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 Sight Reading
Author: Clarinetbiter135 
Date:   2003-08-14 02:51

I was just told by a graduate student at my college that the there is no other way to practice sightreading but by doing it. I had never really thought about it to tell you the truth. Is this true?

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 Re: Sight Reading
Author: allencole 
Date:   2003-08-14 04:27

There is no substitute for seeing and deciphering strange new things. Your grad student friend is right on the money.

Separate factors which CONTRIBUTE to good sightreading include solid finger technique, and accurate, concentrated counting. You can practice those apart from sightreading and they will help but--there's no substitute for putting you on the spot.

The good new is that it doesn't have to cost you that much. You can borrow material, sightread it, and then return it to its owner.

Allen Cole

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 Re: Sight Reading
Author: Cindy 
Date:   2003-08-14 04:40

It also helps if you know your scales and arpeggios really well. In a lot of music, runs are based on these to some extent.

So many instruments to play........so little time to play them!

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 Re: Sight Reading
Author: sfalexi 
Date:   2003-08-14 05:25

Or turn music upside down. That poses a challenge because sometimes it won't even sound like "music". Or sight-transpose it. This doesn't really do much for sight "reading" (since it'll sound the same, just a step up or down or whatever the case might be), but does wonders for sight-transposing which is also a valuable skill.

Of course, it doesn't have to be clarinet music. It could be flute, trumpet, violin/viola, whatever. Just keep in mind that some ranges will be out for you.

Alexi

US Army Japan Band

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 Re: Sight Reading
Author: Hank Lehrer 
Date:   2003-08-14 11:08


sfalexi, when using music that is out of range when sight-reading, you can mentally just take things up or down an octave. I do this all the time when practicing clarinet music on the sax or using flute with clarinet or sax. I'm not sure that turning things up-side down is all that great of a thing but transposing is a very vaulable skill.

Cindy, right on. I was playing something in community band last week (a Bob Hope Salute) and there was suddenly a run that looked like all sharps right across the break until you realized it was just an A concert scale but starting on the 5th as I recall.

IMHO one of the reasons so much music can often be scales or arpeggios is those are harmonically corrrect unless they are passing, escape, or other non-harmonic tones. Back to basic theory.

HRL

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 Re: Sight Reading
Author: ClaRiNeT_CaNdY 
Date:   2003-08-16 05:41


The only way to improve sight reading is to sight read, as many pieces as possible, so when you encounter the same rhythm it'll be much easier

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