for now. I spend 2-3 years exploring music as a beginner before formally taking graded lessons. In fact I thought it was better if I had actually skipped the entire examinations, and just play until I was gd enough to sit for grade 8. Much of my learning years were centred around exam pieces and results, and it wasn't the optimum learning experience.

[roseamelia]

Hopefully I can help you with this, I'm pretty good at sight reading well your first question:
I am 19 years old is it too late to be pianist?
 you'll be fine cause your vision is what counts but if you have bad vision then it'll be harder.
Is sight reading necessary to be a good pianist?
Yes it is necessary if you really good at it.
How long will it take to be good at sight reading?
If you really want to learn sight reading then you will get through it pretty quick. So it depends on if you want to do or not.
Is sight reading gifted or can it be learned over time?
It can be one or the other I was gifted with it and I learned it over time too.

Are you having a lot of trouble with it?