Never again learning a wrong note!

Animisha · 2024-12-03T08:52:40+00:00

Okay, I am a bit overenthusiastic right now. But I have bought the Synthesia app and after a bit of a hassle it works like a dream! iternabe This also beg...

Animisha

ShiroKuro This last part may be where @Animisha is feeling challenged, because if you’re not actively reading the LH part, it can be easy to miss subtle changes, like a pattern that’s repeated but only one note in a chord is changed.

Actually, the subtle changes in the piece that I talked about ("C# is played together with E, or with D, or with F#, or even with F") were in the alto voice. Still, it is quite true that most of my attention goes to the voice that is the most important one, which often is the soprano voice.

I have never heard of your recommendation "Read from the bottom staff up, rather than from the top staff down" and I never sight read like that. In the easier sight-reading pieces that I do, I focus on getting the melody right, both the notes and the rhythm, and I hope that the single notes or chords in the bass clef somehow tag along.

By the way...

ShiroKuro I'm trying to think if I have anything helpful to say in terms of how I got so comfortable reading....
Read a lot?

BartK That's pretty much it.

I did not recommend Synthesia for sight reading practice. In sight reading you need to play through your mistakes, so after one mistake, Synthesia would stop moving. So it is useless.
I do - still 😉 - recommend Synthesia (or a similar app) for the early stages of learning a new piece, when you want to make sure that you are not learning the wrong notes.

ShiroKuro

Animisha "Read from the bottom staff up, rather than from the top staff down" and I never sight read like that.

Yeah, I don't either. I would love to know how many people actually read like this....

Also, I'd like to know where I read it... but I have forgotten! 😅

MRC

Animisha I have never heard of your recommendation "Read from the bottom staff up, rather than from the top staff down" and I never sight read like that.

Nor do I. I think I read more from the outsides inwards: if I'm sight-reading a tricky piece, it is usually most important to get the melody and the bass notes right. When things are flying by too fast, I fake what's happening in the middle.

iternabe

@Animisha I feel sorry for nudging the topic of this discussion from note/chord/error recognition to sight reading. They are different, and we already have a sight reading thread. But I am glad, as always, I elicited some very helpful insights on sight-reading from forum members. 🙂

One thing @ShiroKuro mentioned strikes me as so true is the need to consciously read the notes on the sheet after the piece is already mostly memorized by hand. The reason I worry about committing wrong notes into subconscious memory is exactly because I only read them closely during the very early part of learning a piece. Pretty soon after there become a point where the fingers retained enough muscle memory (not by intention) that my brain no longer fully register and scrutinize those notes on the sheet even when my eyes are alway looking at them. It's like a "fake" state of reading while playing.

So, maybe add to her great advice: "Read a lot of new music"?

BartK

iternabe One thing @ShiroKuro mentioned strikes me as so true is the need to consciously read the notes on the sheet after the piece is already mostly memorized by hand. The reason I worry about committing wrong notes into subconscious memory is exactly because I only read them closely during the very early part of learning a piece. Pretty soon after there become a point where the fingers retained enough muscle memory (not by intention) that my brain no longer fully register and scrutinize those notes on the sheet even when my eyes are alway looking at them. It's like a "fake" state of reading while playing.

I know many beginners learn like that (including myself several years ago) but muscle memory is very weak and very unreliable. A good way to practice is to go so slow that you disengage the auto pilot. Try to read the notes conciously and be aware of everything while going glacially slow. If you know some theory you can also play in blocked chords and say the chord you are on at the same time. All of that makes you rely less on muscle memory and makes it more likely that you will notice if you missed something.

Animisha

iternabe The reason I worry about committing wrong notes into subconscious memory is exactly because I only read them closely during the very early part of learning a piece. Pretty soon after there become a point where the fingers retained enough muscle memory (not by intention) that my brain no longer fully register and scrutinize those notes on the sheet even when my eyes are alway looking at them.

