I have been a terrible sight-reader since I started playing in 6th grade. I learned only by ear and play mostly original songs. I learned quickly by ear, and unbelievably I have a B.A. in music performance. I'm going back to 4-part choral sight-reading for the Nth time. "after the third time through, you're not Sight-Reading!" Thanks for the coaching.
I think there is also an aspect to becoming familiar with written music, even though it may not be “prima vista”, you associate structures with hand shapes and positions and become comfortable with their deployment as they are recognized in varying pieces…
I disagree with your view that learning sightreading doesn't teach you real music. I think that's taking a fairly short view on sightreading. When you're sightreading, you need to make all sorts of on-the-fly phrasing decisions that will directly train your ability to interpret music, while at the same time you need to be engaging your predictive abilities with the structure of the music so that you can generate an expectation of what's coming next and recognize whether you played it correctly (and properly deal with the case where you're surprised!). You need to be able to go "aha, I see what's going on here" and be able to comprehend structures on a broader timescale than note by note. I'd say that if you're just reading note by note, even if you get all of the notes *right*, you're sightreading wrong.
Hi! Interesting how different playing music from sheet music can be experienced, thank you for sharing your approach. As a classical orchestra saxophonist I would like to add that your type of approach wouldn’t work in an orchestra setting reading classical sheet music where dynamics, coloring, speed, rhythm, articulation and accents are written down and has to be correctly read and played. Without respecting the conventions used in Western classical music, concerts would sound chaotic.
Thank you Robert. It’s quite apparent that you are totally dedicated to your subject. That is only to our benefit. I’m in my mid seventies and have been going to piano lessons for the first time, this last year. I know just enough to exactly understand the sense in the points you make, even though I don’t recognise the individual or chorded notes, and particularly the key signatures with their relevant sharps or flats. Well done to you, I’m going to take your advice and monitor my progress. I am inspired by your enthusiasm. Dave Kennedy
Hi David, I'm 62 and I started learning piano 7 months ago. It would be nice to have a group of people like us connecting together to share experiences, difficulties, and how we overcome them... what do you think about that?
Sight reading is to music As reading is to books Reading doesn't make you a better student, but everyone knows literacy is important Same with sight reading
This is the most practical video I've seen on this subject. People throw the term sight-reading around, conflating it with music literacy. As a beginner I tried Christmas carols, expecting that their familiarity would make them easy. What I discovered was that the spreads of the chords are often very wide. You've now clarified it's because they're written for four voices. Not so easy if you're used to pieces that don't span a wide swath of the keyboard. You have to really own the keyboard geography to keep your eyes on the score while making those jumps. Do you think of that as a separate skill?
This video has been super useful to me, I cannot believe it only has 35 views. I’m a 15 year old piano player I cannot sight read for the life of me but this video has inspired me to have the dedication to look at new music every day and learn from that.
Let’s go! Thanks for the support. Still just trying to crack how to get the balance between information and entertainment necessary to get the algorithm to pick it up. If you got any questions or anything I can help you with don’t hesitate to leave another comment
Sight singing is super awesome. Very effective for learning music. Yes it can be more challenging because of the singing part. Unfortunately the downside is learning multiple parts at the exact same time
I think that is very easy to prove false. Franz Liszt, bach, John Petrucci, Oscar Peterson, etc. Many great musicians can't read music absolutely. The Greatest I think would be at least 50% could read maybe more. Also subjective
Summary: - hymns are good sight reading material - do not stop or repeat notes - in advanced mode you are also not allowed to pause - you can sight read every piece just once - you will get much better than you think with regular practice
Absolutely awesome video! Been playing piano for 2-3 months and I've gotten to the point where I can improvise for a session. But I've heard time and again that people kneecap themselves by not learning sight reading. This video is fantastic, I feel more ready than ever to start sight reading practice. Thanks a lot man. New sub.
On your last point there about setting a (possibly artificial) goal of learning a piece in a week etc, something I've found quite helpful (considering I'm fairly new to piano) is trying to learn the hymns from a Sunday church service in the week following the event, so I give myself a week, and its maybe 4 hymns. Even if I just try sight reading them once, its a way of picking pieces thats out of my control and varies from week to week, and has a fixed schedule. Thanks for the video, I'm hoping to improve my sight reading! Would have been nice to see a demo of you sight reading something on camera that you've never seen before to show that your theory works.
