!! How do THEY / YOU do it?!? !! // Sightreading&CATCHING every tie/Legato/Note!

[pianoplayerstar]

Teachers:

HOW DO YOU DO IT? (to those who can).  I've seen INSTANT corrections of kids playing very quick and fast music where the instructor stops 'instantly' saying "THAT'S A G#, NOT AN F MINOR [RELATIVE]"... or "STOP RIGHT THERE, YOUNG LADY/YOUNG MAN! THAT'S A 'D SHARP CHORD', NOT A "B MINOR CHORD""

... BASICALLY, is this easy to do? how long does it take to have this ability to catch these notes so quickly and INSTANTLY on fast pieces?  Even Beethoven Sonatas?.. and the like?

Please do tell.
pps

[kalospiano]

this is actually the ability that shocked me the most about my teacher, even more than his near-perfect sight reading skills.

[keypeg]

I'm not a teacher, and my background in music went along some odd paths.  I'm guessing that it might not always be such a specific thing as literally recognizing a given pitch, but a host of interrelationships.  Say somebody is playing a piece in G major, and plays F instead of F#.  You might mentally be hearing the major scale, and that leading note is down by a semitone, sounding wrong, so you can shout out "That should be F#".  I've also been told that most students tend to make the same mistake - they all tend to miss that F# when first learning to play in G major, say - and so when student number 153 after x years gets to that same piece, at he same stage, you're already expecting the same thing to happen.

A friend let me listen to her playing an Invention a few years ago, and she didn't seem to have a feel for the keys and patterns.  After a minute I could basically predict where her next mistake would happen.  If the music modulated to F major, I expected to hear B instead of Bb, and sure enough there it was.

Close?

[pianoplayerstar]

experience then is the only way it seems to be able to catch errors

[stevensk]

I dont think thats difficult att all. A more intresting question i whether its educational to interupt the pupil

[Bob]

They know the piece, composer, etc.

They've played it themselves before.

They've taught it before, many times, and they know what common mistakes are.

[stevensk]

They know the piece, composer, etc.

They've played it themselves before.

They've taught it before, many times, and they know what common mistakes are.

-Put it simpel; They/we hear it   

[quantum]

Say you were listening to someone speak English.  Now English is not their mother tongue, however they are fluent in it.  All of a sudden you hear a word in a foreign language, likely because they don't  know how to say it in English.  You help out your friend by teaching them how to say the term in English. How could you tell that the word was non-English? 

[iansinclair]

Honestly, I haven't the slightest idea.  I'm not and never have been a piano teacher -- but a choral conductor for many years, and I can tell you that I could hear that the third soprano from the left was singing flat (or, more often sharp!)(or whatever!), never mind the wrong note -- but I have never thought about how I did it...

[adodd81802]

I'm not a teacher, and my background in music went along some odd paths.  I'm guessing that it might not always be such a specific thing as literally recognizing a given pitch, but a host of interrelationships.  Say somebody is playing a piece in G major, and plays F instead of F#.  You might mentally be hearing the major scale, and that leading note is down by a semitone, sounding wrong, so you can shout out "That should be F#".  I've also been told that most students tend to make the same mistake - they all tend to miss that F# when first learning to play in G major, say - and so when student number 153 after x years gets to that same piece, at he same stage, you're already expecting the same thing to happen.

A friend let me listen to her playing an Invention a few years ago, and she didn't seem to have a feel for the keys and patterns.  After a minute I could basically predict where her next mistake would happen.  If the music modulated to F major, I expected to hear B instead of Bb, and sure enough there it was.

Close?

Your comment regarding scale makes sense to me. I mentally know what series of notes to expect and so even if i was sight reading myself, and misplayed a note that I did not see correctly, my own ears have heard it was wrong even before my eyes and fingers have seen their mistake.

There's very few instances where you can play notes that are not expected, but usually they have to resolve in some way (Happens a lot in Chopin) but even then it still makes sense in your head almost like using a french replacement word in the English language, if somebody says deja vu, we recognise it as an English term even though it's presence is foreign.

One thing I find amazing on reading music, is hearing what you read, I can take a piece to my piano teacher, and he will read the first few lines away from the piano and know what style and sound is going to come from the piece. I don't hear notes when reading a piece, even if I have listened to a piece before I read it, if it's really quickly and I read the notes and there's some I did not hear, I do not recognise them in the piece until I listen to it several times. almost like sight-hearing if there is such a thing.

