Group 4
One of the most valued skills in music is having the ability to sightread with ease. That is because it aids in so many things: learning music quickly, being able to play with friends/colleagues on minimal practice time, and most importantly, being able to evaluate a new piece and its possibilities!
Join Leann as she leads a new Two Week Intensive designed to improve your sightreading through focused advice, tips, exercises, and more! Letās start playing NEW music!
- Course Period: October 17th - 28th
- Class Size: max. 4 Groups Ć” 10 Participants
- Optional check-In via Zoom: October 24th at 3pm Pacific time!
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89265945226?pwd=NS9iTEd0aFJ2ME03TUs1Y2tTaExYZz09
Assignment 1
Assignment 2
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Hello everyone! My sight-reading ability definitely needs improving. I struggle to read ahead when i'm playing and find it difficult to pick out patterns quickly enough. When I do try to practice sight-reading my head hurts, and my brain goes into a lockdown! But i'm pretty stoical and like to keep soldiering on. I've decided to choose one of the easy Burgmuller etudes for this exercise. Thank you, Leann for your instruction, i'm excited to jump in.
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Jenny I was in your shoes! Donāt give up, it just takes practice :)
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Looking forward to this! I started working on my sight reading this summer because the gulf between the current repertoire I'm learning and my ability to sight read is so large it's ridiculous. It's difficult for me to look ahead, even a couple notes. I've managed to get by this far because I can memorize fairly quickly, so I don't actually read much. I'm interested in composition. I'd like to be able to read through repertoire that I never plan to play more than once or twice as a way to browse for ideas or learn common practices of a particular time period.
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Leah Olson What a great goal to have, Leah. Have you decided on a particular piece to try out for this week's intensive yet? I'm harbouring the bizarre thought that I might tackle a few of the Burgmuller pieces, rather than just one, but that thought might dissolve in an hour or so
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Jenny I saw your early comment that you were thinking about Burgmuller, and thought that was a great idea. I might do the same. They're very well written, and representative of that time period.
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Leah Olson I've had a go at number 4, La Petite Reunion today, just the first few bars. I just wanted to follow Leann' s guidance to see if I understood what to do. I'll have another go tomorrow. Glad you like the idea too
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Hi Leann and Group 4,
I'm excited to participate in this Intensive. I have been fortunate to have had sight-reading as a strength in my childhood. My teacher entered me into some festival competition sight-reading classes, and it was frightening but not terrible.
Now, as a returning pianist, my sight-reading is still good, but I could use tips to overcome my struggles which include encountering:
- Large span chords, having small hands - deciding quickly whether I should roll it or drop notes & which to drop
- Tempos of Allegro & faster
- Ornaments - trills, ambiguous markings, imagining what they are supposed to sound like, by composer -- like it's Bach so "tr" should be ____, or it's Mozart so "tr" should be ____ ...
- Comping lines, for example:
- Chords with several accidentals
- Odd time signatures
- Key signatures with more than 4 sharps or flats
- More than 3 leger lines to count down below or up above the staff
- Transposing - when a vocalist says the score is not in her/his/their key...
- Keeping up and developing sight-reading skill as an approaching senior citizen with degrading eyesight and reactiveness
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Grace Wow, I never even knew that competitive sight-reading was a thing! I thought everyone just hid in a cupboard away from society until they had managed to scrape something together that sounded not too awful. Perhaps this is where i've been going wrong?
Your goals are amazing, i'm afraid i'm still at a level where hitting the right note is something to celebrate! (btw I'm 56 now, and I find the changes in my eyesight very frustrating too). -
Grace hereās some helpful ideas below. My comments are after the ## markers :)
- Large span chords, having small hands - deciding quickly whether I should roll it or drop notes & which to drop
- ## I would say that, except where indicated, leave out notes when Sightreading. Rolling can distort the tempo or character of a section.
- Tempos of Allegro & faster
- ## faster tempos will often require you to leave out more than desired, when first learning. Stick with melody and select elements that help distinguish the texture/harmony/character of a section.
