 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SVClarinet09
Date: 2006-10-22 17:24
What do you guys do to improve sightreading? Audition season is coming up in my area. I'm planning on auditioning for anything I have time for.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-10-22 18:53
Just do it ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
Anything and everything.
Before playing - Quickly scan all new music for tempo indications, potential trouble spots, fingering issues, rhythmic problems, etc...
Make careful note of key signature(s), dynamics, meter changes, etc...
If not given a tempo to start, pick a speed which is reasonable, based on the most difficult looking passage.
Do not stop if you make an error - keep the tempo going and continue on.
Rinse, lather, repeat ...GBK
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Author: jmberch
Date: 2006-10-22 19:08
i found that not only knowing your different forms of scales (minor, pure minor, ect.) but being able to recognize them is a huge help. another good thing is getting a book with lots of rythems...i know, it may seem elementary at first, but it definetly helps. once you start to get pretty good, buy a few books, I use select studies, and go through and pick random songs, and play. the only way you can get better at sight reading is by practising
as to the actual thing....when your in an audition, judges are really impressed if you notice small things like tempo changes, key changes, and paying attention to articulation. like GBK said, NEVER STOP...that is one of the worst thing you can do in sight reading. another thing is to remember....it's music, so make it sound as musical as possible even if you make a few mistakes. hope this helps
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-10-22 19:30
Sight reading is a mix of three related skills: "chunking," "restricting" and looking ahead.
CHUNKING
By this, I mean reading notes in groups rather than one at a time. You learn to do it by practicing scales and arpeggios -- through Baermann III, 1000 times. When you have them "in your fingers," you recognize a series of notes by their shape, instead of by reading them all. As an easy example, when I see an ascending C major scale, I recognize the smooth "staircase" shape and play the scale in a single gesture. For arpeggios, I recognize the "ladder" shape.
I also create "meta-chunks" on the fly. That is, I watch for repeated patterns, such as sequences. After I play the first group and recognize that I'm in a sequence, I know pretty much what to play next. This overlaps with the next process:
RESTRICTING
By this, I mean recognizing the harmony and knowing which notes will fit. Even if I don't quite see every note, or see a note shape that could be one thing or another, my fingers know what's right and what's not.
Once again, this comes from practicing scales and arpeggios, so that your fingers have the proper patterns already inside them.
When I do this ad-hoc, as in a sequence, I start playing the pattern, and while my fingers are doing it, I look ahead for any changes in the pattern during the next repetition. I particularly look for accidentals, which indicate a modulation and therefore a change in the pattern.
This leads to the third skill:
LOOKING AHEAD
When I read in chunks and know the restrictions, I have some spare attention. That is, my fingers play a group of notes by themselves (or at least with control below the conscious level), and I can look ahead to recognize the next chunk or series of chunks. I almost never read one note at a time, Rather, I use the extra time to group the notes that are coming up.
LOTS OF PRACTICE
You learn the three skills in two ways. First, you spend your very best time -- say, the first 10 minutes of each practice session -- working very slowly on scales and arpeggios. It's about as much fun as eating light bulbs, but you have to do it to engrave the patterns in your muscle memory. Go dead slow. The important part is to learn to do it without mistakes. NEVER GO FASTER THAN PERFECT. The engraving process works just as well at slow tempo. Stop the moment your concentration wavers.
Second, do lots of sight reading. Chunking, restricting and looking ahead are themselves meta-skills, which you have to practice almost as much as
scales.
I go through sonatas, band and orchestra parts -- whatever I have nearby. It doesn't matter how good the music is -- only that you get a chance to practice the skills and meta-skills. In fact, the more predictable the music is, the better it is for sight reading practice.
This not something you learn overnight, but if you keep at it, it works miracles. It's an essential step in reaching the next level in your playing.
Good luck on the sight reading test.
Ken Shaw
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2006-10-22 21:04
Allow yourself to mess up. "Play what it looks like, not what it says." That is, you see a bunch of tongued notes in the upper register, you play a bunch of tongued notes in the upper register. You see a lyrical passage, you play a lyrical passage. You see a bunch of disjunct weird crap at enormous intervals and nonsensical rhythms, you play a bunch of disjunct weird crap at enormous intervals and nonsensical rhythms. Whether you play the same ones shown on the page doesn't matter as much for now.
Once you're comfortable playing approximately what it looks like with complete reckless abandon, the right notes tend to sneak their way in significantly more often than you'd think. The whole practicing of scales, etudes, arpeggios, and other random stuff tends to help out quite a bit here.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Bruno
Date: 2006-10-23 04:03
Ken Shaw's was the best advice on the subject I have ever seen in print. Dead slow practice is too often ignored in our enthusiastic rush to play well. And his "chunking" and "restricting" are perfect strategies.
Bravo!
I always keep in mind Andre Segovia's answer to a student who asked him "What's so important about scales?"
He answered, "They will solve all your problems."