Fantastic. Love your presentation and your ideas. I have heard of both methods but not presented as alternative methods. I want to be a substitute church pianist and have been trying to ready through the hymnal, a few songs every day. Now I will take your methods into mind to make my sight reading through the hymnal more effective. Thank you so much.
I scored 1300 on piano marvel, my average is is 1100. I haven't scored lower but I feel terrible even though alot of persons think I read well. Do you have something for me? I have played some few advanced pieces and have been working as a collaborative pianist and church pianist
I would just add to Strategy 2, go slow enough that you will succeed. Don’t set yourself up to fail by picking a tempo that you can’t manage or it will turn into a depressing and disheartening chore that you hate.
@@RobertMonroeMusic I understand the importance of starting with new scores to keep improving sight-reading skills, but isn't there also a need to train the direct connection between reading the music and moving the correct fingers? Isn't this instant translation from score to fingers crucial? Currently, I'm learning a wonderful piece by Bach. While I can find all the notes on my keyboard and can more or less sight-read the score, I still see great value in repetition and training my fingers to actually 'read' the score, if that makes sense?
@back-seat-driver1355 1) He has a great teaching voice. 2) He makes his point and backs it up 3) He throws in gold nuggets that I am sure you never thought about or at least I haven't 4) He doesn't try to talk over your head and desires to have you to learn no matter what station of life you are from 5) He will not allow anyone to waste his time (read his reply to you) Did you even watch the same video I did?
I have been a terrible sight-reader since I started playing in 6th grade. I learned only by ear and play mostly original songs. I learned quickly by ear, and unbelievably I have a B.A. in music performance. I'm going back to 4-part choral sight-reading for the Nth time. "after the third time through, you're not Sight-Reading!" Thanks for the coaching.
I think there is also an aspect to becoming familiar with written music, even though it may not be “prima vista”, you associate structures with hand shapes and positions and become comfortable with their deployment as they are recognized in varying pieces…
I disagree with your view that learning sightreading doesn't teach you real music. I think that's taking a fairly short view on sightreading. When you're sightreading, you need to make all sorts of on-the-fly phrasing decisions that will directly train your ability to interpret music, while at the same time you need to be engaging your predictive abilities with the structure of the music so that you can generate an expectation of what's coming next and recognize whether you played it correctly (and properly deal with the case where you're surprised!). You need to be able to go "aha, I see what's going on here" and be able to comprehend structures on a broader timescale than note by note. I'd say that if you're just reading note by note, even if you get all of the notes *right*, you're sightreading wrong.
Hi! Interesting how different playing music from sheet music can be experienced, thank you for sharing your approach. As a classical orchestra saxophonist I would like to add that your type of approach wouldn’t work in an orchestra setting reading classical sheet music where dynamics, coloring, speed, rhythm, articulation and accents are written down and has to be correctly read and played. Without respecting the conventions used in Western classical music, concerts would sound chaotic.
Thank you Robert. It’s quite apparent that you are totally dedicated to your subject. That is only to our benefit. I’m in my mid seventies and have been going to piano lessons for the first time, this last year. I know just enough to exactly understand the sense in the points you make, even though I don’t recognise the individual or chorded notes, and particularly the key signatures with their relevant sharps or flats.
Well done to you, I’m going to take your advice and monitor my progress. I am inspired by your enthusiasm.
Dave Kennedy
Hi David, I'm 62 and I started learning piano 7 months ago. It would be nice to have a group of people like us connecting together to share experiences, difficulties, and how we overcome them... what do you think about that?
@@HattoriHanzo62hi I am a 57 year old newbie to the piano and sight reading.
Sight reading is to music
As reading is to books
Reading doesn't make you a better student, but everyone knows literacy is important
Same with sight reading
This is the most practical video I've seen on this subject. People throw the term sight-reading around, conflating it with music literacy. As a beginner I tried Christmas carols, expecting that their familiarity would make them easy. What I discovered was that the spreads of the chords are often very wide. You've now clarified it's because they're written for four voices. Not so easy if you're used to pieces that don't span a wide swath of the keyboard. You have to really own the keyboard geography to keep your eyes on the score while making those jumps. Do you think of that as a separate skill?
