 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BflatNH
Date: 2008-08-12 04:25
Several decades after most of you, I am trying to get to a level of proficiency where my playing is 'automatic'. However, even when doing the more simple reading, it's hard (after my day work) for me to shift my attention and focus only on the notes. After a half to one and a half hours, I can focus better on the notes and at times play automatically, yet a friend of mine who plays well can simply reel off the notes from the start.
Are there any mental exercises or other ways of better preparing myself to read? Someone suggested that I'm 'trying too hard' and I note that sometimes when I'm over the edge (overly stressed, upset), I end up doing better. I feel like I'm fighting myself sometimes. I just wondered if there is a better way than just brute-force practice. Thanks.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2008-08-12 04:58
Hmmmm. Well, whenever I start a practice session, I typically play the SAME warmup exercises from study books. Scales, arpeggios, diminished sevenths, dominant sevenths, scales in thirds, and chromatic. Not necessarily in that order, but I do them all. And as I do them more and more, I realize I tend to memorize them and need less and less paper on my music stand to play them. Also, when I get comfortable with my warmup, I add another thing. At first it was just scales and scales in thirds. Then I added diminished sevenths, now it's at the above. Soon I'll be adding broken scales, blues scales, returning scales, scales in octaves, etc, but one at a time as I get more comfortable.
I think this gets my fingers warmed up and seeing the music in front of me gets my brain warmed up to the idea of looking/reading music (although it's getting memorized well, I sometimes put the paper there because I want to have my brain link the sound and fingers with sheet music and what the notes look like).
Then I move on to a piece that I know. Something I've played through often. Maybe I can't play it perfectly, but I've pretty much almost memorized that piece as well. THEN after a bit, I feel I'm ready to tackle a piece I'm working on, or sight-reading, or something else.
I think focusing on a standard warmup and looking at the notes while you play them might help a LITTLE. For instance, for all those scales and whatnot, when I see a scale in thirds in a piece of music, my brain registers what it sees and my fingers feel MUCH more comfortable doing it.
But keep in mind, sight-reading, by nature (it being unfamiliar), may just flub and SHOW how unfamiliar you are with it. Maybe you just could use work on established patterns (scales, arpeggios), maybe you are tackling music a little tough for you to sight-read at your current level, or maybe you are just holding yourself to too high a standard expecting sight-reading to be "automatic". It's FAR from automatic. It's tough.
Lastly, picking up a piece and reading it is tough. But why not give yourself a minute or two just to look through the piece and spot some potential problem areas and try to work them out mentally before starting to play away? Maybe a wierd rhythm or unfamiliar jumps could throw off the rest of the piece, but with 30 seconds of looking FOR a pattern in them could prepare you for when you get to them.
Alexi
(BTW, take my advice with a grain of salt and remember it's only my opinion. I'm not a professional teacher, have never had steady lessons, nor do I have a degree in music. I simply do what I can to improve my skill to another level and these are some of the things that have helped MY sight-reading)
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-08-12 14:37
1- Take a 20mn nap after work. Seriously, it'll help reset your brain and boost your focus and attention abilities. This has been extensively documented and studied. It may be the most beneficial thing to help your concentration go up.
2- Sight reading is still a work in progress for me but here what I have been taught to do:
a- Without the clarinet, read the notes at least one bar ahead by masking the measure being "played" using a piece of paper or whatever. Use a metronome for this.
b- Practice scales and arpeggios so that your brain does not have to dissect every note but recognize patterns and use muscle memory to play them.
My order of importance when sight reading is:
1- don't get lost
2- play the right rhythm
3- play the right notes
4- play the right dynamics.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-08-12 21:30
When you learned to read in the first grade, you had to sound out lots of words letter by letter, or (depending on the teaching theory used at the time) you learned to recognize each word as a whole. This is of course slow, since you had to figure out each tiny bit as you went along.