This is exactly what I also do! And that is also a reason why I want to get external feedback on the correctness of my playing, so I don't learn the wrong notes and the wrong sounds!

MRC

iternabe For people who eventually developed fluent score reading ability, do they somehow mentally turning the staffs to match the keyboard, or form some other kind of positional association that makes the link between notes on paper and keys under finger more direct?

I definitely have a positional association. If I see a chord on a grand staff, I will automatically feel in my hands how I'd play it, and I visualise where it would be on the keyboard. I don't consciously rotate the score in my mind, but I think this idea can help when learning to read piano music.

ShiroKuro

MRC When things are flying by too fast, I fake what's happening in the middle.

That is probably a very good skill, esp. for sightreading truly new music!

When reading a new piece, I have a hard time leaving out notes or, for example, an inner voice. If I'm learning something and decide not to play one chord note (say because it's beyond my reach) that's one thing, but I usually can't make that decision in the middle of prima vista sightreading.

ShiroKuro

BartK disengage the auto pilot.

This is very important!! And something I tried to do in the weeks leading up to the concert I played in last week, because, as you say, muscle memory is very unreliable. But auto pilot is very... insistent. It's like the brain wants to go into auto pilot, that's the default mode.

Animisha

iternabe For people who eventually developed fluent score reading ability, do they somehow mentally turning the staffs to match the keyboard, or form some other kind of positional association that makes the link between notes on paper and keys under finger more direct?

I am far, far away from fluent score reading ability, but when I sit at my desk and see a score without a title, I move my fingers and hum, and if I know the piece (also pieces I have never played, for instance pop songs), I can often "hear" which piece it is. This was something I absolutely could not do before I played the piano.
Now that I think of it, I am maybe better when I do this at my desk instead of at the piano, because at my desk I don't make mistakes! 😃

PS I don't know if this some kind of answer to your question iternabe... But I don't make a mental rotation for this to work.

Sam

My advice, which is worth what you paid for it!, is to avoid Synthesia - it is teaching the wrong things. Might as well light up the keys you need to press on the keyboard. The fact that it tells you when you make a mistake is not helping you - you need to develop the skill to hear when you have made a mistake yourself. And the only way to do that is to make mistakes and correct them yourself. Practice reading music 15 minutes a day, every day, and your skills will improve.

Animisha

Sam you need to develop the skill to hear when you have made a mistake yourself.

Sam, I am learning a new piece, and I am not familiar with its sounds. If I would play the alto voice as E in both measures, how could I hear it? This is an honest question, because I don't know, and I certainly don't hear it.

PS The piece is in A major.

rsl12

I personally don't think the way Animisha is using Synethesia is harmful at all, and in fact I think the way she's using it sounds helpful. After all, one of the things teachers do for us is catch mistakes that we would otherwise be unaware of. And that's what it's doing.

Animisha

rsl12 Thank you! 😊

ShiroKuro

Animisha If I would play the alto voice as E in both measures, how could I hear it?

The way you hear is by learning to hear it, and teaching yourself to hear it. Find spots you're likely to make mistakes, isolate the note, listen to it alone, then listen to it with the other notes in the chord, then listen to it in the context of the passage.

All the while you're doing this, re-playing each time, you will also be training your ear and your fingers (muscle memory).

Another think you can do is play the mistake, and then play the correct notes, and really pay attention to how they sound.

/notSam 😅

Sam

Animisha I could tell you how a 7th and a 6th sound different, but that is not going to help you when you have a different interval. Generally speaking, you listen as you play, and when something doesn't sound right, you check to see if you have the right notes - it is as simple as that. You are going along and then crunch - that's not right - better check.

Which is something synthesia doesn't do for you. It tells you visually that you have played the wrong note, when what you need is to recognize by ear when you have something wrong. You learn to do that yourself by listening as you play.

iternabe

ShiroKuro The way you hear is by learning to hear it, and teaching yourself to hear it. Find spots you're likely to make mistakes, isolate the note, listen to it alone, then listen to it with the other notes in the chord, then listen to it in the context of the passage.

