🎹 piano tips from the WORST SIGHT-READER
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- Me and sight-reading have... history! - and not the fondest 😣 This video might just spare you the 15-year ordeal I went through trying to tackle the mess of reading music straight off the score.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - POV
0:49 - The belly of the beast (of sight-reading)
1:39 - Therapy session
6:17 - My reading journey
8:34 - The education system
10:36 - My tips for bad sight-readers
14:13 - Eyes on the score?
16:44 - Why this video?
19:58 - How to practice
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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. 😊
Absolutely, way to go! :)
I come from a teacher who was taught that sIghT Reading is the only way to Play. That If you cant read iT fluently its Not for you. I struggle really hard with contemporary. Rythms are hard to read at First glance.
Same!
Who cares about contemporary garbage anyway
@@Terpsichorean-oj8vc i do , people dont listen to Mozart they Like tate McRae. But its Not easy to Play. Shes all i wanna be is really hard for example
@@Terpsichorean-oj8vcI love Einaudo!
That's been pretty much me for the last 18months...
Unless I'm playing other genres besides classical.
Hey man, this video is actually inspiring, really. My first contact with piano, much as you, was at eleven or twelve with a 5 octaves and no sensivility keyboard. At 14 i finally started at the conservatorie, did one year and left (pretty dumb yeah) last year with 18 i went back, with a relatively solid technique but ZERO sightreading. Due to not having a piano, i spend my hours in the practice room achieving as much technical advances as i can, but procrastinating the sightreading. All i see is teachers who began playing almost at the same time they learnt how to speak and they don't concieve not being able to sightread, and seeing actual professionals that began a little bit older and actually did it gives me hope. Tomorrow i have an exam, so wish me luck haha
First of all good luck for tomorrow! 🍀Talking about sight-reading music hits home for many folks. The deal, as I highlighted in the video, is that it doesn't get the serious attention it deserves, unlike, say, diving into music theory.
Catch you in the next video, this Sunday!
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"
Yeah... Sight reading as a pianist is much more difficult I must say! 😅 Also quick tip, if you don't know it already: always read chords and harmonies from the bottom to the top!
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.
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. ✌️
You got this!
At 12 (i'm 34 now) i personally ear this guy play the piano just by ear, sometimes classical but the most curious for me was the improvisation, really cool. Both hands ( at 12 ) on piano and play in a really natural way. I can just immagine his level now. Idk if you reconize me but it's a pleasure and a honor listening to you.
Maybe he quit piano, who knows... 😅 but your comment sparked another really interesting topic: "how important is talent" - I might cover that in a future video! Btw no, I don't recognise you, do I know you? 😇 Thank you so much for your feedback!
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 bothered! Also I relate a lot to it myself, Casio 61 keys are the gateway for a lot of people hehe
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.
Hey Jim, thanks for your comment! I have a question: how did you learn piano?
You're my opposite. I can compose, improvise, even learn several pieces of music, but I can't sight read. I began in music by listening. I began late, at 14, 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, but I can't sight read. God damnit ! 😅😅
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!
Most refreshing approach to sight reading. A stunning and inspiring video with a few laughs for good measure. Grazie mille, Luca.
Glad you enjoyed it! See you under the next one! 🙂
💥 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 ! 😅😅
That's a really interesting point! I had a similar experience. Since I didn't initially learn music by reading, when I started sight-reading, I focused too much on the individual notes "literally", and some parts of my brain just shut down. What really helped me was learning to recognize the "shapes" that notes form on the sheet, like chords and patterns, instead of concentrating on their exact positions.
@@lucasuttomusic Great ! Reading music becomes very easy when you recognize patterns. That's why I can read Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, but when I try to read or memorize Scriabin and later composers, their writings doesn't make sense. I can't find patterns to hold, just a bunch of notes scattered across the paper, which are very difficult to identify, because on a single chord, one note may be flat, another one, double flat, another one, Sharp, another could be double sharp, and another could even be natural, so a single printed note can assume 5 keys ( natural, Sharp, double sharp, flat and double flat ). Just imagine this scenario changing at each tempo of a single bar, how many possibilities you would have to the keys, since each note could be in 5 different keys. It's extremely difficult, at least for my brain. And there's the rhythm, incredibly difficult rhythms and divisions, like a 3/8 on the right hand, and 5/8 on the left. My goodness 😅😅
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.