What an insight!
b/
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Author: allencole
Date: 2006-10-23 17:08
The essence of sightreading is counting, and this is an area where the exercise books tend to fail us. For actual sightreading material, I think that Rubank's Selected Studies does a terrific job for the advanced high schooler. I would also heed the above advice to find some materials that are designed specifically to stretch your sense of rhythm.
Outside of that, I think that Ken Shaw put it beautifully. Very explicit and easy to understand. Note the role played by EXPERIENCE WITH BASICS as provided by Baermann III. My students get some of their experience in a different way, but that Baermann book will be the best $15 you ever spent.
Rubank's Selected Studies and (Classical Studies?--the red one?) might well combine as the SECOND best $15 you ever spent.
Also remember that there's nothing wrong with playing slowly at first. In my area, sightreading scores are tabulated by how many mistakes you make. Speed is not an issue between auditionees unless they have the same number of mistakes. If you are allowed to select your own tempo, remember that the judges may want to know whether or not you could play the piece right at all. A bunch of mistakes at a fast tempo will leave that question unanswered.
Ken, your sightreading advice--either as-is or expanded upon--should go on the BB as an article. Very clear and thorough!
Allen Cole
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Author: jmberch
Date: 2006-10-24 00:01
hehehe....where i'm at, the sight reading peace has to be played perfectly (about half of score)...and it is usually much harder then the prepared piece....then, i've had really really easy sight reading pieces such as Bb concert and all you did was move around in thirds....
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-10-25 00:14
I'd just like to add one small thing to Ken's fantastic explanation -- okay, I'm his adoring wife, but he really is spot on.
There is absolutely nothing in his advice that precludes applying the techniques to rhythms and rhythmic patterns. Actually I recommend them highly. I used chunking as a basic technique for teaching rhythm, simply because it eliminated an awful lot of unmusical phrasing and taught people to think in larger groups. It's a technique gleaned from Suzuki and works like a charm.
Best regards,
Mary Vinquist
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2006-10-25 02:57
There's only a couple of things I might add to the fantastic thoughts written above: How would you know if you're sightreading right or wrong? Teachers can watch over their students so that any corrections in notes or rhythms can be noticed. My students would sight read a small passage and think they did well. By rushing through they can consistently get notes or rhythms wrong, missing rests or playing quarter note groups as eighths and so forth. So I have to give them more of this practice during their lessons to be able to watch over their progress. As mentioned above, having them point out to me groups of scale or arpeggio patterns, or repeated rhythm patterns over 4 or 8 bars help them a lot - as well as clapping out the rhythm before playing.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2006-10-25 15:53
I think that points out the fact that supervision, apprenticeship, etc. are stilll essential to learning. To me, sightreading is a matter of grabbing anything you can. With younger students in particular, it may well be necessary for someone to point out where something was wrong.
Sometimes, though, we get too caught up in 'correctness' and overlook the big picture--which makes chunking a very attractive technique!
Allen Cole
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Author: Ashlee
Date: 2006-10-26 01:32
Sightreading is definitely one of the toughest skills to learn. Brenda brought up a great subject...how do we know if we are sightreading correctly? My professor (C. Neidich) taught me that the best way to learn how to sightread (correctly) is to "sightread" etudes, small pieces, etc that you've played one-two years ago. That way, you know how the piece sounds but it's not "under your fingers." In addition to this excersice, make sure your fingers can "handle" anything. In other words, keep playing etudes, studies, etc. and build your technique.
Another plus is to be able to recognize scale and intervals quickly as you're reading the music. Sometimes, I'll sit outside before a lesson and quickly identify chords/scales in the following week's etudes. That way, in an audition, I can easily identify/say "Tonic...dominant...tonic arrpeggio...Eb scale..etc" and my fingers know what to do b/c I've practiced and built those techniques.
Mr. Cole also brings up a good suggestion...the big picture. As with the last technique (chord identification), I try to make sure that I understand where the music is going and what style, etc. If it looks/sounds italian, play light! The most embarrasing thing to do in a sightreading situation is to play "outside" the "harmony." Usually if you add a 7th to a dominant arpeggio, it's forgivable. However if you add a tri-tone to a tonic scale/arpeggio (and it's not written), there's a problem.
One of my "oldest" teachers, Dan McKelway, mentioned that the most important thing about sightreading is the rhythm and not getting lost. Not bad advice. Anyway, I hope this helps and good luck w/ auditions!
-Ashlee'
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Author: sherman
Date: 2006-10-26 02:24
How very interesting are all the suggestions in the matter of sightreading, and certainly I have been a sightreading clarinetist all of my life. In a way my offering duplicates the others, but I have two suggestions available for everyone who has found this ability to read music at sight somewhat daunting, elusive, if you will.
