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Re: Mental prep for (sight)reading

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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