Are there actually people who can sightread 3+ bars ahead?

[boxjuice]

I spoke to a teacher who told me you should shoot to read 3 bars ahead. I look at a bach invention and at the sheer quantity of things going on in 3 bars of music and it just seems unbeleivable that somebody without a freakishly large short term memory can store all of that. I know about mnemonics and chunking, but even with those it still seems unbelievable that anyone can store that much in their stm.

Ive been practicing reading ahead with bach inventions, going one bar at a time. Stopping, reading one bar, then spending a good minute or 2 trying to figure out ways to chunk it, then playing it without looking at the sheet, but even then i can barely fit 1 bar in my memory.

[iansinclair]

Yes.  They are thoroughly annoying to us ordinary mortals.  However, with practice at sight reading one can improve... and it is worth the effort.

Ask any church organist!  When the rector whispers to you just before the next hymn that he or she has decided to sing a different one -- which, of course, you didn't practice -- you sight read for survival!

[chopinlover01]

I knew a guy who read two lines ahead, no matter what he was playing or how many bars were in each line 
Damn sight reading gods.
In all seriousness, though, my sight reading is fairly good because I play through a lot of different music that I like. I play through late Beethoven sonatas for fun, through Bach 4 voice fugues, etc.. Even etudes sometimes
The point being that if you sight read more and more, you tend to get pretty good at it. I can recognize patterns fairly well, and thus while Bach fugues are an arse to read properly, early classical sonatas are very much sight readable, just have to watch out for ornaments and articulations.

[boxjuice]

2 lines? Jesus. Isnt reading that far ahead superfluous? I dont even know how that's possible given that the short term memory only has a capacity of 7 plus or minus 2 spaces

[stevensk]

3+ bars ahead? Depends of the piece. Mozart 8+ bars ahead, Bach 2+ bars ahead, Scriabin a half bar ahead  

[louispodesta]

I spoke to a teacher who told me you should shoot to read 3 bars ahead. I look at a bach invention and at the sheer quantity of things going on in 3 bars of music and it just seems unbeleivable that somebody without a freakishly large short term memory can store all of that. I know about mnemonics and chunking, but even with those it still seems unbelievable that anyone can store that much in their stm.

Ive been practicing reading ahead with bach inventions, going one bar at a time. Stopping, reading one bar, then spending a good minute or 2 trying to figure out ways to chunk it, then playing it without looking at the sheet, but even then i can barely fit 1 bar in my memory.

1)  Quit reading Bach.  This is contrapuntal music, which is no way shape, manner or form resembles sight-reading repertoire from the 18th century onwards.lose the Bach!

2)  Bach was an organist, and all organists improvise.  He wasn't strictly sight-reading anything when he performed.

3)  My late father could read half a page ahead, for real.  I turned pages for him as a child, therefore I know this to be true.

4)  I am an ASPY, who has an abnormal long term and also short term sight reading ability.  Even Jean Barr of Eastman could not teach me how to read.  However, I came up with a methodology of my own which allowed me to then sight-read the notes to 47 piano concertos (two a day) in the next five years.

5)  The Composer/Arranger Boris Berlin put together a series of 11 very short books, which have been adopted by the Royal Conservatory of Music.  They are not only graded in terms of difficulty, they (as I have used them) can be used to increase ones speed, in terms of sight reading.

7)  That means, you read through the very short pieces of all eleven books, at a set metronome marking.  Then, (did I mention they are price-wise, dirt cheap) you gradually increase the speed, religiously sticking to your metronome regimen.

#8)  This will automatically force your brain/eye to look ahead.

9)  Please read no more than 20 minutes a day at the beginning of every practice session, which is important because the last two thing you want to do, in my opinion, is to get addicted to the page (not memorizing) and also having it become drudgery.  My late father couldn't memorize anything.

10)  After this, start with the Mozart and then the Haydn Keyboard Sonatas, utilizing the same methodology.  Then, it is your choice to move on from there, utilizing the same methodology.

Thank you for your great question.  And once again, lose the Bach!

[tenk]

1)  Quit reading Bach.  This is contrapuntal music, which is no way shape, manner or form resembles sight-reading repertoire from the 18th century onwards.lose the Bach!

And once again, lose the Bach!

Absolutely ignore this advice. Among the multitude of other things Louis is wrong about, this couldn't be more egregious. You can sightread Bach and I would encourage you to do so. After one or two reads, then mark the score with problem areas and get to work on proper fingering. Bach is the best teacher, and Louis is dead wrong.

However, I came up with a methodology of my own which allowed me to then sight-read the notes to 47 piano concertos (two a day) in the next five years.

100% calling bullsh!t on this. Otherwise set up that camera that we know you have, since you won't stop sharing your chord-rolling video from 6 years ago.