[dcstudio]

I am a teacher and this took some time to develop but it is one of those things that is kind of distracting at this point in my life.  A lot of the time we teach the same pieces over and over for twenty years.  Students make a lot of the same mistakes in the same places.  Often its just that we know the piece so well.  We also become real experts at ' reading your music while we sit next to you. when you spend hours a day teaching all levels of piano your brain becomes this autocorrector type machine.  Sometimes I have to stop myself from just blurting out notes.  Plus when playing for my students I'm showing them everything. Each tie and marking.  I confess that when I am not in the studio sometimes I am not as careful. .if that makes sense.

[lostinidlewonder]

Why is this confusing? If you hear someone play a piece you know you of course will anticipate the type of sound that should come out, unless you are tone deaf most people should recognise it. Also if the score is in front of you those with higher level of reading training can hear the music on the page. If one can listen to a complicated piece for the first time and discern minute errors that is impressive though but not a necessary skill.

[pianoplayerstar]

THe ANSWER:

1. the teacher has taught it so many times, and thus its easy to catch the errors

2. the teacher is so well versed in music, she or he can catch anything his or her way whenever a not is wrong - THIS requires a "natural", "born & gifted" ability to read and hear music.. the ability to see sheet music and sing it in your head =====> OR IS THIS ALSO LEARNED? CAN IT BE? AFTER 5 YRS OF PRACTICE? OR 30 YEARS OF PRACTICE?

curious.

[stevensk]

THe ANSWER:

 the ability to see sheet music and sing it in your head =====> OR IS THIS ALSO LEARNED? CAN IT BE?

curious.

-What s the problem? Cant you read a book silently? -Every singer in a choir can read sheet music and sing directly (almost every one). Lots of kids can

[keypeg]

Every singer in a choir can read sheet music and sing directly (almost every one). Lots of kids can

Neither of these are true.  I joined several choirs, one after the other over a few years, maybe a decade ago until finally giving up on choirs.  The last one was by audition, and supposedly being able to read music was a prerequisite.  In the audition itself, I was asked to sing back passages that the interviewer played on the piano, and I passed.
Rehearsals were a torture.  The women's sectional was led by the accompanist.  She would play a few measures of either the soprano or alto part, and they would repeat it over and over.  I was given a CD of a previous year's performance - I didn't know what for - the idea was to listen to it over and over until you had memorized it.  When you prepared (practised) the music ahead of time and can read, it is agonizingly slow, like watching paint dry.
I can read music.  I was the exception, a rarity.  At least over here, it is absolutely not true that "all" singers read music.  I also know some semi-professionals who don't.
Are you perhaps in a country where this is routinely taught?

Cant you read a book silently?

I can look at melodic passages and hear them in my head, but I discovered that this is also not common.  This includes instrumentalists - professionals - who have to take a passage to the piano and type out the notes so that they can hear what is in the music.  I did not have their sight reading ability since this is a different set of skills, but they didn't seem to have that particular ability.

[kalospiano]

the ability to see sheet music and sing it in your head =====> OR IS THIS ALSO LEARNED? CAN IT BE? AFTER 5 YRS OF PRACTICE? OR 30 YEARS OF PRACTICE?

to me this seems quite clearly linked to having absolute pitch.
If you can read a score and perceive the music in your head it's the reversal of hearing a note and saying the name of the note: you see the name of a note and you can hear it.
So forget about learning it ever.

If you have a very good relative pitch, though, you can hear a score in your head after you have heard a reference note.

[vaniii]

We're listening.

If you play C enough times, you can hear the difference between the former and C-sharp.

If you do it more so, you can hear when a piano is hideously out of tune -- even by a fraction.

[pianoplayerstar]

so true ability in piano is born... it's never tryly learned then.
you can be taught, but if you're not born with it, you'll never get good.


now THIS myth is why many keep trying

[dcstudio]

When I was a student I remember being amazed by my teacher's skills. I just couldn't wrap my head around how that was possible. I wanted to be able to do that too and now that I am a bit further along I still don't quite understand exactly  how I  got here, but my brain has become wired for music.' What you are asking about is something that IMO only comes from solid university level  training then years of teaching. I will   add that I have always been immersed in music. I listened to pieces over and over as a child and dreamed of playing them. It comes  from obsession too. It takes a certain degree of real insanity...but it is learned.

