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14:35 no never look at the keys. Because you will have to play in different pianos with different light situation and need to develop confidence without looking. You will look anyway when needed, but best to not rely on eyes

10:19 absolutely correct ✅ whoever admin piano degrees are criminal scammers who just focus in the reality of 2% of their students. Most jobs are for co-repetition

Solfeggio. Only the mafia knows what it does

Thanks! I found sight reading is difficult, I can read and say out loud the 🎵 slowly but have difficult to put my finger on the right place, especially when coordinates two hands Therefore I decided to memorize and I can play several melodies (3-4 pages) without problem; but, when I try to play a very simple melody by sight reading, I can’t memorize it (!?). Does this mean, in the future, if I mastered sight reading, I always have to bring the notes book with me? (to compare with now I can sit down and play whenever I see a piano)

Thank you Luca, for this inspiring vodeo. I had a question about the part where we have to hear the music as we see it. I grew up learning a system of music which was based on moveable do solfege (it wasnt do re ... But the names were in another language). The sheet music was also based on scale degrees(it isnt like the lines and dots like on western sheet music) . When i started playing the piano a couple of years ago, i saw that the notes on the sheet are absolute notes, like a b or c. However im unable to make sense of this since whenever i hear any music its always the scale degrees that i hear in my head. Is it possible / recommend to read music where instead of reading the note names we memorize/get used to the scale degree for all keys and also rely on intervals to figure stuff out? Or should i brute force the eye to hand muscle memory of just playing what i see (in this case i will not be able to hear / make sense of what im seeing).

Very interesting video, thanks al lot! Everybody is very different indeed regarding this (or anything). Made me think about my own life journey :) I was a huge nerd as a kid and was obsessed with wanting to know how everything works and pumping whatever theory I happened to come by in my head (and here I am in my 40s with my wikipedia and youtube habits, not much has changed 🥹). Most of it stuff out of books from school or the library etc. that I didn't need for something practical (the morse alphabet, counting in japanese, you name it..), but a fair share of it still in my head to this day. I practiced playing the trumpet as a kid and obviously I wanted to learn all about reading notes and music theory as well (no matter it often came in hand written form at that time 😅). I severely lacked the required discipline to keep practicing though (which is especially not ideal for an instrument that requires building and maintaining a good amount of facial muscle control). Which probably also didn't motivate me much to develop a creative drive. So I took a break of some 20 years not playing instruments, although I've never stopped appreciating good music or learning how sound systems and audio tech work, DJing, getting involved in music scenes etc. At some point it started to itch again some years ago and through a little bit of guitar and drums I'm now getting piano lessons from a great teacher who happens to be my neighbor as well :) I've always wanted to learn this and got some synths/keyboards that I wanted to have a closer connection with. I was a little bit afraid I was too old to start piano at age 40, but I'm so happy I did. It doesn't matter how good I'll become, just learning and slowly getting to know the instrument better keeps giving me a magical feeling. The finger movements and independence are a constant (but very rewarding) struggle. My childhood obsession with reading sheet music helps a lot, although I had to get used to that crazy bass staff (and thank god for things "8va" ;)). The nerd kid is definitely still inside of me, but it often stems from fooling around now, and mixing up elements from random things in my head, like playing a classical piece in a latin rhythm or with blues notes, simplifying pieces I want to learn but go way beyond my skills (or just altering in weird ways for funzies). So it all seems to come together now after all those years ♥

Good video, but you forgot to say about practising it daily (with some exceptions). Even technique isn't that necessary to do daily as sight reading if you want to improve in a few years.

💥 I see you are a true musician, when you talked about how you approached music, and that music is not simply something which is confined to a sheet of paper, but it's everywhere, in movies, CDs, on TV, etc. By listening. Music is an auditory art. I started in music by listening too. Later, I went to the conservatory, I studied classical piano, but I wanted to play jazz, popular music, film scores, improvise, create my own compositions, so, I started studying all that privately. Practicing, developing my ears, transcribing Bill Evans piano music and other jazz pianists. Studying harmony, chords, progressions, everything by myself. I didn't want to just play a sheet of paper, and memorize like a computer. Real music is not about that. Music is very broad, encompasses many things. But that's why without much daily practice, I'm not a good sight reader. Perhaps in this life, we have to choose. You can't be good in everything. 🎉❤

