Piano Forum

Topic: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!  (Read 2209 times)

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5008
I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
on: March 03, 2014, 11:16:19 PM
They're freaking making me play at a musical FOR 50 BUCKS AN HOUR!!!

And if I stay for pit orchestra, it's an EXTRA 50 DOLLARS!!!

I need easy imslp music FAST!!!

Please help me out here!!!
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

theholygideons

  • Guest
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #1 on: March 03, 2014, 11:23:09 PM
I thought piano scores for musicals are quite dense?

Offline faulty_damper

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 3929
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #2 on: March 03, 2014, 11:28:51 PM
Sorry, but you can't go from crap to fantastic overnight no matter how many infomercials say you can.  If you don't already possess the technical vocabulary, then reading and learning the vocabulary will be incredibly time-consuming.  But you'll need to get orchestral scores with piano reduction.

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5008
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #3 on: March 03, 2014, 11:43:45 PM
Sorry, but you can't go from crap to fantastic overnight no matter how many infomercials say you can.  If you don't already possess the technical vocabulary, then reading and learning the vocabulary will be incredibly time-consuming.  But you'll need to get orchestral scores with piano reduction.

My technique is fine!

And I'm not trying to get good overnight, but just fast.

And there's informercials for this?

I just need some imslp sightreading scores.

Thanks,
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

theholygideons

  • Guest
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #4 on: March 03, 2014, 11:57:15 PM
ooo, i found one. here you go. Looks easy. :p
you owe me 10 percent of your wages now.

Offline j_menz

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 10148
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #5 on: March 04, 2014, 12:00:33 AM
Have you actually played any more popular type music before?
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline kopower

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 47
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #6 on: March 04, 2014, 01:40:45 AM
I also wish to get good at sight reading FAST!!

Offline faulty_damper

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 3929
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #7 on: March 04, 2014, 02:13:58 AM
Have you actually played any more popular type music before?

Yeah, these kinds of music are very different from classical music.  Very different vocabulary and harmonic progressions.

Offline ancientsolar

  • PS Silver Member
  • Jr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 27
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #8 on: March 09, 2014, 07:10:27 PM
6 months into piano playing I joined the church.. 2month later the pianist died who had all the hymns memorized and could sight read very well.

I took her place.. could barely play let lone sightread.
The "Pressure" to sight read was so immense. I had to play for a congregation of about 40 people who also had to sing what I was playing. My nerves were terrible...

It took me a year to to sight read fairly well.. a further year to sight read very well.
It took me 2 further years to get over nerves in solo performance... :D

Now imagine the pressure your going to feel while trying to earn $50 .
If you think you can play.. and communicate in a musical way to an orchestra quick... well you better prestissimo or your dream will sound a bit b.

Offline mjedwards

  • PS Silver Member
  • Jr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 32
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #9 on: March 21, 2014, 04:24:32 PM
     I'm not quite clear on what you are asking us for.
     You want "easy imslp music fast"?  Well, thousands upon thousands of public-domain scores are there for the taking - just go to https://www.imslp.org, and you'll find it all there.  You can print out whatever you like, and then play it.
     Easy?  Well, I don't know how easy you mean - but there are various ranges of difficulty in the music there.  You just need to look and see what you can find.
     Ideas on how to learn sight-reading *fast*?  Well, I don't know how fast you want, and I also don't know how fast is possible.  But you'd better just get to a piano quick-smart and start sight-reading without any delay if you are really in a hurry - that's the way to get good, although it won't be miraculously fast, unless you are a true genius.
     I am told by various people that I am very good at sight-reading, so I suppose it could be true.  (I have almost no musical friends or even acquaintances, so I really have no-one to compare my own accomplishments with.)  And I did it by decades of playing over piles of second-hand music I got into the habit of buying, which I wanted to explore.  I suggest you get as much music as you can, whether from web sites like I.M.S.L.P., or from book-shops that sell second-hand music, and play through it.  Choose many different styles, and stretch yourself by including music that is beyond your formal level of playing.  I tackled Scriabin Sonatas and Szymanowksi Sonatas at one point - at other times Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, John Ireland, Cyril Scott, William Baines, Frank Bridge (I always loved those British composers) even in the 1970s, way beyond my "formal" ability - but they fascinated me so much I just wanted to find out how they were constructed.  Also did Scott Joplin, Dave Brubeck, and music of that sort, too - Billy Mayerl rather more recently.
     I never set out to learn Scriabin's 7th Piano Sonata - but around 1980 or so I somehow became obsessed with it, and played over parts of it on the piano for hours on end, without ever really intending to learn it (fully believing it was way beyond me), just because I somehow had it on my brain and wanted to hear its melodies and harmonies yet again - but I did almost become capable of playing significant chunks of it, and I got used to playing the complex rhythms and the jungles of accidentals before each chord.  Even if I never intended learning such music *properly*, these efforts to stumble through music way beyond my technical ability did, I believe, at least help me develop my sight-reading skills.
     You might like to try a similar thing.  I don't know how quickly this would develop your sight-reading skill; but I am sure it would do so at least quicker than if you didn't stretch yourself in these ways.
     If you are interested and able to, you might also like to try composing your own music.  I believe constructing one's own music probably also helps, in a different way, to build up musical understanding and fluency with music notation - and that can also (maybe) help your sight-reading ability.
     But there's no magical secret (that I'm aware of, at least) that, once given to you by one of the gurus here, will automatically give a huge boost to your sight-reading ability.

     I hope this helps a little, although I'm not entirely sure it will: something about the way you wrote did have a bit of a feel to it of asking for the impossible.

Regards, Michael.

Offline quantum

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 6249
Re: I need to get good at sightreading FAST!
Reply #10 on: March 21, 2014, 06:46:17 PM
Sight reading a musical is different to sight reading art music.  You need to practice sight reading musicals.  Practice working with lead sheets, creating accompaniments to chord symbols, following the text the singer is using. 

Are you playing a piano part, or the piano/vocal/conductor score?  There can be a difference between the two. 

Made a Liszt. Need new Handel's for Soler panel & Alkan foil. Will Faure Stein on the way to pick up Mendels' sohn. Josquin get Wolfgangs Schu with Clara. Gone Chopin, I'll be Bach
For more information about this topic, click search below!
 

Logo light pianostreet.com - the website for classical pianists, piano teachers, students and piano music enthusiasts.

Subscribe for unlimited access

Sign up

Follow us

Piano Street Digicert