As you got better, you learned to recognize words and then sequences of words that go together. ("See Spot run.") You also learned to sweep your eye across several words in a single gesture, so that you read in phrases rather than words.
Learning to read music is the same. First you learn to recognize notes and then to remember the fingering and put down the correct fingers. Then you cut out the middle step, by seeing a note and making the correct finger movement.
The next step is to read notes in groups. The ascending C major scale in 16ths has groups of four notes with two bars across the top. As you practice, you learn to recognize the shape of each group of notes and play them in a single musical gesture (C-D-E-F, for example). It's like recognizing a group of letters as a word. You no longer have to read each letter, and, in the same way, you no longer have to read each note. You recognize the shape and start your fingers moving in the proper pattern.
Playing scales and arpeggios is like building your vocabulary. You recognize and play musical words (which scale work has engraved into your muscle memory) in the same way as reading words you already know.
The next step is also like reading. Just as you recognize groups of words that go together, you recognize sequences of note groups that go together. Thus, in the C major scale, C-D-E-F and G-A-B-C combine into a single sequence, for which you recognize the shape and play as a single gesture.
When you read, you recognize that the words that have gone by limit what kind of words can come next. A noun and a verb are almost always followed by a direct object. This helps you recognize the next word, because you know it has to be one that can fit the required function.
Musical grammar does the same. You don't have to recognize the chords, just as you don't have to know the grammar of a sentence. However, you do recognize which way things are going and what can possibly come next.
Sight reading music is like sight reading text. As a clarinetist, you practice scales and arpeggios to learn what the common musical "words" are. Then when they appear on the page, your fingers already know how to play them.
When I see a scale, I start my fingers moving and look ahead to find the next familiar pattern.
Finally, you learn whole pieces of music. I'm sure you can play the Alphabet song or Three Blind Mice from memory. Your fingers know the whole thing. If you perform the Mozart Concerto, you will be able to play it all as three long gestures, one for each movement.
So . . . practice your scales and arpeggios, slow and perfect. Give them your best attention -- the first 10 minutes of each practice session. You'll find that the familiar patterns start jumping up out of the mass of notes. You play larger and larger groups of notes and have more and more time to figure out the unfamiliar stuff.
Ken Shaw
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-08-12 22:34
Sight reading is one of those things that you get to do by doing. One good idea is to get an etude book (any etude book, not just for clarinet). Every time you practice, open a page and play through one or 2 lines very, very slowly so that you have time to read and produce every note without mistakes. The key is "without mistakes", not speed.
One could even make it a bit more random... photo copy several pages from an etude book and cut the photocopies into strips that are one line long and draw one or two strips from a bag every time you practice.
As Ken Shaw mentioned, it is like reading words, and it really does take time. Even in one's native language, you can hear that special, slightly-halted way that children read up until middle or high school when they become fluent. That is about 8-10 years for a language that they are speaking and seeing all day. It is not hard to expect music to take a long time also.
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2008-08-13 02:29
Now that's what I'm talkin' bout.
This thread has made no. 1 on my "What I have learned today" list. I'm immediately placing it in my Favorites.
BTW, yesterday's no. 1 was that I needed to play with lower numbered reeds until I get my embouchure built up.
I'm forever amazed at the info that comes from this forum.
Thanks to all, especially to Mr. Shaw.
CarlT
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2008-08-13 04:20
To piggy back onto the above, . . .
what do people think about turning a piece of music upside and attempting to sight-read it? It usually doesn't make any sort of "melody" and the rhythms are all wacky, but would that be good practice?
Also, sightreading a piece backwards?
Or what about this idea? Another thing I've done with two others (they were the only ones who enjoyed the challenge of doing it) was take a duet book (for instance, Rubank Duets Volume I or II), and switch from first to second every other measure. So four beats of the first part, then four beats of the second part. Gets tricky knowing your place and switching from melody to harmony every other measure! Great fun though when you're sick and tired of scales/pieces and just wanna have some fun!
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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