Thanks for the heads up! 🤗 Left that out on purpose because, honestly, it's one of the most common, and yet underrated tips for nailing sight-reading. When I'm teaching, I throw in a "TH-cam metaphor" about the buffering gray bar. Imagine looking ahead is like your gray bar loading up. How much you can remember before playing (be it one note, two notes, a bar, or four bars) decides how fast your buffering bar moves. If your gray bar is charging slower than your red bar, sooner or later your video is going to freeze! 😅
excellent presentation Luca - more please 🎹❤
January is coming! 😉
💥 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. 🎉❤
Congratulations for your accomplishments! 💪
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.
That's a great achievement, congratulations! 🙂I'm curious: Did your M.A. program allow you to graduate without using music notation? Given your work with Cakewalk, I'm assuming you steer clear of any notation software.
@lucasuttomusic Yes, because ultimately, all of my orchestration, pedagogical consistency, and theoretical knowledge is mutually exclusive from the medium with which I used to communicate my musical decisions and influences. Music is deterministic. My ear was good at sensing the direction my ideas wanted to go. Notes have their own tension, release, ambiguity, etc. My brain fills those choices in, based on past experiences and gestalt principles anyways, and was able to compose scores quickly without letting the computer do it for me. The "scrub tool" in cakewalk was immensely useful in keeping me honed into what direction my senses led me to go as I'd make my choices, little by little via trial and error. I'm highly dependent on being able to hear my notes, so once I lose my hearing, that's it (I'm no Beethoven, that man certainly had his internal hearing fully intact almost certainly. If I ever lose my hearing, I am very likely screwed unless I get a cochlear implant, and even then the tech would have to be damn good.. but who knows, maybe if I became deaf, my brain would rewire itself to improve my internal hearing, so who knows..). Essentially, cakewalk is like an assistive technology for composers whose internal hearing is not as reliable as their external hearing, but the sense or instincts for musical choices which can elicit goosebumps and "aha" moments in music, are still intact, and that was essentially my guide, is my taste for what sounds good and give me goosebumps. I'm highly sensitive to that. My issue with academic studies was that I encountered alot of animosity for essentially being the autistic equivalent of a child with autism that has an ipad so they can communicate, except that in my case, it wasn't about needing to communicate linguistically, but musically instead. Music Composition instructors were terribly in the dark about the idea of allowing for or implementing assistive technologies without thinking it was like "cheating". No, it's just that everyone is different, and cakewalk's piano scroll view was what I used to exclusively write notes, so yes, I did not rely on notation software at all, though I would switch between piano scroll and notation view within cakewalk for specific reasons from time to time, but I almost always stayed exclusively writing in piano scroll. Cakewalk is the best for that, bar none, and I was heavily involved in the development of that software as a consultant. Certain assignments still required me to use traditional notation, and I was forced to essentially copy the notation into hand written format.. I felt like Bart Simpson being forced to write "I will not use traditional notation" like 100 times on a chalkboard as punishment, lol! It was a completely pointless exercise. It was done just to do it, no real purpose other than to get a feel for what it's like. Traditional notation has its uses, but I barely ever needed it for my purposes. Unfortunately, my degree was useless because music institutions would need to adapt to and grant me accommodations to teach using a DAW, and it would create a mismatch for the way they generally do things in music schools. So, I work for PC Richard and Son instead to make money. Ideally, I would've wanted to teach video game music scoring or history or theory, etc at the university level. The inspiration for this is that I managed to compose doctoral level works with no formal musical training whatsoever until the age of 19 by using Cakewalk. I'm a wasted research opportunity for academics. They really did have a golden opportunity to bring in new talent out there whose brains are wired like mine, and I think there are more people like us than music schools think. Alot of untapped potential because schools decide to stick to such rigid and old ways of doing things instead of being adaptive and inclusive. Call me a musical autistic if you will, where my internal musical sense perception is only functioning at 50% capacity due to my neurological wiring. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. Let me put it this way: I hear the big picture ideas most clearly, but even then, little details and embellishments are hard for me to hear internally. That's where my scrub tool comes in. I also have difficulty separating what the individual sections of my instruments are doing (like what notes specifically are my flutes playing versus by horns), so my orchestration sense needs help with cakewalk and is best explored and considered by my external hearing sense. Not my fault, nor should we be made to feel like it is. I hope you understand what I mean. Old school composers often had a chip on their shoulder towards me, and I get it. They dedicated grueling hours to learning such an unforgiving medium of communication which for centuries has been the subject of highly limited access to the general public. The time involved to master it is atrocious, and if you are not immersed in it at a young age, you'll only have even more difficulty picking it up later. I suddenly come into their lives writing music using a tool that took me a fraction of the time to master, so while I can sympathise, Humans should have the freedom and option to get into music late if they want. Cakewalk and other software like it, can provide accessibility to the world of composition where there otherwise, is none, in a highly efficient way. I did not come from an affluent family that knew much, or had friends involved in the intellectual academic privileged pursuit of music. The literacy in my family was limited and the majority of my access to any music was video games and film. Just listening was my world, and I had a natural and insatiable passion for music from a very early age. I didn't choose to be born into a culturally limited family, nor should they be classified as a low I.Q. family for it, which I often got the sense that teachers would presume of me. I had some terrible experiences in academia, the elitism would kill me inside. I write about it alot on my facebook and you are welcome to add me. I wish my student loans from NYU could be forgiven with all the nonsense I had to deal with.
