 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DLE
Date: 2000-07-07 11:27
Hi. Yesterday was a complete nightmare, as I went in for my Associated Board grade 7 piano exam. I got to the sight-reading part of the exam after playing some pieces badly, and it was a nightmare. It took me 6 or 7 minutes just to get through it! I've always never been very good at sight-reading on the clarinet, and even worse at it on the piano. How do the people here recommend that one prepares for sight-reading, and improving on it?
I already have a few ideas, like getting as many pieces as possible and sight-reading them one by one.......
(An enlightened, cheering-up kind of response would help me overcome my worst nightmare)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-07-07 11:32
DLE wrote:
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I already have a few ideas, like getting as many pieces as possible and sight-reading them one by one.......
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That's a good start - but may I suggest that you have someone who is a good musician listen to you along with another copy of the score? That does 2 things - 1) It checks for the accuracy of your sightreading and 2) puts a bit of "pressure" on you similar to what you encounter during an exam. That way you get to practice the situation along with the music.
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Author: Pam
Date: 2000-07-07 12:16
My teacher stresses practicing the techniques that occur again and again in many different pieces of music -- i.e. the "exercise" part of many lesson books.
He also mentioned to me that before you start to play when sight-reading, take a minute to look over the music (if possible) to see what's in there. Then you're not as surprised by what happens in the music.
Don't be discouraged, use this as a stepping stone rather than something you stumble over. :-)
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-07-07 12:19
Good ideas, Mark. One way I improved my own sight-reading was to work hard on music theory, particulary on scales. Pattern recognition is crucial to good sight-reading. I think the most important part of sight-reading is the moment of *silence* before you play one note, when you leaf through the music and analyse it. If you can see at a glance that a long run is a chromatic scale, for instance, you can play the run smoothly and confidently, instead of worrying about one note at a time. If you recognize the key signature at a glance, and know what keys the composer is most likely to modulate into from the signature key, you're way ahead. For instance, if the key signature has no flats or sharps, and the piece begins on the note A, you're in A minor, not C major -- but the composer will probably modulate into C major from time to time. If you notice that the piece ends on a C, then you know the composer works toward ending it on a "happier" C major chord than the A minor in which it began. That tells you something about interpretation. But if the last note is an A, then you might want to build in a more dramatic and melancholy "feel" to the piece all the way, because the composer has chosen to end in the minor key. If you see loads of accidentals, then the composer does a lot of modulating. Look at the patterns of the accidentals before you start playing and you can probably figure out those key signatures (major or minor?), too. If you see a run that begins and ends on C and has B-flat, E-flat and A-flat in it, then you know the composer modulates into C minor. Knowing your C minor scale means you can play that run confidently, too. Looking over the music for this type of information *before* you play a note gives you a very good idea of what it ought to sound like -- whether it's gloomy or cheerful or dramatic or even humorous (as you can sometimes spot if the composer makes brief, wild jumps into key signatures that normally don't "live together"). You won't run up against so many surprises and confusions while you're in the middle of playing. But this tactic only works if you know your scales.
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Author: S.Koumas
Date: 2000-07-07 20:09
Hi,
I have been told that when i have to site read, that i should straight away look at the key/time sig and then look for notes which look difficult and then look for difficult rythymes!!! it helps m, but also remember people learn in different ways!!!
Hope it helps!!!
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Author: Kontragirl
Date: 2000-07-08 01:55
As my band director always says, the only way to improve sightreading is to do it. I'm not a very good sight reader either. I just might be crazy, but I think composing has helped me. I hear a lot of rhythms and I think more musically.
A good sightreading techique that I use is I look through the piece for key changes, tempo chances, that kind of thing. Next, I look for details such as dynamics and articulation. Then I clap or sing through as much as the song as I can, or at least through the tough rhythms.
It will get better with practice, I'm an example. I'm still not the best, but I'm a heck of a lot better than I was. Good luck!
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Author: Tim
Date: 2000-07-08 20:59
I was always taught that one of the fundamental points for good reading of music was to read it from the bottom of the stave, or staves, up.
A number of things I think has helped me greatly in this respect. I think one of them was being forced to compose for GCSE. I felt that if I was going to do it, I would do it properly, and so I delved into a great big book of Chopin mazurkas, and anything else I could get my hands on, and studied intensely the harmonic progressions. I think that you'd get the same result from studying music theory at post Grade-5 level. After a while you start to see patterns emerging and can pretty much guess what a piece is going to do, even if you haven't seen it before.
Again, the obvious method is to do lots of sight-reading. This is what I do most of the time when I'm playing, but be warned - as I think someone pointed out earlier - make sure someone's monitering you, or you'll form all manner of nasty habits.
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Author: Barbara
Date: 2000-07-09 04:41
Since Grade 7 is a pretty high grade, I suspect that sometimes the piece may be a "modern" piece meaning that it doesn't adhere to the normal rules of theory elucidated above. The solution? try out some modern stuff too like Bartok or Prokofiev. However, the piece is uaually fair; if it'a really complicated like b major or discordant chords then the tempo usually isn't too fast. Just remember, never look back! I remember one of my bloopers was saying "sorry" when playing a wrong note... how embarrassing that was
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Author: Meredith H
Date: 2000-07-10 04:03
I am also not very good at sight reading or reading out loud for that matter. I have improved at bit with age but basically now I am better at reading musical rhythms. We were given a piece to sight read in band on Sunday in which I had a solo that was filled with accidentals. The bits I couldn't play I sung much to the amusement of the rest of the band. I don't know how you prepare for pieces like this, in fact I don't really think you can.
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Author: DLE
Date: 2000-07-11 12:53
Yes! Thank you everyone for trying to cheer me up - especially Barbara. I'd thought of most of the things everyone said, except Mark of course, but what Barbara said had really got me thinking. Yes, this sight-reading piece definetly was modern, and did not follow the usual harmonic patterns - it would go from one octave of the piano to another etc. etc. So, I guess now that I'm in the higher grades, I would need to practice sight-reading those kind of pieces, and this is where I believed I went wrong.
I was sight-reading the wrong types of pieces all along, and creating my own worst nightmare!
Thanks again everyone - Full marks to Barbara.
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Author: Tim
Date: 2000-07-12 07:13
Just remembered something really important. Now I don't know whether you know this, and I'm pointing out something elementary, but I'll give it a shot anyhow. You need to be able to reckognise intervals Just-like-that, as Tommy Cooper used to say. If you see a second-inversion F chord, don't think C-F-A, but C with a fourth and a sixth. I know that in essence this is the same thing but after a lot of practice it will really help as you spend less time reading the notes. It also helps with reading melodic lines, too. Now I realise that in grade 7+ they aren't going to give you nice easy chords like the aforementioned F chord, but the same principle can just as easily be applied to those more dissonant chords, too. Hope this has been of any help to you.
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Author: Chloe
Date: 2000-07-13 18:37
I hate sight-reading too and my teacher made me buy theis book by Paul Harris called improve your sight-reading. They come in different grade levels and have sections which help you improve different things. it really helped me. A word of warning if you've just done grade 7 don't do the 8 book as they're all reallt hard. When i started to use them i'd just done Grade 6 and my teacher had me get the Grade 4/5 book to sort out basic problems first!
Hope this helps,
Chloe
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