There are two books ,superior to all others which teach this part of our business:
"Elementary Training for Musicians", by Paul Hindemith is the first. This is not elementary at all, but the most elusive kind of singing exercises I'd ever seen. I used it to teach myself and classes of students for many many years with astounding success, and it was not me, but the book that did the teaching. These are singing exersises that look painfully simple, yes they look elementary, but I never had a student who could do them without intense sorting out of the rhythms and melodies at home or wherever they did this work. You have to count at the same time as you sing, and the first onslaught of difficulty proves to you that this cannot be done without study and the ability to sing,rather than play the simple and short examples. By sing, I meant, that yes, all clarinetists must be able to at least sing the Hindemith Exercises. It makes you much more than what you were when you first were shocked by their apparent simplicity, and very complex look at music. Or perhaps think of them as different, requiring the making of skills heretofore simply regularized by the dozens of ear training treatises, which are all the same. You see a couple of phrases and then the others are already in your mind. Hindemith was a great composer, but an even greater teacher, and this book is one that I suggest for your consideration. Go slowly, ten or fifteen pages will help you enormously to improve your ability .
In the manner of playing, there is another short work of scales,in my opinion simpler than sequential exercices. "Emile Stievenard Study of Scales".
Well, you are saying this guy is really completely absurd, these are just scales. True, but do them correctly you will improve your reading to the killer level in a short time. You start with two pages of C major, perhaps twenty different lines of C major.This must be done with a metronome set at 40 beats per minute. The first is a simple staccato C major scale played in eightnotes forte, followed by three beats rest at the same tempo, continuing on to the second line, yes, still in C major, but in eighth note triplets, played pianissimo. The metronome continues at this painfully slow tempo, and, well you cannot do it, without jerking into the triplets and playing much too loudly, until you and your fingers and your ear gets the jist of this syncopation that you must perform silently while counting those three beats rest.
This is the way of Stievenard and it continues throughout the book, always changing and always demanding you to change tempi, touch, dynamic, articulation, and range as well. You have to perform the change as the metronome clicks the remaining beats rest, and commence the next in exactly the time, tempo, articulation, of the previous, and everything has changed.
Done correctly it teaches you to sit in an ensemble, listening to the rests go by as you prepare for your entrance and make the necessary changes to come in exactly intime, which will please, the section, the conductor, and yourself to a considerable extent. Think of being able to divide a quarter note triplet totally accurately in an enrtrance marked pianissimo, either in Chamber Music or in a symphony orchestra. And this works in any musical milieu.
We as students found these works to be frustrating beyond comprehension, especially the Hindemith, however if anything can teach one to read at sight, these two works are without peer, and not frequently experienced.
My students used to talk behind my back, and they'd say, "this guy can read flyshit!"...and that, friends is a compliment.
Good luck in all of your endeavors.
Sherman Friedland
http://clarinet.cc
Post Edited (2006-10-26 02:30)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-10-26 13:51
I worked on Hindemith's Elementary Training with Joseph Iadone, who was in Hindemith's class when the book was still in draft. As Sherman says, they're amazingly difficult, particularly because they look so simple. Hindemith's snide commentary is that it's contemptible if you can't, for example, toss off 6/8 against 4/4 in mezzo-soprano clef.
I've been listening lately to the great pianist Ignaz Friedman, who said "Have technique first, and then take up the study of the standard compositions. Have all the possibilities of technique in your pocket and thus preserve the freshness of the composition; otherwise it will be played without fantasy."
In other words, learn and practice your scales, which are like a carpenter's tools. You must play scales musically, but the main purpose is to build a firm foundation on which all your playing stands.
Ken Shaw
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Author: sherman
Date: 2006-10-27 16:21
Ken Shaw:
I used that Hindemith book for 20 years of teaching Ear Training, or as my students probably called it Fright-singing, and Fear-Training.
I know from the many compliments I have had over the years that Hindemith has helped my own reading as well as anyone who has worked with that book.
But , we owe so much more to Paul Hindemith and one simply has to list the following works he wrote including clarinet that are so important in the repertoire, and I have a question for you at the conclusion of this long list:
The Woodwind Quintet, 1924
Clarinet Sonata, 1939 (strange that Lennies Clarinet Sonata 1942, sounds so much like it)
The Clarinet 4tet, for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano
The Clarinet Quintet for Clarinet, String Quartet, (with a wonderful movement for Eb, hard as ****) the last movement of the work is a mirror image of the first.
Three Pieces for 5 players, Clarinet, Violin,Trumpet, Double Bass, and Piano
The Concerto, another difficult, rhythmically challenging work.)
Abend-Concert for Vioilin, and Clarinet
Now, my question is one of corroboration:
Since I first played the Woodwind Quintet, I was told by a respectd teacher that indeed Hindemith wrote all of the parts individually while riding the train to and from Berlin, and then, staggeringly, he wrote the score from his head. Is this true?
It doesn't matter. I will always choose to believe it.
Thanks for bringing the Hindemith name back. All of the above works have enriching, beautiful and prominent clarinet parts. I have concert recordings of them all, save the Concerto, another long story.
stay well, all
Sherman Friedland
http://clarinet.cc
Post Edited (2006-10-27 16:32)
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2006-10-27 20:01
Record yourself sightreading. Listen to it back and take note of what you miss.....dynamics, rhythms, notes, tempo...... Focus on one of these elements each time you try..... then put it all together. Record yourself once.....listen back.....do it again....listen......do it again. See how much you can improve with repetition.
Freelance woodwind performer
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