Here is a link to my Master's thesis, used in several publications pertaining to video game music:
www.vgmusic.com/information/vgpaper3.html
Amazing comment, I would love to continue the conversation! Please add me on Instagram or Facebook, you can find the links in description! @@dgd216
Very helpful video, thank you for the upload. Yes, I would like to see a video on transposition. God Bless.
Will do! Thanks for your comment! 🙂
You’re amazing
You are!
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.
Absolutely, count on me! 🙂 You can also find some free learning resources on my website, if you're interested, including piano tutorials.
When I was like 11 or 12 (30 now) I started practicing the piano, got into classes with a Czech teacher (I'm from Spain) and she had a Russian book (from which I only have the copy of the pieces, don't know the name of it, but I guess it is a coursebook of sorts).
From that book I more or less practiced myself by sightreading, I mean, I didn't use a metronome back then and I'm coming now to the realisation that I was sightreading then. The issue is that the more practiced I did was in the hour of the lesson and during the week I didn't come to appreciate the opportunity I had at my fingertips...
Years later, I have been playing electric guitar for a few years now and slowly getting better. When I sit at my piano (which isn't at my place, so I don't have a opportunity to practice it as consistently as I do guitar) I implement what I gathered works for me with the axe, which is more or less what you present here, but with a previous step, meaning that before implementing rhythm I practice a segment of the piece treating, at first, all the notes as whole notes, and increasing the tempo, then half notes, then quarter... You get the gist... Always using a metronome, of course. And then I proceed with implementing the rhythm, and practicing it without stopping as it is written on the paper.
I guess, after watching your video, that those are different things, first getting the segment notes and positionings under my fingers and then playing the music.
Now I can't do one without the other, meaning that I need the whole piece to be played perfectly before I can move into the rhythm. But as you said, then what I'm doing is playing "perfectly" 3 or 4 pieces, instead of playing a whole catalogue just fine. But I see my practice as an opportunity to building technique and that way of slowly getting to know the pieces as a building of repertoire.
Anyways, I'm glad I found your channel and truth be told, you are just making the kind of videos I would love to do, so I'm gonna sub and gain inspiration from you.
Fruitful practice, stay excellent to each others!
Fascinating journey into learning, thanks for sharing!
Practicing notes before "implementing rhythm" is a common move for tackling new pieces - as a piano teacher, I followed this path from my Conservatory days. In recent years, my focus shifted more towards nailing the rhythm than obsessing over the notes, also thanks to sight-reading and jazz. As I tell my students, a few off-key notes might slip by in a concert, but any hiccup in the rhythmic flow, and the whole crowd's on their feet. It's a cultural nuance-modern Western classical music, especially in Europe, leans heavily on harmony and melody, often relegating rhythm to the shadows. Here in Germany I have regularly witnessed people clapping on the 1 and 3 on swing music! 🤣
Thank you for the feedback and the sub, hope to see you under the next video this Sunday! 👍
Great points!
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.
Unfortunately most people don't learn music as early as they learn their native language. Also, not being able to sight read music has nothing to do with being a dilettante, it's just a skill - very useful indeed - but a skill.
