Help? Never learned sight reading, advanced student

[rotezora]

I learned piano from a teacher who taught a modified Suzuki method, and I learned to play entirely by ear. I can pick out the notes when I already know what the piece sounds like, but my ability to read music is painfully slow. (It's like hunt-and-peck typing.) I'm a fairly advanced player - I quit lessons as a teenager when I got up to Suzuki Book 6, sonatinas and sonatas, for the most part - so I'm looking to start again with fairly complex pieces. (I don't need to start with sonatas, but beginners' pieces are not challenging enough to maintain my interest!)

And here's the thing: I finally want to be able to actually read the music!!

Can anyone recommend a good way to help teach myself sight reading - or even just smoother, quicker music reading - that doesn't involve going back to beginner-level pieces? (I know myself well enough to know I will get bored and it won't work.) I've tried doing it by just plugging away at a new piece, but I don't seem to get any better at reading the music, even if I manage to teach myself the new piece.

The best solution I've come up with so far is putting decals of some kind on the keys, but most of the decals I can find are for early learners. Worth it to make my own? Other ideas?

(Not having learned this, in spite of ten years of piano, is one of my greatest frustrations and something I am still kind of angry at my piano teacher for.) 

[chopincrazy23]

I went through the same problem that your experiencing awhile ago. However, when I had to learn how to read music, I didn't want to play beginners pieces either.(I was also embarrassed to play them.) So, what I did was I picked some of my favorite composers (for me, Chopin, Mendelssohn, or Debussy) and I chose pieces with a really easy key signature and low level, for example, level 4-5 maybe 6. After a few months of that, I got back to reading my regular repertoire.

[quantum]

Try accompanying or ensemble work or find a duet partner.  You will gain a lot of skills in sight reading when required to make music in the company of others.  Such scenario will require you to strategize and prioritize tasks in playing and reading.  It will also be much more musically stimulating then going back to beginner pieces or working through a sight-reading method book. 

[outin]

When the basic reading is very poor I don't see any point in trying to do duets. My teacher has tried that but it only makes me worse because of the pressure to keep time and listen to what she is doing.

Even though I have been taught playing from sheets, I have the same problem that OP has (added with a kind if a visual sense disorder). I have tried to find interesting easy pieces to practice reading but I don't see any progress. There are things that I can read and others that I simply cannot. Keys with many accidentals are impossible, because I can't manage to keep the key information in my head while playing. Too much simultaneous information on the page overloads my brain. I think fluent reading might require some things that I just don't have have. What I do now is try to sight-read all of my new pieces first before going into details, that at least gives me some practice.

[quantum]

It is exactly that pressure to keep in time and listen to your fellow musicians that will improve your sight reading.  Doing so may require a shift in approach to how you are currently sight reading, and such change can be a scary thought especially if you already feel insecure at the task. 

This will also help enforce one of the core elements of sight reading and performance: rhythm trumps pitch, pitch trumps text.  Classical musicians tend to focus more on the pitch element, and leave rhythm in its wake.  Rhythm should be given the utmost priority.  You can palm note clusters all you want, but if it is in rhythm you are on the right track to improving. 

Knowing what to do when you can't play all the notes is also an essential component of sight reading.  By practicing solo sight reading, you may not fully experience the need to develop this skill.  When you play with other musicians, you do not have the personal luxury of going back to correct or slowing down when things get too hard.  Ensemble music teaches you awareness of the large musical picture - it is that greater understanding of what is happening in the music, which elements receive more importance, and what role you play in the scheme that will improve your sight reading. 

Sure, at first sight reading duets will be difficult.  You may be only able to catch few notes here and there: maybe a few bass notes, the melody by itself, a few familiar chords or scales.  It may sound horrible, but you will be gaining skills by doing this. 

[j_menz]

I agree entirely that the requirements of reading in an ensemble situation will dramatically improve ones sightreading.  I'm not sure that its a first step, though. Perhaps OP should work on at least a basic ability alone first. Certainly the notes.

To that end, I'm not sure that there is any real alternative to going back to some really easy pieces. I doubt that you would be there long - it's not as difficult as you might think - but starting off very simply is often the quickest way to advance.

[outin]

Sure, at first sight reading duets will be difficult.  You may be only able to catch few notes here and there: maybe a few bass notes, the melody by itself, a few familiar chords or scales.  It may sound horrible, but you will be gaining skills by doing this.  

It may be that OP just needs more practice since he hasn't been taught. But it might not be just that. There's really no way to prove if those of you who are good at sight reading are good because of the way you practiced or if you simply were able to develope from that practice because of natural abilities.

I don't believe that sight reading is simply a skill to learn and everyone can be good at it. Not anymore. I find some of us just lack what is needed. When I try to sight read, part of my brain always starts processing the "issues" (something that was not right) while trying to still play and finally there's not enough processor capasity left to handle the information on the page and the brain goes blank and I cannot go on. If I try to consciously stop this process that becomes a new "issue" and the same thing happens after a while.

In general I think the basic requirement to be able to sight read well  is the ability to simply think about what you are doing and concentrate on that instead of processing issues on a more abstract level. Has to do with the way the different brain areas interact. Not sure it can be helped, since all the exercises I have tried seem to require already having some of this basic ability to be of any use. I would probably play better after a lobotomy...

And then of course there's the issue of the size of one's working memory. Scientists still cannot agree if this is something that can be increased by practice. I doubt it can, one can only use what one has more efficiently after practicing.

[j_menz]

I would probably play better after a lobotomy...

Which any ensemble (though probably not your teacher) will give you, happily, if you stop during a performance with them.

And then of course there's the issue of the size of one's working memory. Scientists still cannot agree if this is something that can be increased by practice. I doubt it can, one can only use what one has more efficiently after practicing.

