 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-09 13:59
Yet again, another spinoff from another post.
It seems to me that clarinetists are encouraged to almost "cheat" by practicing the orchestral excerpts that they are most likely to encounter as a "sight-reading test". I don't even see the purpose of the sight-reading test anymore. If someone does well on it, how do the judges know that it was actually good sightreading versus whether they've run across and practiced that excerpt before? It seems to defeat the purpose of "sightreading".
I also see this stuff in other parts of society. Beauty pageant competitor's practicing their "possible interview questions", so just in case one comes up, they will magically appear to have thought up a wonderful, "spur of the moment" response.
However some searches on the definition of "sight reading" got me these main two . . .
1) Sight reading is reading and playing a piece of music without having seen the sheet music or other musical notation before. ....In some circumstances, such as examinations, the ability of a student to sight read is assessed by presenting the student with a short piece of music, giving the student an allotted time to examine the music and prepare to play the music, then testing the student on the proficiency of how the student plays.
2) Sight-reading -- working definition: Playing unfamiliar music from scores
So now what happens when the orchestra picks a certain person to be the top dog and discovers later that they really can't sight-read worth beans, but just happened to have THOSE particular excerpts under their fingers? Anything?
And I also admit I'll probably study those excerpts as well to do well, however at this point more along the lines because I don't want to lose to someone else who has studied them. So I feel I basically have to EQUALIZE myself and for a fair shot at advancing or getting picked for _____, I have to show that I'm at the same level. Which I won't be if someone has practiced the solo from Mendohlsson's Scherzo a thousand times and I've only heard it in concert or on a CD.
Alexi
Thoughts? Comments?
US Army Japan Band
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-04-09 14:12
I guess one could wonder about the purpose of sight reading....at all. What purpose does it serve when musical performance per se is based on hour after hour of practice. But cheating in this area is nothing new. Maybe it has a political basis.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-09 14:43
Quote:
I guess one could wonder about the purpose of sight reading....at all. What purpose does it serve when musical performance per se is based on hour after hour of practice. The instructor at my college states that he's often had to sightread compositions. For recording studios, and even for concerts (while on tour). He says that sometimes he would consider it a lucky day if they were allowed ONE runthrough before the concert. I think he was refferring to a band he was in that toured A LOT and had a book with over a hundred different pieces in it. You really can't do TOO much on the bus, you get off the bus, have MAYBE a few hours before the performance, play, eat, get back on the bus to a hotel, try to get a few hours of sleep, and start again in the morning heading for the new destination. (I also think it was a summer band so it wasn't his LIFE, just something he did in the summer). That's an extreme, however the recording studio or a freelancer that subs MUST have superb sightreading skills. Unless they were 'faked' . . .
I'm just wondering on people's thoughts. Sort of playing the "devil's advocate" here. Although I really don't think it's all THAT fair.
I think maybe a judge, if the person played something unbelievably well should go over there and flip the sheet music upside and say, "Ok. NOW play". It'd provide some interesting (and perhaps more accurate) results. That's for sure!
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: obtuse
Date: 2004-04-09 21:00
I always figured it was a good thing to practice your orchestral excerpts -- first the ones you're more likely going to be made to play, and then the rest of them (just 'cause you should). I guess it's either you're a fantastic sight-reader, or you just practice enough so that there's just nothing (just to make a point) that you haven't seen before. 'Course all that playing I'm sure would improve all aspects of playing anyway, including sight-reading.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-04-09 21:25
My first exposure to sight reading was back in 1939 and it was school band contest related. In retrospect I suppose the requirement had something to do with general musicianship and surely there must be some benefit to learning how to sight read more proficiently. But, as I inferred previously, I think the benefits are overrated. And I am aware that "the IN crowd" knew what the sight reading pieces were beforehand.....even for the entire band much less for individuals.
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Author: Contra
Date: 2004-04-09 21:35
It always bothered me that sightreading involved using previously written pieces, mostly because I couldn't be sure that others hadn't come across it yet. It be better if new music was written just for the occasion.