[quantum]

2. the teacher is so well versed in music, she or he can catch anything his or her way whenever a not is wrong - THIS requires a "natural", "born & gifted" ability to read and hear music.. the ability to see sheet music and sing it in your head =====> OR IS THIS ALSO LEARNED? CAN IT BE? AFTER 5 YRS OF PRACTICE? OR 30 YEARS OF PRACTICE?.

The ability to hear music from a score without the aid of a musical instrument is definitely a teachable subject.  Where I went to school, it was 1st year university foundations material.  It is the stuff everyone - no matter what discipline one chose to follow, be it performance, teaching, composition, musicology - must learn before they progressed through university studies. 

I can understand how it seems mind boggling to some, but with dedicated methodical and disciplined study it is achievable.  One doesn't need to be a super virtuoso in order to learn how to hear and sing a score without the aid of a piano. 

[keypeg]

I can understand how it seems mind boggling to some, but with dedicated methodical and disciplined study it is achievable.  One doesn't need to be a super virtuoso in order to learn how to hear and sing* a score without the aid of a piano. 

]*bold mine

I'd like to explore part of this further.  I have always been able to sing a melodic part because of the way this all developed for me since childhood.  However, this only works for horizontal lines, such as the melody line, or counterpoint melodies, or something like Alberti bass.  So Quantum, in what you are describing, is this the kind of hearing you are writing about, since you join "hear" with "sing"?
When I started to explore with my teacher what I can and cannot hear, vertical chords were a weakness.  I'll readily hear I IV V progressions, and recognize major, minor, dom7 chords.  But I won't recognize dense chords, and I definitely won't pre-hear this in complex, dense, and maybe atonal music.  So how far does this training go?  Does it go as far as that?

[dcstudio]

I'd www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=62275.0;topicseen  to explore part of this further.  I have always been able to sing a melodic part because of the way this all developed for me since childhood.  However, this only works for horizontal lines, such as the melody line, or counterpoint melodies, or something like Alberti bass.  So Quantum, in what you are describing, is this the kind of hearing you are writing about, since you join "hear" with "sing"?
When I started to explore with my teacher what I can and cannot hear, vertical chords were a weakness.  I'll readily hear I IV V progressions, and recognize major, minor, dom7 chords.  But I won't recognize dense chords, and I definitely won't pre-hear this in complex, dense, and maybe atonal music.  So how far does this training go?  Does it go as far as that?

In jazz fundamentals class we were given cassettes that contained aural examples of the "dense" chords.  For the tests he would play them on the piano and we had to identify the extensions not the root (i.e. minor 9 not Cm9)   it worked for me. 

[pianoplayerstar]

then it can be LEARNED - That's the Conclusion here.

put simply:  1st year University music curriculum is the path and then onward from there.

[dcstudio]

then it can be LEARNED - That's the Conclusion here.

put simply:  1st year University music curriculum is the path and then onward from there.

I would go a step further to say that it can only be learned.  Not even Mozart fell out of his crib with the understanding or abilities of a veteran piano teacher. The difference being he was like ten when he got there and I am 52.

[keypeg]

then it can be LEARNED - That's the Conclusion here.

put simply:  1st year University music curriculum is the path and then onward from there.

It doesn't have to be university, though.

(You didn't answer my question about hearing - singing)

[timothy42b]

Choirs:  keypeg is quite right.  Confident sightsinging is rare now.  In high school I sang in a madrigal group where everybody sightread well, and I came to think it was normal.  It is not, at least today.  In my daughter's highschool the choir performed at a very high level but none of them (including her) read very well.  Thinking back, with 20/20 hindsight, every one of those 12 singers in the madrigal group was also in the band.  We learned our sightsinging on a monotonic instrument.  I know they must exist, but in my amateur world I have yet to meet a good sight singer who learned it vocally. 

Catching errors:  that's a continuum I think, from hearing "something" wrong to knowing exactly what was wrong.  Even amateurs should do the first.  If you know the piece well you should be able to come pretty close. 

When I started directing bell choirs I heard mistakes right away, but bells all sound the same, and I don't have perfect pitch.  It took a LONG time to recognize it was Mary or Bobby's note.  Or that Elizabeth didn't play hers at all.  Some of it is visual, as I learned only this past year.  I saw a ringer play the right note with the wrong hand and it caught my attention.  I had previously assigned her D5 E5, so she put D in the left hand, E in the right, keyboard order.  On this piece I needed her to play G5 A6, keyboard order.  But her brain wanted alphabetical order so that's what she did, A in the left and G in the right.  Similarly I suspect a piano teacher sees a finger reach for the wrong note as well as hear it. 