9)  Please read no more than 20 minutes a day at the beginning of every practice session, which is important because the last two thing you want to do, in my opinion, is to get addicted to the page (not memorizing)

Actually some good advice. Though even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while...

[mrcreosote]

I can attest to "not get addicted to sight reading" if you are good at it.  I did that from about 10 to 50 years old and it completely arrested my memorizing development.  Of course the pendulum swung the other way and from 50, NO sight reading - only reading to memorize. 

I like Scriabin 1/2 bar.  Ligeti what?  ZERO?  Maybe 1 note ahead?  And there are worse.

And the same thing applies to memorizing!  Sight reading far into the future means there are nice patterns - a pattern does not need much to be memorized - just a few parameters - it is highly compressible.

But when you see great pianists playing avaunt garde, many read from sheet music.  (NOTE:  not because they cannot memorize it, but because it would take too much time to do it and the venue for such pieces is limited - so a ROI decision.

[quantum]

2 lines? Jesus. Isnt reading that far ahead superfluous? I dont even know how that's possible given that the short term memory only has a capacity of 7 plus or minus 2 spaces

Not really.  One of the teachers with whom I studied the subject emphasized knowing the entire piece before you start sight reading at bar 1.  So we would flip through the music, identifying places that may cause trouble, or information overload.  Before one started to sightread, one already knew about the the key change on page 3, and the multiple clef changes on page 5, and the tempo change on page 6, and that page 8-10 looked a whole lot like page 1-3.  All this preparatory work only takes a few short moments and can be a significant aid in managing the material to be sight read.

If you know where you want to go, you can get there.

[lostinidlewonder]

I think it is important to make a distinction between reading a piece that you have never seen before or heard (or goes through technical ideas you have little experience with, or technical passages that are extremely dense etc etc) and reading one you have experience with goes trough procedure you know well etc. With experience you can glance at notes and fill in the gaps while playing, your ear guides you well, but with a piece that explores ideas you have little experience with, although you can fill in the gaps (inferences drawn from other music you have expericed) it is not as accurate as when you know a piece well and thus you will find yourself requiring to read more information to be sure.

Pieces written very easy level of course you can read ahead no worries, but dense works or music you have little experience with it is just not going to happen on your first read and this in itself is not totally necessary if you can improve rapidly anyway with a few reading attempts.

[timothy42b]

Ask any church organist!  When the rector whispers to you just before the next hymn that he or she has decided to sing a different one -- which, of course, you didn't practice -- you sight read for survival!

More commonly I find the rector has chosen the right hymn, but the wrong tune!  The organist and choir have dutifully learned the alternate tune only to be told at the last minute to play the one he meant, which sometimes is no longer in the current hymnal. 

But if you have a rector, you have the Episcopal hymnal.  There are only 721 hymns, of which we only sing two dozen, so you will know them all.  Hee, hee. 

[brogers70]

More commonly I find the rector has chosen the right hymn, but the wrong tune!  The organist and choir have dutifully learned the alternate tune only to be told at the last minute to play the one he meant, which sometimes is no longer in the current hymnal. 

But if you have a rector, you have the Episcopal hymnal.  There are only 721 hymns, of which we only sing two dozen, so you will know them all.  Hee, hee. 

Concert audiences who only want to hear the old standards have got nothing on Episcopal congregations. That hymnal is full of great tunes, but most congregations only want to sing a handful of them.

[timothy42b]

Concert audiences who only want to hear the old standards have got nothing on Episcopal congregations. That hymnal is full of great tunes, but most congregations only want to sing a handful of them.

Having been a member of an Episcopal church for 25 plus years and sang in the choir, I thought I knew the hymns.

Until:  I ended up being the person who selected them.  There is a three year rotation with suggested hymns for each Sunday to match the scripture or the season, so I went through all the choices.  Wow!  stuff in there I'd NEVER heard. 

Nor will - congregations tend to be pretty conservative.  If you didn't grow up hearing it, you don't like it.  The 1982 hymnal is only 38 years old - many members resent not having the 1940 hymnal. 

[iansinclair]

Concert audiences who only want to hear the old standards have got nothing on Episcopal congregations. That hymnal is full of great tunes, but most congregations only want to sing a handful of them.

If they sing at all.  And, in my own humble opinion, there are tunes in the 1982 which could better be done without!  But that's true of any of the major hymnals, and one of the minor chores of the music director/minister of music/whatever is to figure out which ones are really good (that three year rotation timothy42b mentioned is a big help on the lyrics side!) and which ones aren't -- and then figure out how to persuade the congregation to get to know and like them.

The choir is no problem: "You WILL sing this hymn"!

[timothy42b]

  And, in my own humble opinion, there are tunes in the 1982 which could better be done without! 

There is one candidate that LEAPS to mind:  #376, Joyful Joyful.  Not a bad tune, but ........when the average age of your congregation exceeds XXX, there's nobody left who can sing that high. 