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Author: Robyn
Date: 2004-04-09 21:37
Are there really auditions/competitions where you are supposed to "sight read" excerpts? The only competition or audition I have ever seen with orchestral excerpts, the excerpts were announced ahead of time and all participants were expected to practice those excerpts. The competitions I've been in with sight reading always use a brand new piece if it's for band, and solo competitions usually use a piece/etude for a different instrument, all in order to increase the likelihood that no one has seen the music before.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-10 01:12
(BobD) >> My first exposure to sight reading was back in 1939 and it was school band contest related. In retrospect I suppose the requirement had something to do with general musicianship and surely there must be some benefit to learning how to sight read more proficiently. But, as I inferred previously, I think the benefits are overrated. And I am aware that "the IN crowd" knew what the sight reading pieces were beforehand.....even for the entire band much less for individuals. <<
1939 was a ways back, Bob...in a nice way, I mean. Live music came cheap. Dancing was considered entertainment. Sure there was a crippling depression, but playing gigs (however rinky-dink) were everywhere. There were places to suck, frankly. :-) Players at all levels got to blow for some kind of an audience. Even the big bands had their share of nonreaders, because the time and money to rehearse (and rehearse and REHEARSE) were a lot easier to get hold of then.
2004, and eons have passed. 1939 is so long ago that it basically never even happened. Almost all music is canned. With TV, internet, etc., people don't dance just for fun anymore. So live music is a loss proposition most of the time. Smaller bands, electronics, etc., take the lion's share of live gigs. They have to take up a very small "footprint" if they're going to exist at all. Forget rehearsing. Gotta lay out the bread for that. And there are so many more styles, all of which represent badly-needed opportunities to gig, so all must be learned till they become automatic.
Basically, all musicians today have to have the skills of studio musicians. All the more so for woodwind players, who were indispensible to any pop combo in 1939, but nowadays are almost irrelevant outside of classical music. So all of us have to have at least some classical skills to compete with the conservatory-trained, who will get most of the opportunities (and not all of them will, either).
In this context, performing is a privilege that must be earned economically as well as musically. Only the very, very best are getting to play for people (never mind money), and even they have to hit the ground running.
The musical benefits are beside the point – the economic reality wags the dog. Any good player can sound good given enough time to get it down. But sightreaders save time and money, and that's all that's important. Well, maybe not all. They also cull the field, which is hopelessly overpopulated to begin with.
The benefits of sightreading probably ARE overrated – I think of it more as a by-product of good musicianship, a goal to shoot for, than a tool that develops other playing skills. But the way things are, we are just going to have to put up with it. The depression is still on for us, and it's more or less permanent...
Post Edited (2004-04-10 01:24)
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Author: Wicked Good ★2017
Date: 2004-04-10 01:43
"The benefits of sightreading probably ARE overrated...."
I couldn't disagree more with that quote (but strongly agree with the rest of paulwl's post). Speaking only from my own experiences, there have been many times when I was hired onto a gig at the last moment without having the benefit of practicing, rehearsing or even having ever heard the music. In these circumstances one absolutely had to sightread the music on the gig ... or the phone stopped ringing.
Granted that very few of these were orchestral clarinet gigs, but rather were one-night commercial gigs like circus bands, dance bands, show bands, etc.
Those experiences made me very glad that my college clarinet studio professor demanded that we sightread every day, and often during lessons. To this day it's much easier for me to go into a gig blind than it would be if I hadn't been browbeaten (figuratively) into doing so much sightreading. I wish I had time to do more of it now!
<rant>Boy, I miss those pre-karaoke, pre-DJ days. Now any idiot with an iPod and a microphone can play DJ for a night and take bread from real, working live musicians.</rant>
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-04-10 13:54
"1939 is so long ago that it basically never even happened. "
I'm sure you are kidding; it was just before Pearl Harbor which has been well documented.
As I recall, the original post was regarding symphonic orchestral auditions. My experience involved school bands. I can see where the kinds of work you are involved in makes sight reading an important skill.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-10 15:59
All right. I guess that (in the words of one prehistoric radio comedian) I got some 'splainin' to do.
Wicked:
Would you please take a second to check out what I wrote after the dash below? I think you might have stopped reading a bit early. Perhaps I pushed a button or two, for which I apologize.
(me)>> The benefits of sightreading probably ARE overrated – I think of it more as a by-product of good musicianship, a goal to shoot for, than a tool that develops other playing skills. <<
Getting the phone to keep ringing (a benefit of sightreading ability) isn't strictly a *playing* skill. It's a skill that earns you the privilege to *keep* playing. Even a few excellent musicians are poor sightreaders, although their phones don't ring as often, if at all.
I'm honestly a little conflicted that you agree with the rest of what I wrote. It's pretty damn cynical, although as someone whose musicianship far exceeds his reading skills, I think I come by that cynicism honestly. Music is something of a cynical pursuit even for pure art's sake. Idealistic in abstract, but often cynical in practice.
