 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Pam
Date: 2002-01-20 18:23
Scales and exercises will help as some patterns will appear over and over again in music. Another thing that will help is to simply do as much sight reading as you can. Try to play the piece well with the proper dynamics and mood. That may mean glancing through your piece of music just before you start and seeing where accidentals may be, or key changes or timing/time signature may change so they don't take you by surprise.
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Author: Emms
Date: 2002-01-20 18:51
Yes - try to read as much new music as you can. Study each piece before you play. Try to spot arpeggios, dominant sevenths and diminished sevenths, so you don't actually have to read the notes when you get there. It's one thing being able to play scales, but another to spot them in your music.
Don't be afraid of trying all the different keys, and pieces that have difficult rhythms and time signatures. Being able to clap and count the rhythms is useful.
Add the dynamics as you play and learn to look at least one note ahead (preferably a bar). When we read words, we actually look at a few words ahead of the word we are reading and you have to be able to do this with music.
There are books available in the UK with graded sight reading exercises, that lead you gradually through all the different keys, time signatures and rhythms. See if you have any where you are. These exercises can be practised, and do improve your sight reading, but as I said, play anything you can get your hands on.
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Author: William
Date: 2002-01-20 18:55
Like, :"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" Practice, Man, PRACTICE!!!! Good sightreading skills are developed by strategy and, most of all, experiance. Don't worry, if you do enough playing--your skills will improve naturally. The playing that helped me the most was in pit orchestras for musical stage productions where fast doubling skills are also required. Good luck and Good Clarineting!!!!!!
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2002-01-20 20:17
In addition to the good advice above, sight read rhythms alone...just practice tapping rhythms and teaching your eyes to be ahead of the rhythm. Also before you begin to play something for the first time glance through and mentally work out the tricky spots.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2002-01-21 02:12
Another way is to learn Solfege. It is practical to learn this under a Solfege teacher using song etudes such as Concone. As many times teachers, especially famous ones, say "If you cannot sing a tune, you cannot play it with any instruments suitably. " At the same time, this has a merit to learn 'pose du son'(French, meaning - provably - singing position), how to use larynx, which is also very productive to learn for wind/brass playing. This is often taught by French music schools.
If you can find a Solfege teacher near you, it would be nice. But this would be a rare opportunity to almost all of us.
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-01-21 02:16
You know what - don't worry about your sightreading skills - people are either fluent as sight readers (and often bad memorisers - like me) or they're not, but it's not something to get to over-upset by. Also, the better your clarinet playing becomes the more your sightreading skills will improve. My clarinet teacher (the wonderful Margery Smith) used to spend one lesson a month just devoted to playing duets with me and giving me graded sightreading.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2002-01-21 03:18
Ginny's advice is very good. Do a lot of work on rhythm. The problem is usually not which button to push--it's WHEN to push it. Many weak readers understand what they're doing, but are insufficiently assertive in their execution. Younger players in particular will hesitate and mess up their rhythm for fear of missing a note. Try reversing these priorities, and you'll stay in sync with your group which is job #1. You'll probably make far fewer note mistakes than you anticipate. Always remember that the right note becomes wrong when played at the wrong time.
Hiroshi has a good point about ear training, but I don't think that you have to plunk the money down on a solfeg teacher. You can get much of the same training by joining a church or community choir. Your instrumental instructor may be able to help you in this area as well.
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2002-01-21 04:14
Ditto to Hiroshi and allencole, sight singing is most valuable in learning to sight read. 30 years of college, community and church choirs and I'm the reader I wish I had been 35 years ago. I feel that singing takes you "closer" to the music as the mechanics of an instrument need not be dealt with. Unless your voice is truly unpleasant, or you can't reproduce a played pitch, almost any church choir, and many community choruses will welcome you. You may get solo opportunity on the clarinet as well out of it.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2002-01-21 06:24
I was taught by my father, a professional bassoonist, not to slow the finger movement to match the slowness of a music. The on/off movement should be always fast regardless of the music tempo. This may be another thing to be careful of.
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Author: Stephane
Date: 2002-01-21 07:36
You can try methods as well, a number of technics have been developed by musicians including clarinetists to improve sight reading. For example, there is the "Improve your sight reading: A workbook for exam." in two books (Grade 1,2,3 and Grade 4,5) by P. Harris. (Sorry, I don't have the publisher's info). You can try at your local sheet dealer or on the internet.
Stephane (France)
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2002-01-21 21:29
Priorities (IAW an old method book):
Key Signature. Make sure you have this down no sweat. This is where method books come in. Stop thinking in number of sharps or flats and hink in what KEY it's in and know what combination of fingerings works for that key.
Time signature and tempo. (esp. the difference b/w Cut time and common time.) Make sure you're not taking off twice as fast as you're supposed to.
Rhythm. Speaks for itself.
Accidentals. Also speaks for itself.
Articulation and dynamics. If the peice is too good to be true for sightreading, it'll be more impressive (i.e., during an audition) if you put all of the dynamic expression you can in it.
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