[chrisbutch]

Think of sight-reading like the constant shifting between the view ahead and the rear-view mirror when driving. It doesn't mean you have consciously to 'remember' the one while attending to the other. The brain is perfectly capable of processing continuously discontinuous information like this.

[boxjuice]

Think of sight-reading like the constant shifting between the view ahead and the rear-view mirror when driving. It doesn't mean you have consciously to 'remember' the one while attending to the other. The brain is perfectly capable of processing continuously discontinuous information like this.

Really? This is a revelation. I thought when someone says they read 8 bars ahead, they're actively remembering 8 bars of music at any given point and if you took the sheet away they could continue playing for 8 bars

[louispodesta]

I can attest to "not get addicted to sight reading" if you are good at it.  I did that from about 10 to 50 years old and it completely arrested my memorizing development.  Of course the pendulum swung the other way and from 50, NO sight reading - only reading to memorize. 

I like Scriabin 1/2 bar.  Ligeti what?  ZERO?  Maybe 1 note ahead?  And there are worse.

And the same thing applies to memorizing!  Sight reading far into the future means there are nice patterns - a pattern does not need much to be memorized - just a few parameters - it is highly compressible.

But when you see great pianists playing avaunt garde, many read from sheet music.  (NOTE:  not because they cannot memorize it, but because it would take too much time to do it and the venue for such pieces is limited - so a ROI decision.

Gosh, every once and awhile someone (other than crazy Louis Podesta) shares an "on point" personal experience.  This particular analysis is perfect and exactly the way music performance and its associate pedagogy plays itself out in real life.

[chopinlover01]

1)  Quit reading Bach.  This is contrapuntal music, which is no way shape, manner or form resembles sight-reading repertoire from the 18th century onwards.lose the Bach!

Excuse you? Not that every pianist has to like Bach, of course, but to say that purely because he isn't the easiest thing to sight read (though the little preludes and fugues and the 2 part inventions aren't bad) that he should be thrown out is dumb.

2)  Bach was an organist, and all organists improvise.  He wasn't strictly sight-reading anything when he performed. *

.....and?

* Citation needed

3)  My late father could read half a page ahead, for real.  I turned pages for him as a child, therefore I know this to be true.

Personal anecdote fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

4)  I am an ASPY, who has an abnormal long term and also short term sight reading ability.  Even Jean Barr of Eastman could not teach me how to read.  However, I came up with a methodology of my own which allowed me to then sight-read the notes to 47 piano concertos (two a day) in the next five years.

47 concerti? Riiight. And I can play all the Liszt Transcendentals..
Post yourself sightreading even just one concerto all the way through, and I'll take you seriously.

5)  The Composer/Arranger Boris Berlin put together a series of 11 very short books, which have been adopted by the Royal Conservatory of Music.  They are not only graded in terms of difficulty, they (as I have used them) can be used to increase ones speed, in terms of sight reading.

Good for him. There are plenty of syllabi and other programs much like this, so I'm not sure why this is particularly noteworthy (unless you're just advertising this particular one).

7) 

Hey, 6 is a number too

That means, you read through the very short pieces of all eleven books, at a set metronome marking.  Then, (did I mention they are price-wise, dirt cheap) you gradually increase the speed, religiously sticking to your metronome regimen.

Yeah, you can do this... but it's not a particularly revolutionary idea like you're selling it to be.

#8)  This will automatically force your brain/eye to look ahead.

Not only is this not really deserving of its own point, but it's also not necessarily true. You can stick to that above schedule and just get really good at reading the exact spot you're at so quickly you can read fluently. It's just not a transferable strategy with complex music (like the Bach you mentioned).

9)  Please read no more than 20 minutes a day at the beginning of every practice session, which is important because the last two thing you want to do, in my opinion, is to get addicted to the page (not memorizing) and also having it become drudgery.  My late father couldn't memorize anything.

Not a ridiculous thing to say, the time limit, but the idea that large amounts of sight reading is damaging to your memory is false. I'm a part of two jazz combos, an orchestra chamber group, and I sight read for my own enjoyment regularly. If that were true, I'd probably look like I had musical Alzheimer's by now. Probably the connection has more to do with age than anything else.

10)  After this, start with the Mozart and then the Haydn Keyboard Sonatas, utilizing the same methodology.  Then, it is your choice to move on from there, utilizing the same methodology.

This is actually sound advice, though, so I have to give you credit where it's due.

[timothy42b]

10)  After this, start with the Mozart and then the Haydn Keyboard Sonatas, utilizing the same methodology.  Then, it is your choice to move on from there, utilizing the same methodology.

Thank you for your great question.  And once again, lose the Bach!

Sightreading is more specific to a genre and to some extent to a composer within a genre than usually realized, a very unappreciated element.  The advice to get comfortable with one area then move on to another (even if not what you intended) is good.  You can look further ahead when you recognize patterns, and they tend to repeat within a style. 