- Ornaments - trills, ambiguous markings, imagining what they are supposed to sound like, by composer -- like it's Bach so "tr" should be ____, or it's Mozart so "tr" should be ____ ...
- ## this is a lot of performance practice research! Reading treatises from the Baroque era can help give a basis for ornaments. Thatās a much bigger topic than what I can cover on this thread, although a cool topic! I would say that, until you have a solid foundation in how ornaments are stylistically used for each composer, leave them out when Sightreading.
- Comping lines, for example:
## this actually looks like measures of rest, as comping lines, at least in many scores, have different notation. This is more to do with improvisation, rather than Sightreading, although there is a lot of overlap between the two :)
- Chords with several accidentals
- ## this takes practice. Try finding the simplest ātriadā you can in big complex chords to at least get a start on what the harmony will be.
- Odd time signatures
- ## this comes with practice. I would recommend clapping and singing a few measures to get a feel of the time signature, prior to playing
- Key signatures with more than 4 sharps or flats
- ## practice makes perfect on this :) I recommend using highlighters to highlight sharp/flat notes in the score when first learning, to start seeing the keyboard patterns of each key signature. Donāt write in the sharps/flatsā¦ it just makes everything look more cluttered and confusing haha!
- More than 3 leger lines to count down below or up above the staff
## when Sightreading, WRITE IN the note nameā¦ You wonāt have time to think at that moment.
- Transposing - when a vocalist says the score is not in her/his/their key...
- ## ask ToneBase to have me do a whole separate class on this ;)
- Keeping up and developing sight-reading skill as an approaching senior citizen with degrading eyesight and reactiveness
- ## maybe try reading on an iPad so that you can Zoom in on sections for bigger font? :)
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Leann Osterkamp Thank you for the advice. I have tried both your checklist approach and sight-reading cold without any previewing and analysis and the checklist is certainly very helpful, provided there's time...
I do have an iPad with ForScore, but if I zoom in & out, I have to stop playing. I have an AirTurn Duo too, but haven't figured out how to program it to zoom in & out. Anyone know?
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o.k, this exercise has been very revealing for me. Much harder than at first it seemed. My first attempt was on Burgmullers "La petite Reunion". I knew the tempo would be too fast for me, so slowed that down to a crawl. I thought some of the thirds fingering might be tricky too so planned to just play the top line. It looks so easy, but I really struggled to make any sense of it. Lots of hesitations. So i've tried another, "Innocence", and simplified it even more. Yes, it was a bit better, fewer hesitations and I could feel the rhythm better, but in all honesty it still was not my finest hour. I've discovered that what I think looks easy enough, is in fact still too much for me at my current level. I'm guessing that this is one of the reasons it takes me soooo long to learn a piece of music. I know all of the notes, but I just can't think quickly enough in the moment, which means I never have the time to look ahead and prepare for the next phrase. I'll keep practicing, but will probably have to find some even easier pieces, or perhaps stick to just a couple of bars. Although i'm a bit deflated, I think this is a HUGE learning moment for me - to find out what exactly is realistic. I think this will help me set better, more achievable goals overall with my practice. I'm looking forward to hearing how everyone else is getting on.
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Jenny donāt feel discouraged! Sightreading has nothing to do with oneās comprehension of the score. Instead, itās like looking at a paragraph and pulling out bullet points at a fast speedā¦. It is a different mental process and just takes practice to switch into.
For me, I found that shorter pieces were the key to me learning how to sightread faster. One summer, I played over 120 vocal songs (ranging 1-3 pages in length). That was the summer that transformed my Sightreading.
if you can perfect your process on a 1 page long piece, you will be able to apply that learning to a 12 page pieceā¦. Itās just like doing 1 page 12 times haha!
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Leann Osterkamp Thank you so much for your encouraging words, Leann. I'll take on the 120 challenge over winter!