It probably can't be, but it remembers a certain number of "things" (called chunks in the terminology), and what constitutes a "thing" can most definitely be modified so as to expand the workings of it. Consider reading, where we start out with individual letters, move on to groups of letters, then whole words and (in some cases) phrases,  sentences or whole paragraphs.  With sight reading, you start with notes, but then move on to chords, figures and phrases. You don't store any more bits, but each bit contains a whole lot more information.

[outin]

Which any ensemble (though probably not your teacher) will give you, happily, if you stop during a performance with them.

 

[outin]

It probably can't be, but it remembers a certain number of "things" (called chunks in the terminology), and what constitutes a "thing" can most definitely be modified so as to expand the workings of it. Consider reading, where we start out with individual letters, move on to groups of letters, then whole words and (in some cases) phrases,  sentences or whole paragraphs.  With sight reading, you start with notes, but then move on to chords, figures and phrases. You don't store any more bits, but each bit contains a whole lot more information.

I agree and I do think everyone can get better by practicing this "chunking". Just don't think it's enough to be really fluent. And I think it comes with time and playing more repertoire, not by being forced to play under pressure.

Consider someone who is dyslexic, they can be better readers, but they will still have their issues and could not do consistently as well as someone who is not. So it always puzzles me why some people seem to think that by practicing enough and correctly will make everyone a great sight reader. Or a virtuoso player

[j_menz]

I agree and I do think everyone can get better by practicing this "chunking". Just don't think it's enough to be really fluent. And I think it comes with time and playing more repertoire, not by being forced to play under pressure.

Consider someone who is dyslexic, they can be better readers, but they will still have their issues and could not do consistently as well as someone who is not. So it always puzzles me why some people seem to think that by practicing enough and correctly will make everyone a great sight reader. Or a virtuoso player

But the issue you have - the need to clog up your brain with a litany of mistake regrets/analyses - is a really common one. Just doing more of the same won't necessarily fix it (remember Einstein). It needs a different kind of pressure to the one you are applying to yourself - the pressure to keep going! To forget the mistakes and get on with the show. Some of that may be achievable by working on your own, but working alongside others (and your teacher really doesn't cut it for this purpose) will. It's a different kind of pressure, and forces you to approach it in a different way.

[outin]

Pressure has been used to "cure" all kinds of learning disabilities for ages in the schooling system and it never worked well...

Besides I do not really react much to outside pressure, I have no problem to just stop and walk away. Only inside pressure would work and if I have no desire to play with someone, where would that pressure come? It might have worked when I was a child, but not anymore.

[j_menz]

Pressure has been used to "cure" all kinds of learning disabilities for ages in the schooling system and it never worked well...

Besides I do not really react much to outside pressure, I have no problem to just stop and walk away. Only inside pressure would work and if I have no desire to play with someone, where would that pressure come? It might have worked when I was a child, but not anymore.

Perhaps pressure was a bad choice of words. It's all internal, but it's a change of focus. On your own, you have a different set of priorities in your playing than when your playing as part of a "team". A different approach. And that allows for a different way of thinking.  When you're on your own, a mistake is a big deal and stopping isn't - whatever you tell yourself. In ensemble playing, the situation is reversed. That re-prioritising changes the way you need to go about reading, and that change leads to growth in certain abilities.

[outin]

I guess I'll have to give this one the benefit of doubt since there is no way to try it out in practice in my situation...

[hansscherff]

There is no other way than learning step by step and by keeping the common goal in mind. It is just like with reading a book, when you are young and just learning to read, you stutter at letters first, then words, then sentences. In the end you are able to read quickly and recognize words and patterns instead of actually reading every letter. The bset emaxlpe of tihs is the ailbity to qukcliy read wrdos with only the first and last letter being in the correct order.

As a reasonable sightreader i often catch myself doing this in some form as well with sheet music. For example starting a left hand accompanying arpeggio on the wrong note of the chord. This is because i recognize the pattern (a certain arpeggiated chord), but do not read every note separately.

I would suggest starting to learn (parts of) pieces in all keys with not that many modulations, this helps you to recognize the patterns for the base chords in a key. Slowly look for music with more modulations (and therefore, sharps, accidentals etc). Keep in mind that with tonal music, every accidental, sharp or w/e is usually a route to a logical destination and therefore should not come unexpected. You know this already by ear, now you just need to learn how it looks like on paper.

At your starting evel, i would suggest pieces like Mendelssohn's Duetto (from lieder ohne worte), which has nicely arpeggiated chords, slow modulations etc. Other interesting pieces could be Chopin's prelude in C minor or Grieg's Ase's death, both more chord based without arpeggio's. If you start off slow with them, they should not come that hard.

One last thing to keep in mind is that you will need to be able to play without your eyes on your fingers, this is the second important thing besides the reading part. However this you can practise by just playing the pieces you know with your eyes closed.

Goodluck!

Hans

[levitation29]

Seems like an ensemble would hate you too if you weren't getting any notes right.

[j_menz]

Seems like an ensemble would hate you too if you weren't getting any notes right.

Well, not getting any right would certainly strain relations, but assuming you can get them generally OK, in order, the things likely to get you sacked are:
1) stopping without (very) good cause
2) wrong rhythm/tempo
3) wrong volume
4) wrong notes

Getting a piece note perfect in such a situation is obviously a good thing, but some missed ones will hardly be noticed, and a few stray ones will be forgiven.  The other errors are much more likely to get you sacked (or land you in hospital).

[outin]

1) stopping without (very) good cause

What would be a good enough cause? Earthquake?

[j_menz]

What would be a good enough cause? Earthquake?

Only if it stops the others playing first. 

Other than that, death, terrorist attack or meteor strike.