Bob:
>> (me)> "1939 is so long ago that it basically never even happened. " <
(you)>> I'm sure you are kidding; it was just before Pearl Harbor which has been well documented. <<
Only half-kidding. Talk to most well-educated people, read the popular press, and there's much more consciousness of what happened after Pearl Harbor than before it. (The exceptions in pop culture seem to be baseball and movies.) 60 years - more often 50 - is kind of the cutoff date for what the average person feels is relevant to their lives. What happened before that falls off into kind of a collective unconscious.
I by no means endorse this world view. But then again, I'm an old history major, and as I note above, a practicing cynic.
>> As I recall, the original post was regarding symphonic orchestral auditions. My experience involved school bands. <<
Well, on some basic level school band contests (now usually called competitions) are about encouraging ideals of musicianship, which in the right hands can take the young player to any level. I do agree that reading is much more important the higher you go. But it's important on more levels than ever now.
Frankly, symphonic music interests me only as a listener, so I hope I can be forgiven the digression to the bigger picture. Which I conclude herewith.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-11 16:00
At day's end, S, I agree sightreading is crucially important to being a complete player, and someday, when the sound of such hectoring as the above dies out of my mind's ear enough that I can parse one bar of music while playing another, I hope to bring my skills in that area up to a much higher level.
Post Edited (2004-04-11 16:15)
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-04-11 16:57
Well, Alexi, the classical library is pretty broad, and if a candidate actually invested the effort in practicing every last phrase that could potentially be on an audition sightreading list, well, he or she deserves some points for that. In truth, investing the time in developing fundamentals in sightreading rather than practicing every note ever written will pay more dividends. How can you possibly invest enough time to polish every excerpt out there?
As SWK said, the fundamentals (scales, transposing, articulation, etc.) will put you in a better place where that is concerned. Great sightreaders will play something on a first or second read with the precision and confidence of a well practiced piece. A paying audience, jingle house or record label expects no less. How much practicing can you get in when they hand you a chart at 2pm and roll tape at 2:05? Or as JJM could tell you from the front lines, if a sub is called in the pit, he better be able to read the book cold.
Sightreading is part of what we do. Definitely do the orchestral excerpts, but carve out that time to practice Baermann and then grab an etude you've never seen before and play it without stopping. Then play it again a step up.
Enjoy
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-12 23:30
(msloss) >> Great sightreaders will play something on a first or second read with the precision and confidence of a well practiced piece. A paying audience, jingle house or record label expects no less. <<
Frankly, I think your average paying audience member would be flabbergasted to learn that that fluent reader had never seen the music before. Many assume that since actors and singers rehearse, instrumentalists must also.
I'm also a little troubled because what you wrote above implies that there might actually be something artistically superior in a sightread performance. I can't imagine you actually intended that, but you do speak strongly on the topic.
I reiterate that the primary benefit in fluent sightreading is logistical and economical. It saves time and money, and in non-popular music, that is as close to "the whole ball game" as makes no difference.
Post Edited (2004-04-12 23:41)
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-04-13 12:51
Paul -- If you can't sightread, you will spend most of your time on notes and rhythms, and almost none of it on artistry and nuance. Sighreading rehearsals are also an essential part of ensemble preparation. We get music and we read it down, allowing for technical glitches, to figure out where we need to spend time and what we want to do with it artistically.
Clearly to deliver a definitive and beautiful performance of a work there is a great deal of study involved as to the composer's intentions, performance practice, and of course what you as a performer want to infuse into the work. So yes, I do think there is something artistically superior in so far as strong sightreaders are able to invest more in preparing a performance and less on preparing notes. Sightread performances on the other hand are also appropriate in certain situations as I mentioned in my prior post.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-13 15:53
Wasn't it Erroll Garner who said, "No one can *hear* you read"? Of course he played jazz piano, not classical clarinet, and almost never did he play in an ensemble. But those are situational considerations.
(To be fair, Garner's saying has a converse that's equally true: Everyone can hear you *misread*.)
Bottom line, he had a prodigious ear, and too much fluency to possibly have been worrying about Playing The Notes (a good number of his recordings were done in one take). And reportedly, no reading ability at all, sight or otherwise. Yet no one could argue he was incapable of a high level of artistry.
You mention also time – in fact assume a barely adequate amount of it to prepare. Of course prep time is always finite, but still it's a situational consideration.