@@lucasuttomusic - Yes. I’m talking about the world of traditional classical music and I’m talking about taking the skills of music literacy to a rational level of manifestation. Putting aside the advantages of matriculating into music at a very young age, you can still figure out what’s going on in a page of written music. It’s a question of how well and how long it takes you to do that.
Hello Luca, Thanks for your interesting and helpful video. I am trying to learn to sight read for guitar. I think everything you say in your video can be applied to guitar, maybe to any instrument. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. Best wishes David.
Hey, thanks for your feedback! 🙃 Yeah I was actually wondering whether these tips can be transferred to other instruments, and I guess in part they can, especially the "conductor's perspective" part, which I have never heard around... and I think is a game-changer!
I play classical guitar. I mostly play from music. For a long time I only used sheet music to learn the pieces, but as time went on I got better and better at reading in real time.
Practice.
Find some pieces by Fernando Sor that fit easily under the fingers in low positions. Paganini, who wrote some of the hardest violin music, wrote some of the easiest guitar music.
Just practice.
Thanks Chris. The practice has started and progress is being made! As they say "The first step is always the hardest". Best wishes, David.
I might be wrong but I suspect that solo instruments are different. If you only have to play one at a time I think it may not be as difficult even for those who learn later in life.
Thanks Eric. We guitarists can and do play up to six notes at a time. But I think that your comment would be correct for brass or woodwind players, or for vocalists.
Another factor to consider is that on piano there is a only one key that will play a particular note printed on the stave. On guitar or other string instruments there could be two or three places where you can place a finger to play a particular note read from the stave. It can all be worked out with practice. Happy Christmas.
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
Hey Antoon, appreciate your input! 🙂 Regarding Klavarskribo, I'm on the same page with your observations-it does resemble those classic "falling notes" TH-cam tutorials. There are a couple of things I want to address though:
1) Klavarskribo doesn't bother with enharmonics. While it might sound cool, it brings along some drawbacks, both in composition and performance standpoints.
2) Despite transcribing a lot of music, there's still a ton missing, significantly narrowing down your playlist options.
3) Primarily geared towards keyboard instruments like organ, piano, and accordion, even though it can spill over to other instruments.
4) Not much for orchestra, mostly focusing on solo instruments.
In my view, it's a solid system for a more casual music pursuit, but it might feel limiting when collaborating or diving into academic contexts - it would be as if you were to write this very comment in Khmer language, and I had no Google Translate. 😬 Cheers!
(regarding musical dyslexia, it's a real thing, but I'm no expert, so if you're concerned, it might be worth getting that checked out!)
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?
Well, it really boils down to your goals, man! 🙂Let's be upfront: picking up music reading as an adult comes with its challenges. It's not just about being an adult; there's also this nagging thought in your brain, "I'm doing more than fine by ear, why bother with reading?". My advice is to transform music reading into an ENJOYABLE AND COOL skill to acquire, not just a practical one. A couple of ideas:
1) There are very complex pieces that you can't for sure learn by ear. If you're drawn to such music, delve into it, and try a music reading approach. No pressure, just for fun.
2) You said you're into movie scores. Exploring "score reading," understanding how different instruments are notated - it's practically a science of its own. And it's super cool!
3) Consider delving into composing using notation, for instance counterpoint exercises or choral harmony. This kind of stuff is challenging to grasp by ear and opens up a whole new dimension in your music. Btw I'll surely make a video about that in the future!
Let me know if I can of any help! 😎Cheers!
thanks for writing me back. All very solid suggestions and advice. I will keep trekking along this path and will keep you posted. Thank you 🙏
Please make a video on how to improvise!
Omg that's a great idea! ❤ Any particular style or genre that you're interested in?
@@lucasuttomusic Yes! :) coming from classical background I'm super interested in jazz.
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.
Sad and sorry to learn smart game piano's channel was taken down. She had some of the most useful and helpful piano tutorials on youtube. She knew how students learned and didnt rely on the sheet.
Getting the hang of this hits home-I went through the same process when tackling old clefs, such as soprano and mezzo-soprano. In my experience, committing the staff positions to memory first is crucial before diving into sight-reading exercises. That approach did the trick for me.
@@lucasuttomusic There are a lot of pianists on youtube who don't know how to teach. They think playing is teaching. Some teachers are just too big to be good and can't offer specific advice or feedback. That element is perhaps the most challenging aspect of being self taught.