Hmm good follow up video
Thank you for making this video and for sharing your knowledge. I appreciate it. I have learned a lot and im looking forward to push myself :)
This video has been super useful to me, I cannot believe it only has 35 views. I’m a 15 year old piano player I cannot sight read for the life of me but this video has inspired me to have the dedication to look at new music every day and learn from that.
Let’s go! Thanks for the support. Still just trying to crack how to get the balance between information and entertainment necessary to get the algorithm to pick it up. If you got any questions or anything I can help you with don’t hesitate to leave another comment
Yeah, no problem! I don’t have any at the moment but if I do have some I will definitely ask
An excellent video.
Just what I need. Thanks
Solfeggio is the Key. You sight read, you sing every note and at the same time you learn how to value notes. Constant practice is very important.
All respect but I disagree. Love solfège but not necessary for sight reading
What do you think about sight singing? I'd say it's more difficult but also more effective?
Sight singing is super awesome. Very effective for learning music. Yes it can be more challenging because of the singing part. Unfortunately the downside is learning multiple parts at the exact same time
The greatest musicians could not read music.
I think that is very easy to prove false. Franz Liszt, bach, John Petrucci, Oscar Peterson, etc. Many great musicians can't read music absolutely. The Greatest I think would be at least 50% could read maybe more. Also subjective
Summary:
- hymns are good sight reading material
- do not stop or repeat notes
- in advanced mode you are also not allowed to pause
- you can sight read every piece just once
- you will get much better than you think with regular practice
Absolutely awesome video! Been playing piano for 2-3 months and I've gotten to the point where I can improvise for a session. But I've heard time and again that people kneecap themselves by not learning sight reading. This video is fantastic, I feel more ready than ever to start sight reading practice. Thanks a lot man. New sub.
Sweet!
On your last point there about setting a (possibly artificial) goal of learning a piece in a week etc, something I've found quite helpful (considering I'm fairly new to piano) is trying to learn the hymns from a Sunday church service in the week following the event, so I give myself a week, and its maybe 4 hymns. Even if I just try sight reading them once, its a way of picking pieces thats out of my control and varies from week to week, and has a fixed schedule.
Thanks for the video, I'm hoping to improve my sight reading! Would have been nice to see a demo of you sight reading something on camera that you've never seen before to show that your theory works.
Check out the follow up video of exactly that
Fantastic. Love your presentation and your ideas. I have heard of both methods but not presented as alternative methods. I want to be a substitute church pianist and have been trying to ready through the hymnal, a few songs every day. Now I will take your methods into mind to make my sight reading through the hymnal more effective. Thank you so much.
I scored 1300 on piano marvel, my average is is 1100.
I haven't scored lower but I feel terrible even though alot of persons think I read well.
Do you have something for me?
I have played some few advanced pieces and have been working as a collaborative pianist and church pianist
I would just add to Strategy 2, go slow enough that you will succeed. Don’t set yourself up to fail by picking a tempo that you can’t manage or it will turn into a depressing and disheartening chore that you hate.
I’m a beginner but my teacher says that I’m a good sightreader. So I’m watching this video. Merci
thanks, great video! Learning to sight read after playing the piano and composing for almost 24 years
Let’s go! If you need anything else let me know
@@RobertMonroeMusic I understand the importance of starting with new scores to keep improving sight-reading skills, but isn't there also a need to train the direct connection between reading the music and moving the correct fingers? Isn't this instant translation from score to fingers crucial? Currently, I'm learning a wonderful piece by Bach. While I can find all the notes on my keyboard and can more or less sight-read the score, I still see great value in repetition and training my fingers to actually 'read' the score, if that makes sense?
Great and correct information, thank you for sharing!
Thank you Robert. This is encouraging and generous. Ampther fantastic resource is 'Sight Reading and Harmony' by Bach Scholar.
*another
Yes, it’s great, for all the reasons mentioned in this video. It’s been very helpful to me and I’m sure lots of other people too.
could be interesting but your presentation was soooo boring!
k
@back-seat-driver1355 What do you want him to do, insert car chases and shoot outs? It sounds like you just have a short attention span.
@back-seat-driver1355
1) He has a great teaching voice.
2) He makes his point and backs it up
3) He throws in gold nuggets that I am sure you never thought about or at least I haven't
4) He doesn't try to talk over your head and desires to have you to learn no matter what station of life you are from
5) He will not allow anyone to waste his time (read his reply to you)
Did you even watch the same video I did?