💥 I play the piano for more than 35 years. I can compose, improvise, even learn several pieces of music, but I can't sight read. I began in music by listening. It was late, at 14, I studied classical music for 3 years, and I discovered Jazz. Since then, I mostly play jazz, but I have played several piano concertos, I studied about 60 Chopin's pieces, among several other composers, but I can't sight read. Even my music reading is poor. I need time to learn very slowly. But reading is proportional to the difficulty. I can almost sight read a Chopin's waltz, but when I sight read, I can't memorize anything. Looks like the brain is rewired in such a way that the circuits used to sight reading prevents memorizing. If I want to memorize a piece, I have to study it carefully, divide in chunks, and memorize by parts. Everybody has weakness, some in reading, some in listening, or composing, or improvising... We are never perfect like Franz Liszt ! 😅😅

Thank you for the warning! I'm a 5 month old beginner and I'm def gonna study some music theory and I'm going to start to practice sight reading. ✌️

Complimenti, Maestro Luca, HERTHA è un'intensa sequenza sonora unitaria di brani ipnotici, contemplativi, evocativi, con un sapido e calibrato rapporto con il testo poetico. E complimenti alle esecutrici. 20 minuti di musica moderna a cappella, senza sostegno strumentale, è un'impresa memorabile.

Waw Luca, beautiful and touching.

Bravo Luca, bravo!!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Excellent, cohesive compositional choices. The common thread ties the whole so naturally.

A very beautiful and nostalgic piece, congratulations!🎶

Thank you to everyone who participated in the premiere both live and digitally today on TH-cam, also on behalf of Vokalensemble equilibrium! ☺ If you are curious and want to know more about this piece, or Hertha Kräftner's texts, please let me know!

Amazing!

I had my first encounter with a keyboard at 10 years old. It had about 2 and a half octaves (34 keys) and no pressure sensitivity, but it helped me learn the ropes of playing with my right hand. Then when I was around 14 years old I bought myself a 61 key Casio keyboard with again, no pressure sensitivity. I didn't even know sensitivity existed, it was just something I'd never seen before. I managed to develop my left hand playing and both hand coordination, and all the while without learning ANY music theory or sheet music, mainly using synthesia. Only a few months ago have I had my first ever encounter with a piano, and it was the school piano which was out of tune and had a couple of stuck keys, but it was an experience I'll never forget. Main thing is, never learned any theory, or sight reading, but still tremendously enjoyed playing what I love, which is what kept me from giving up. I'm settling on when I should start learning how to sight read, seems like a pretty cool but very difficult skill to learn, because as currently everything I play is completely by memory or ear. I don't know if anyone will bother to read my life story, but if you do, thanks for reading!

I was taught by a couple of piano teachers in the late 60s. Yes I am that type of piano player. I am pretty good at sight reading but cannot play without sheet music. But in the last 20 years with youtube now being a great teacher for different levels of learners out there, there are so many avenues of learning and even though I had 6 years of piano lessons I was never taught proper music theory and never understood the circle of fifths until the last few years. The pieces I am learning are more difficult and challenging but more rewarding because I finally feel capable of playing really beautiful music. Thanks to people like you who put out these videos, people can feel comfortable about taking on more challenging pieces. 😊

I’ve been playing piano for 40 years and I have the gift of sight reading. It came to me so easily and if you give me sheet music, I can play it songs right away that I’ve never played before. However, even if I’ve played a song 1,000 times, if you take the sheet music away, I can’t remember any of the notes. Without sheet music I can only play Mary had a little lamb. And, I can’t compose either. I can only sight read.

You’re amazing

As an amateur keyboard player (I'm an electronics engineer), I can totally empathise with your problems with sight reading. I have struggled for years with sight reading. My technical ability to play an instrument (I also play the accordion) far exceeds my ability to read new music pieces. I've even resorted to notating music in a computer program - then letting the program play the music ( ie the program has become my teacher). So thank you for your (and many other TH-cam videos) video, I'm not about to give up.

There are certain things that ditinguish the true craftsman from the dilettante. In Rennaisance painting the medium of fresco involved painting the figurine onto sections of freshly laid plaster that was still wet. You had one chance to get it right because you weren't painting on the surface, you were infusing color into the moist plaster for all time. Michelangelo took pride in having done the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Fresco. He didn't have the luxury of standing back and looking at a section he just finished, and realizing, "oh shit. That cloud is out of proportion. I'll just paint over it." No. The effect of fresco depended on the plaster being freshly laid and moist. He was stuck with what he painted for all eternity and for Popes and Cardinals and Medici princes to see. Having the skill to pull off an ambitious project like that distinguished him as an artist. Piano sightreading is the skill that distinguishes a complete musician from one who just plays classical music on the piano. There are people who can sit down and play a fairly decent rendition on the spot of virtually any music that is put in front of them - including tempo, dyynamics and phrasing. That's gangsta! (in the world of classical music). No way to fake that. Why not develop your reading skills? Do you read English letter by letter? S e e S p o t r u n . uh... S e e J a n e s l a p T o m... Become fluent with reading music.