Ear training, then? Back to @Sam 's 15 minutes a day and just keep at it?

Sophia

ShiroKuro The way you hear is by learning to hear it, and teaching yourself to hear it.

Interesting thought (and topic). This reminds me of something that happened to me recently. I had practiced the recital piece (Classy Rag) and it sounded good to my ears. Very funky. Then I had a piano friend (you know who you are) listen to it shortly before we went live, because it just so happened they wanted to learn this piece too.

Of course they are a much better sight reader than I am, so not even five minutes later they told me that I played the second bar of the intro wrong. Sheet music:

But instead, I did this:

Now if they hadn't pointed that out to me, I would have played incorrect notes. I challenge anyone who doesn't know the piece well to notice it without the written music 😁

Edit: I rerecorded it and the final version is correct, as far as I can tell 🙂

ShiroKuro

BTW @Animisha I feel like you are selling yourself short, assuming that you need to rely on Synthesia to avoid learning wrong notes. But I don't think that is the case.

I tend to agree with @Sam that you're better off not relying on Synthesia, but I get where @rsl12 is coming from as well. If someone is going to use Synthesia, then the way you're using it is much better than the way many other people do.

ShiroKuro

iternabe Ear training

That's a good question.... I wouldn't call what I'm suggesting ear training....

@Animisha said that if it's music she knows, it's not an issue (Animisha, please correct me if I'm wrong), but this is music where she doesn't know the original, and she's worried about wrong notes where there's a small change in a chord or passage that repeats. So the first time, one of the notes is an E but another time, it's a C# (for example).

It's hard to catch because it doesn't sound "wrong" the way something would if it was in the key of G major but you played the F nature (for example).

So here, the training required is more about score-reading than ear training... as I'm envisioning it. But maybe that's not the most helpful way?

iternabe

ShiroKuro I was thinking along the line that ear training would help one distinguish a 7th from a 6th?

ShiroKuro

iternabe I was thinking along the line that ear training would help one distinguish a 7th from a 6th?

Well, yes, ear training can help us distinguish one type of chord or interval from another. But in the context of playing a piece, esp one that you don't know, if both the 6th and the 7th sound ok (say because in one part of the music it's a 6th and in another part it's a 7th), then it's going to be very hard to notice that you're not playing the right one at the right time.

Ultimately, I think we're talking about the same thing but from a slightly different angle.

BartK

Sophia Now if they hadn't pointed that out to me, I would have played incorrect notes. I challenge anyone who doesn't know the piece well to notice it without the written music 😁

Well, diminished 7ths are not really tonal in the sense that the chord is completely symetric and doesn't give a clue about the tonal center. It's one reason composers use it to modulate. So, unless you have perfect pitch you can't distinguish between different diminished 7ths by ear without context.

You played the second one a whole tone higher but I had to look at your hands to see it.

Anyway, IMO the notation is really bad. It's the same diminished 7th chord but inverted one note lower but for some reason they decided to write it in flats to make it look different.

Animisha

ShiroKuro But in the context of playing a piece, esp one that you don't know, if both the 6th and the 7th sound ok (say because in one part of the music it's a 6th and in another part it's a 7th), then it's going to be very hard to notice that you're not playing the right one at the right time.

This is it.
Once I am familiar with the music, I can hear it.

And my fear has always been that I learn it incorrectly from the start, and as Sophia says, it sounds good to my ears, but it is not. Actually, this situation has also happened more than once, ever since I started to play a little bit more complex music. As a beginner, I heard all mistakes.

So I am very happy with Synthesia, and more relaxed, when learning new pieces with strange sounds. ☺️

MRC

Sophia Of course they are a much better sight reader than I am, so not even five minutes later they told me that I played the second bar of the intro wrong. Sheet music:

I'm wondering why somebody chose this way of notating what is in fact just the same diminished chord in a different inversion. Could you post the rest of the intro?

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