I'm still not convinced that sightreading isn't primarily an *imposed* requirement – one that has become so accepted that we confuse it with being intrinsic and indispensible to a high level of performance. It didn't have to be that way; we've made it so.
(BTW, m, I *do* sightread. Not fluently enough to win any audition you might administer, although I'm sure that if I were unkinder to myself in the practice room, I'd do much better. I never found a way to do it that didn't make me feel as if I'd been dragged behind a gravel truck, and maybe that is my real failing.)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-04-13 15:59
paulwl wrote:
> I'm still not convinced that sightreading isn't primarily an
> *imposed* requirement – one that has become so accepted that
> we confuse it with being intrinsic and indispensible to a high
> level of performance.
The first time you're asked at the last minute to sub for a sick player will be your last if you can't sit down and sightread the piece. Including in a jazz ensemble. Not everything is improv.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-13 16:30
>> The first time you're asked at the last minute to sub for a sick player will be your last if you can't sit down and sightread the piece. <<
But here too we're talking situationally – which says zip about whether an imperfect reader can still be an artistic performer.
I'm beginning to think this is a question no Highly Trained and Serious Musician dares confront head-on, in case somewhere down the line someone may be doing as well as (or better than) they are without going through what they had to go through. I guess art's not fair, sometimes.
>> Including in a jazz ensemble. Not everything is improv. <<
Did I imply it was?
Another thought:
A player who practices long hours on scales, arpeggios, and sightreading in order to perform everything cold is spending most of hi/r musical life playing the ingredients of music, rather than music itself.
A player who must practice long or longer on the actual composition and learn it by heart in order to perform it competently is spending much more of hi/r time playing music.
Even if we assume the cold reader can give the more perfect performance (presuming perfection is the ultimate desire, questionable in itself)...who is going to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually closer to the music?
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-04-13 18:06
Sorry, but the Garner analogy just doesn't hold water. Garner, Monk, Evans, etc. were consummate jazz artists. Jazz is a largely improvisational art. Improvisation is spontaneous composition. So then, how do you become good at improvisation? I can only repeat what countless jazzers taught me, which I do for myself and teach to others -- listen a lot to the greats, and practice your scales and changes, man. Funny, but that, in a slightly different context, is pretty much what I and SWK said about sightreading. Practice the fundamentals and spend your time on the artistry and you are completely free to express yourself as an artist with a complete palette and box of brushes.
I honed my sightreading skills by high school, and they have paid dividends ever since. I'm spending the balance of my "musical life" reaping the benefits of developing that skill early on and playing music. I've got my students developing those skills even younger, and they are able to work their way through etudes and literature much more quickly as they get older. We are able to spend more time on nuance and interpretation rather than fixing notes, articulations and rhythms.
Maybe that's unfair, but that's also the price of admission to this business. Sorry.
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-04-13 22:06
I don't care a "tincker's cuss" about what anyone thinks about sightreading ... when I conduct (and I do so not infrequently) if a player turns up and reads the parts very well at first rehearsal and then perfectly at performance ... he/she will get another gig, and possibly, get paid more for her/his efforts ... period ... if they don't, no more jobs from me I'm afraid. Too many musicians out there who are looking for work, makes life easy (especially if you plan in advance and book the good ones first).
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-14 00:21
(SWK)>>(paulwl)>>A player who practices long hours on scales, arpeggios, and sightreading in order to perform everything cold is spending most of hi/r musical life playing the ingredients of music, rather than music itself. <<<
Also known as fundamentals. The majority of great instrumental players spent at least part of their lives doing those long hours. Those hours save exponentially more hours later. <<
Well, now, that seems closer to reality as I know it. Having a good run through the fundamentals each day is no impediment to spending most of your time playing "real music." The issue here, I thought, was playing nothing *but* fundamentals (and maybe a few etudes as a treat) and spending all your "real music" time tweeking the finer points of interpretation.
Post Edited (2004-04-14 00:25)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-14 02:32
Quote:
All but the rarest of rare among them spent hours (with a metronome) at some point in their lives developing that technique. If they are extrordinary lucky it happened when they were very young and the work is already done. Otherwise they are like me in the sense that I now realize that I wasted my years of being young, in the public school system, and without any other responsibilities (bills, job, etc), and as a result now have to spend time working on them NOW when, if I had been wiser or had proper guidance earlier, I could just be out there looking for the gigs.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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