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.
Great tip!
WHAT!?!?… Luca Sutto dropped a Video and I didn’t saw it on the first minute of its release?!… And one question from a random guy to a real pianist: I’m learning piano with simlpyPiano so am I counting as a „other type of pianist“ guy?😂 Love your Video and theme ❤ Thank you „90s-music-grandpa“ 😅
Hey Florra! 😍(I'm gearing up to post weekly by 2024, currently I post every two weeks on Sundays!) Starting with Simply Piano is a fantastic choice! However, here's the deal with tutorials and apps like the one you mentioned - they don't exactly teach you a piano-playing method. Instead, they kind of "tame" you to tackle each piece individually. The catch is, in the long run, you might not become fully independent, always needing the app's backup. That said, many of my students still find them super helpful, but they pair the app with a weekly individual piano lesson - so in that case is different! 🤗 Thank you for the compliments, I appreciate it!
The apps and TH-cam videos and piano for dummies type books are all fine...to a point. You can learn something from all of them.
But remember, they all have no way of giving you any constructive criticism or immediate feedback and are incapable of making observations on your technique, fingering, general relaxation while playing, bench or keyboard height or talking to you about things such as why you shouldn't be regularly practicing on an office chair that swivels and has wheels.
Apps dont cover any of that or ask you questions or react to what they SEE. An app may know you hit the right note, but it has no idea what fingering you used to do it or whether you used arm weight or applied economy of motion or used arch support in your fingers...or have weak collapsing joints in your 4th and 5th fingers that may need special attention and additional exercises.
Absolutely nothing replaces a teacher. A teacher is a guide who has not only been down this path but is there with a flashlight to point out the way, knows all of the twists and turns, and what traps and pitfalls to avoid and what dangers lurk in the dark just off the path along the way.
A good teacher trains YOU to teach yourself. Nobody needs lessons forever.
Thex dont they practice everyday. It is a rare Gift Bro. Especially people who can read contemporary fluently.
Hey Anna! 🙃Dealing with avant-garde and experimental... yeah, sight reading gets trickier! Luckily most of that music doesn't demand sight-reading - so you're supposed to have the time to actually practice it. Like you said, I've seen folks effortlessly breeze through seriously complex pieces, that would take me hours to "decipher". At that point, yes, I recognise that it comes down to natural predisposition!
Sight reading doesn't matter. It is just a tool for learning the piece. Nothing more. So don't let it hold you back.
Yes!... and no 😅 If your aim is to learn a piece - no deadlines - , take it at your own pace. However, there are instances when you can't afford weeks or months to pick up a new piece. Sometimes, you're handed the music on the fly. Different scenarios, different skill sets!
@@lucasuttomusic Sorry but "playing on the fly by sight reading" will always result in crap.
It is exactly the same like handing a text to an actor and say "play". Result: crap
You would be surprised by some people who are able to do literally wonders at sight reading!
@@lucasuttomusic You can completely forget that. A good performance is ALWAYS the result of a lot of practice. It is NEVER a first shot from the sheet. Never. Don't act like it was otherwise if you want to be taken seriously. So once again this good advice: don't waste your time with sight reading excercises, concentrate on other way more important things than that
The format of video suits you.
Thank you! 😅
You too omit harmony.
I beg your pardon?
@@lucasuttomusic Semantics-impaired people don't see the point, but this omission about reading is also the case of Music Matters and Nahre Sol.
@@PijanitsaVode Do you mean that I failed to bring up how harmony can assist in sight-reading? At 18:32 I stress out the importance of music theory quite a lot, not only harmony but also analysis, for instance.
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 ♥
That’s a great story, man. More power to you! You’ve also made a great point: as long as you’re interested in improving, it doesn’t matter how good you become.
i hate coleslaw
I hoped that somebody would point that out!
So funny..."I'm a terrible sight reader"😅
I really am! 😅
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 🤣
I figure the real deal usually hangs out in the middle! 😅 Getting better at sight-reading can come in handy in tons of situations, especially if you're a full-time pianist life and freelancing all over the place - typical scenario is accompaniment gigs. On the flip side, it wouldn't hurt for the "classical guys" to dip their toes into some basic improv skills. There's a bunch to chat about on that front, and I've actually dug into it in a previous video if you're interested! th-cam.com/video/N1Ub9sjoA6k/w-d-xo.html