The Sight Reading Progress Thread

WieWaldi · 2024-06-25T02:17:55+00:00

This is a collection of recommendations found in this forum, to have it all in one place: Books (paper / digital) WieWaldi Sight-Reading & Harmony (Comp...

MandM

I like it, a journey begins with a first step 😀

BartK

That's a great idea WieWaldi. I never record my sight reading though I wish I would. I would be able to see my progress after years. Right now it's just in my (hazy) memory.

Player1

It is a beginning but remember, it's not just notes on the scale, there are dynamics too.

Pallas

Player1 It is a beginning but remember, it's not just notes on the scale, there are dynamics too.

The video is sight-reading progress, not a performance. In my opinion, critical feedback is useful only in certain stages, i.e., not this stage.

Player1

Pallas

The goal of sight reading is to be able to play the score as written. Omitting the written dynamics doesn't achieve that goal nor is it progress toward that goal.

Otherwise you could play one handed, or leave out mordents/trills and so on, and say you've accomplished the goal.

I'm also not being overly harsh. If the goal is to play the entire score as written then one must attempt to play the entire score, even if poorly. Saying so isn't criticism, it's a critique. Criticism would be to judge the playing skill as inadequate or unacceptable. Which is something I did not do.

Sophia

When I sight read something for the first time, it sounds just like that 🙂 (Ok let's be honest here, much worse in most cases). I definitely don't add dynamics or rhythm etc.

Once I feel brave enough, I might add my own "first read" video... perhaps the piece that @rogerch mentioned in the other thread, the one from the "Easy Classics" book. I have deliberately not looked at it yet just so that I can use it for this type of exercise!

BartK

Sophia When I sight read something for the first time, it sounds just like that 🙂 (Ok let's be honest here, much worse in most cases). I definitely don't add dynamics or rhythm etc.

Emphasis mine but I think this is a serious mistake that beginners make.

So, I didn't point it out in my previous response because, like Pallas, I think this should be a progress and encouragement thread, but leaving out rhythm is the wrong thing to do. Rhythm is the most important aspect. It's more important to get the rhythm right than to get the notes right. This is why I suggested clapping out the rhythm with a metronome in the other thread. Once you have the rhythm then you can add the notes, not the other way around.

Okay, I'll go back to lurking and encouraging now. 🙂

Pallas

Player1 We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, and that's ok. Perhaps the OP thinks differently, and that's totally fine too. But my feeling is that a critique at this stage is telling an ice skater that they should be smiling, flirting, and lip-synching while trying to land their first triple. They know about those things. They're not able to do all that at once yet. And they need encouragement rather than the Russian judge standing there with 2 on a score card when they already know they didn't nail it. My feeling is that it's super extra terrific to ask someone if they want feedback before giving it.

I know I'm not going to change your mind, so I'm putting this here for my own benefit, and for any others who feel the same. I'm going to post my process videos here, and I'm going to want my peers to clap me on the back and say supportive stuff. When I want critique, which I will, I'll post in the performance thread and ask for it specifically.

You get 0% of what you don't ask for.

WieWaldi

BartK It's more important to get the rhythm right than to get the notes right.

Sorry, here I have to disagree (and it is hard as a total beginner to disagree with an advanced player like Bart). At least I disagree to a certain degree, because it depends:
If you are generally good at getting a rhythm into your fingers, but you always struggle to hit the right notes, then getting the notes right is the more important practice goal.
There are reasons to tell rhythm is more important, and there are reasons to tell notes are more important. I am in the notes-are-more-important camp (at least as long I count myself a beginner, who hit wrong notes too often). If you make a wrong note, so wrong that it is out of harmony (e.g. missing a sharp), even a blind person can hear it. But if you make a note too long or too short or another rhythm mistake, some people may think it was intended. They won't recognize this as a mistake so easily.
On the other hand, if you are playing in a band with other people, rhythm mistakes are truly fatal - more fatal than a wrong note here or there. But this is the mindset of intermediates and above. 😁

Sophia

I always value your wise advice Bart, please do more than lurk when you have some valuable advice to add 🥰

Pallas

I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I just plopped down and made my first sight-reading progress video. As you can see if you click, it's amazing and I'm a genius. 😜😜😜 No. I have a specific goal for posting this video: to get over the anxiety of posting a video of me slaughtering the first piece in one of the books I picked.

My goal here is not to prove that I can avoid mistakes while sight-reading an easy piece. It was to "officially" START my daily sight-reading practice, to play anything at all, see how it feels, figure out how to title the video, set an intention for this "new" practice in the description, and post a link here to start my participation. All of that is an accomplishment for me, because I'm really a perfectionist who needs to embrace the process of making mistakes and learning from them.

I would like a pat on the back for overcoming my anxiety. The easiest piece in my Kunz book was still too difficult for me to play at tempo with ok fingering. So my next video will be from my John Thompson method book instead and I'll return to Kunz later. If you clicked, please give me a hi-5!!

BartK

Pallas
🙌 and 👍

WieWaldi

Pallas Well done! You made the very first step, the most important step of all. And if you add more of those little steps every day, you will make a lot of progress within a year. You should be proud and give yourself some nice claps on the shoulder.

Keep on the sight-reading practice. Record yourself in a few days again, I am sure you will see quite some progress. The long pause in the beginning, with placing the right fingers on the right keys, do some preparation, you recorded everything 👍. I like

rogerch

@Pallas @WieWaldi I think it’s great that you are working on sight reading! As time passes you will get better at notes, rhythm, dynamics, etc.

You have taken the critical first step which is to start! Thanks for sharing and I look forward to your progress!

I think having this video record will be useful and encouraging. I’ve been working on sight reading for almost a year and I feel like I have made good progress but I have no recordings to check. You have inspired me to make some recordings, maybe monthly? I’m not sure I will be brave enough to share them but at least it will help me see my progress…

Pallas

rogerch Whether you share them or not, I'm pulling for you!

ranjit

I like the idea! I might post my own sight reading progress. I'm pretty bad at sight reading -- a year ago it was basically at zero, but now I can mostly read through very easy pieces. It's something that I really need to find a way to get up to speed quickly.

Pallas

WieWaldi This is exactly why I posted that other thread, about the "order of operations" when learning a piece. Ideally, we do it ALL at the same time, but when you're a bloody beginner and your brain can only take so much, what's the most important thing, then the next important thing, etc. I'm going back to that thread maybe tomorrow to try to make a digest for people to react to. Thanks for this conversation!

Pallas

WieWaldi I really like the comments you put into your video. How do you do do that?

WieWaldi

Pallas I use VideoPad. It is not the most professional tool, but it is fairly cheap and quite easy to learn. I would say, it is very intuitive.
If you are more interested in this, you should start a dedicated video editing thread. There are lots of different opinions and many other tools that work as well. Maybe some are even total for free?

ranjit

Agreed. I find that the important thing is to be at least somewhat "musical". For instance, you might speed up or slow down while still feeling the musical line. Or you might stop and collect your thoughts if it's going out of control.

That said, Bart had a really good experience sight reading with the metronome. So it might work as well. It depends on where you are and how you do it. For me, it felt like I was working a typewriter when I tried it a year ago, and just didn't work somehow because I felt disengaged from the language of the music.