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Thank you to Jenny for suggesting Burgmuller. I picked "Le Courant Limpide" because my sight reading skills are low, but it also looked like a pretty piece and I liked the title. I liked Leann's first recommendation of figuring out what your goal is, which for me is to browse for compositional ideas. Before I played the piece, I didn't think about the fact that oscillating between G and D in the left hand would set up a nice rocking feeling which makes sense given the title. I did look through the shape of the line for the right hand before I played it. I was trying to have an idea of where I was going--like when you're driving and you mostly look right in front of you but you are aware that there is a stop sign at the end of the block.
I think what I would do differently next time would be to only play the quarters notes in the right hand on the first pass because the shape of the phrases are interesting. There is a rise and fall in each phrase, but they also cross the barline, which gives it a more fluid sound. Since I was focused somewhat on individual notes, I only brought out those right hand quarters in a couple spots.
Setting my goal beforehand may be feel better about my read through, which wasn't great, but I did get something out of it. I'll attach a photo of the score and my video.
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Leah Olson bravo Leah! That sounded really pretty. It's so helpful to see how you approached this piece, very calm and thoughtful. You kept an even tempo, and this is one of the things I've found so difficult. Really lovely, well done you!
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Jenny Thank you! I was putting off this assignment because I was anxious about making a recording, but I saw that you had already made a post and that helped push me forward
I've been working on improving terrible performance anxiety--making recordings is excellent exposure therapy. -
Leah Olson that sounds so pretty, and you play it in a very calm and collected way!
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Leah Olson great job!! I think you did the right idea, since the arpeggiated texture is really what gives the understanding of the texture of the piece. I think your inclination to do just the quarter notes in the RH is actually great for your second run throughā¦. It will allow you to experiment with slightly faster tempo and get more information about phrasing :) bravo!
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Natalie Peh Thank you!
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Leann Osterkamp Great suggestion. Thank you!
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Thank you Leann, this second video is also incredibly helpful. I would never have thought of simplifying the score in these ways. It makes collaboration sound doable even at my basic level. I'm excited to put this in to practice later.
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This was so great! I like how you made up a specific scenario. Watching you cut things was very freeing for me. Part of the reason I'm working on my sight reading is I'd like to start playing duets. I'm actually meeting a potential partner later this week. I tend to be a perfectionist, but the point of this is to just have fun. I think I'll try out your tips on a piece from FaurƩ's Dolly Suite for my video this week. I'll think about how I would simplify it enough for the first read through of the piece if we were looking through potential repertoire at my house. Thanks so much!
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Leah Olson yes, being an advanced Sight-reader is NOT equivalent to playing a score āperfectly,ā as written. Itās about having fun and making the music sound pleasing and as close to the desired style as possible :)
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My scenario is sight reading through pieces with a friend of mine who lives out of town, is an experienced pianist and vocalist, but is very rusty and a little shy about her playing. In this scenario, we are trying to decide on a piece we would both like to spend the next 4-6 weeks practicing in order to play together the next time we see each other.
I played the first two sections of "The Garden of Dolly" by FaurƩ (Op. 56, No. 3). I'm not experienced at sight reading, but I do learn relatively quickly. I wanted to pick something that was difficult enough I would enjoy spending a few weeks learning it. I left the primo part for my friend because it's easier throughout this opus, and she could sight read the right hand only and be fine.
There are four sharps in the key signature, lots of accidentals, and I'm not as quick at reading bass clef as I am at treble clef. My goal was to play the bass line at a slow but steady tempo, and work in a little bit of the right hand to get a sense of the rhythmic and harmonic structure, but overall make it easy for my partner to concentrate on playing as much of the melody as possible.
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Leah Olson great job! By focusing on the LH, you are giving a solid rhythmic foundation for the duo and getting a sense of the harmony by sprinkling in other notes, when possible.
I recommend using a highlighter when you have complicated key signaturesā¦ just highlight notes that are sharp or flatā¦ helps in the learning process and teaches your eye to start seeing key signature patterns!
also, donāt be afraid to take smaller sections. Experiment with taking 3 measures at a time. You might find that you can play more of the notes if you absorb in smaller bites
nice work!
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