This is not dissimilar to reading detective fiction - you solve the crime because that's how that particular author usually works, not necessarily because the clues were all there. 

[louispodesta]

Sightreading is more specific to a genre and to some extent to a composer within a genre than usually realized, a very unappreciated element.  The advice to get comfortable with one area then move on to another (even if not what you intended) is good.  You can look further ahead when you recognize patterns, and they tend to repeat within a style. 

This is not dissimilar to reading detective fiction - you solve the crime because that's how that particular author usually works, not necessarily because the clues were all there. 

Thank you for your kind and most of all constructive words.  Regarding the OP, I cite the life of Earl Wild who was a phenomenal sight-reader and also a man who could memorize very large volumes of repertoire.

He grew up at a young age studying theory/harmony.  Then, along with the piano (from the age of four) he also grew proficient at the Cello.  So proficient, he played in the Cello section of the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of 13!  Parenthetically, please produce for me a pianist who can also play any of the lower bass instruments who cannot sight-read their arses off (the bass line, hint, hint).

During this time, someone taught him the basics of composition/arranging.  And, this was jazz arranging ("dcstudio").  Parenthetically, for all of you very old farts out there, he was the staff arranger/pianist for the Sid Caesar television show.

He was so good at it that a nightclub owner from Miami offered him"$1,300 a week" (in the early 1940's) to go down and play in his club.  Earl Wild, preferring to focus on his classical repertoire, turned it down.

His father went nuts, and soon later "TOOK OFF."  Then, from his early teens, Earl Will supported his mother and brother by writing arrangements and playing in the Pittsburgh Symphony.

The point of all this is if you study composition (the way every pianist, organist, violinist did in the 18th and 19th centuries), then (in terms of sight reading), it is all on the same page.

In my City of San Antonio there is a composer/organist who can do it all.  He is, worldwide (as well as historically), one of millions of students who have been taught the traditional method of music matriculation.

That is:  instrument instruction, composition/theory instruction, ensemble performance, and then solo performance.

[richard black]

I'm a very good sight reader and, as an opera repetiteur, do it as part of my job (if you're playing for opera auditions, even after as many years as I've been doing it, once in a while someone comes in with an aria you just don't know and have to make sense of on the spot). It's not quite as simple as 'how far ahead do you read' because one tends to read a variable amount ahead with varying degrees of precision. To get an idea of the musical flow, you need to take in things a few bars ahead, but only roughly. To get the right notes you read much less far ahead than that. At least, this is how I find it goes.

One of the most remarkable sight readers in recent memory was John Ogdon, whom I saw do it on several occasions (I swear I once caught him sight reading in a public concert in a major venue). Ronald Stevenson, the composer, told me he once gave a newly composed piece to John to play at sight. Ronald turned pages. John appeared to be nodding ridiculously early for page turns, but Ronald turned the usual bar or so ahead anyway. After a few turns he decided to turn exactly where John nodded, and the guy had perfectly memorised several seconds of music. But the fact he could still do very well with the piece when the page was turned only a bar ahead suggests he was also reading close to where he was playing.

[timothy42b]

 John appeared to be nodding ridiculously early for page turns, but Ronald turned the usual bar or so ahead anyway.

I get asked to turn pages often.  I absolutely HATE that!  Their head bobs and you think they nodded, or they forget to nod and you have to guess, and they always blame you.  Page turners should get the same pay as the performer. 

[iansinclair]

I get asked to turn pages often.  I absolutely HATE that!  Their head bobs and you think they nodded, or they forget to nod and you have to guess, and they always blame you.  Page turners should get the same pay as the performer. 

Oh yes indeed.  A good page turner is worth their weight in gold!  I have had ones, from time to time, over the years (I was an organist for decades, only lately a pianist, and organists almost always use the music -- or improvise).  The good ones not only would cheerfully turn pages correctly and not drop the music, would also help with registration changes and that sort of bother!

[alatrousse]

Barring AUTISM! there is but few ways to improve the sightreading.  I know them all.  Read my book!  Ive also asked her lady of [[]] and I can tell you what she said too.  PM me! A delight to know. Hint, Hairiest Pottier's wordplay street tells the eyes which ROAD to take!

regards (better)

Burn HARD!

[chopinlover01]

Barring AUTISM! there is but few ways to improve the sightreading.  I know them all.  Read my book!  Ive also asked her lady of [[]] and I can tell you what she said too.  PM me! A delight to know. Hint, Hairiest Pottier's wordplay street tells the eyes which ROAD to take!

regards (better)

Burn HARD!

[xdjuicebox]

Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert? Easy. 3 bars ahead at least.

Bach fugues/Ligeti/Schoenberg? Can barely read the beat I'm on.