Sight reading doesn't matter. It is just a tool for learning the piece. Nothing more. So don't let it hold you back.

Please make a video on how to improvise!

Im a violinist, and im starting to learn piano, i thought i was good at sight reading, but learning to read both keys at the same time is a whole other game, and not only that multiple notes up to 8 notes at the time, me as a single note at a time violinist, made this so hard, but this video has help me to see it another way how to aproach the piano, as a "conductor"

Hi Luca, thank you for sharing your views on sightreading. I found it very interesting. After many year of training sight reading, I also stuck with it. Do you think this could be a kind of dislexia? I must say that I started piano playing Klavarskribo the age of 14 for some five years and I can sight reading quite complex music at ease in this notation. The notation shows me what to play on a keyboard without the need to puzzle out which key to hit. It is in matter of fact a tabulature. Would you let me know what you think about Klavarskribo? I realize that it is a kind of an handicap not being able to read standard notation, but the comfort of reading Klavar is enormous. Although the most of the whole important piano literature is transcribed, very little is availabble of music of composers who were alive 70 years ago because of author rights. Reagards, Antoon

excellent presentation Luca - more please 🎹❤

Most refreshing approach to sight reading. A stunning and inspiring video with a few laughs for good measure. Grazie mille, Luca.

It resembles braille. Sharps, flats, naturals only make matters worse. I painstakingly recite the alphabet A-G in forward and reverse order to triangulate the note that corresponds to the position on the sheet. It very much is like learning to read again a foreign or alien language.

Thank you, Luca, for this very entertaining video. I'm one of those people who began piano as a young adult taking classical lessons. I was stuck to the page, learning one song very well at a time. Never being able to walk into a room to sit and play a few snappy tunes. As much as i want to sight-read well, and I do practice....I just want to sit down at the piano put some impromptu melodies to chord progressions and sound good. Taking an online course, making progress. Looking forward to your new videos!

Luca, you may not call yourself a genius (in my book you really are:) ), but this piece is genius. Very enjoyable.

Very helpful video, thank you for the upload. Yes, I would like to see a video on transposition. God Bless.

I am trying to teach music to my 5 years old daughter. Your point of view is unique and very helpful. I've meet a lot of people who went to music school for years, but at the the end they never play in their adult life or even hate music. It looks like you are from the opposite camp. I would like my daughter to develop a passion for playing and you video and comments to it are very useful.

Great video man I’m 36 and started playing piano at 15-16 Making beats and what not but around 18-21, I started getting into classical and movie scores. I have made many attempts to learn to read music 🎼 and I put it away because of the “struggle” I taught myself by ear and tutorials online. I can play Chopin’s ballade no. 1 and many other of his etudes. I still can’t read music BUT I’ve started to try and learn again. My brain is always making excuses like “I can’t remember these damn notes without counting the pneumonics out!” “Every Good Boy..etc “ Any tips for a late bloomer like me to get this shit to stick? More importantly how long until You saw results?

Really good stuff. One good thing that helped me out was figuring out how far to look ahead. As you say you're a conductor or the driver and I found I was focusing on what was too close to me rather than what was coming. How far you look ahead depends on your ability to parse the music and remember it, but usually is most helpful to do complete measures. I'm by no means a good sight reader, but the tip someone gave me to at least look at each complete measure got me to the next level.

I am happy you made this video. I am a composer who sucks at sight reading but managed to accomplish graduating from NYU with an M.A. in music composition. I use Cakewalk to compose my music, so in all actuality, I am a composer version of you. To the T.

I don't get why people who can't even improvise think they need to sight-read some high level shit, because some people who don't care about them made them believe it's the "most important skill" in music, it isn't..Just read lots of music that you want to learn. Get familiar with the shapes of chords and melodic lines..No one will ever expect you to sight read a ballade, piano sonata or whatever high level piece anyway. It's much more enjoyable to able to play from ear and improvise, rather than being glued to a god damn book all day. Anyway, classically trained have been brainwashed early on so they can't even play a chord progression without sheet music telling them how 🤣

The format of video suits you.