How to learn it better?  Turn pages for a performer, that'll make you sweat.  You MUST follow along, they are supposed to nod, but they don't and it's your fault.  Follow the score while listening to a recording.

Off topic, but I really really hate the pressure of turning pages and I get tapped for it way too often.   

[stevensk]

I would go a step further to say that it can only be learned.

-Yes!!  

I have a friend who is an ambulance driver. He has developed absolute pitch for that emergency vehicles sound (a major third in my country) , but he is slightly lost in other octaves (he knows both the pitch and, of course, the interval)

[quantum]

I'd like to explore part of this further.  I have always been able to sing a melodic part because of the way this all developed for me since childhood.  However, this only works for horizontal lines, such as the melody line, or counterpoint melodies, or something like Alberti bass.  So Quantum, in what you are describing, is this the kind of hearing you are writing about, since you join "hear" with "sing"?

Using the terms hear and sing, I am talking about looking at a score and hearing the music in one's minds ear (just like reading silently to yourself) as well as being able to pick out individual lines in the score and sing them.  I think this all begins with singing, and familiarly with using one's own voice, hearing one's voice, hearing other sounds external to one's voice, and recognizing the relationship between one's own voice and other things one hears. 

When I started to explore with my teacher what I can and cannot hear, vertical chords were a weakness.  I'll readily hear I IV V progressions, and recognize major, minor, dom7 chords.  But I won't recognize dense chords, and I definitely won't pre-hear this in complex, dense, and maybe atonal music.  So how far does this training go?  Does it go as far as that?

In my own 1st year university training there was a lot of SATB music, vocal duets, and vocal improvising.  It wasn't all voice though as singing was put side-by-side to keyboard proficiency.  There was a lot of listening and transcription work.  The harmony covered a lot of primary chord progressions (and typical voicing) up to 7th chords, generous study of the western modes, as well as a sprinkling of Middle-Eastern modes. 

Undoubtedly the training goes further as one moved on from the foundation courses.  I can recall in grad school, one of my classmates mentioning taking a course in atonal sight singing from a different school. 

I had an attraction to complex harmony and atonal music.  So as an extension from the 1st year foundation courses, I set out to train my ears to distinguish differences in very dense chord clusters and complex voicing.  Sitting at the piano, I would play dense chords structures then change a single note and strive to identify the changes.  This had an extension to real music making, as I was also exploring improvisation using dense chords and did a lot of study on how to apply such chords in musical settings. 

[keypeg]

Thank you, Quantum, for answering.

Using the terms hear and sing, I am talking about looking at a score and hearing the music in one's minds ear (just like reading silently to yourself) as well as being able to pick out individual lines in the score and sing them.  I think this all begins with singing, and familiarly with using one's own voice, hearing one's voice, hearing other sounds external to one's voice, and recognizing the relationship between one's own voice and other things one hears.  

Got it.  As I think I wrote before, this was how I began when I was quite young.

However, using this method, I can "hear" a melodic line, perhaps a duet or trio, and the different lines in counterpoint music.  But I cannot look at a score of piano music and also hear the underlying chords, especially if they are dense.  So I am assuming that this method is limited toward hearing melodic things.  Would that be correct?

What I've been doing recently to get at my weak areas is listening to music in movies and television shows that are meant to provoke a mood.  This gets me away from the context of I IV V (a strength and thus a blinder) and into hearing quality.  "Disturbing" stuff while the villain  lurks in the dark is the best, because then you'll get tritones, minor seconds, augmented, strange progressions.  I can also ask myself "What makes this disturbing?"  In classical theory it's mostly about "undisturbing" chords - harmony (literally).

[pianoplayerstar]

CONCLUSION:  Experience is the only way to do this.

And how do you get experience?  PRACTICE.

[timothy42b]

But what should you practice?

I suggest a significant part should be grabbing a score, and watching the same piece on youtube while you read.  You can vary the difficulty level.  Something like the Schaum score text would be a good starting point.

When you watch real performances, you will see mistakes as well as deliberate variations from the ink, and get better at picking them up. 

If I'm listening to a choir, and the altos sing a second line G instead of first line E in a melody, of course I'll pick it up.  If they sing that G as harmony in a C chord, I'd notice if I had a reason to pay attention, like in rehearsal, or I might miss it.  If they sing a dotted eighth sixteenth pattern as two eighths, I'll snap to outrage even in the parking lot.  Rhythm errors catch your ear quicker than anything else.