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...

Pallas

BartK Thank you for the idea. I didn't even think of deleting the local copy. I'm a control freak!

candela

ranjit Yes, that definitely increases the difficulty. It's a a bit like meter changes. When they grade the difficulty of band pieces, I know one of the criteria is whether there are any meter changes. They'll take a while for most players to get comfortable with.

candela

Pallas I'm in the stage "conscious incompetence," which is an essential stage for learning stuff!

I doubt I'll ever grow out of this stage. There are so many aspects I can hear that I need to work on. A lifetime does not seem enough! But that's ok. I like learning.

Pallas

candela I feel exactly the same. I'm going to be consciously incompetent forever. But that's ok! I'm enjoying the practice, and that's what counts for me.

ranjit

This is actually not that hard since it's in C major (and because I've heard it plenty of times before!). But it could have been a lot better.

WieWaldi

ranjit But it could have been a lot better.

And it could have been a lot worse, too. There were still some notes with accidentals, the piece was quite fast and your tempo wasn't bad at all. Keep on progressing.

Edit: how many different grands to you have?

rogerch

I recorded myself sight reading today. Watching the playback is painful! Wrong notes, hesitations, and wrong rhythms abound. I have a long way to go!

Here is me sight-reading "The Trolley Song" from The Giant Book of Standards arranged by Dan Coates. Hopefully it's less painful for you to watch than it is for me (we are our own worst critics...)

WieWaldi

rogerch Actually I liked listening to it. But you must admit, you cheated! There was a repeating section in your piece. Then it's not sight-reading anymore. 😂
Joking aside: it was nice to listen and fun watching. Especially you bending over to the right side to get a look into the score.

Sophia

We're sooo brave... normally everyone just shares their "best take and we're not telling anyone that it was the 100th try in 3 weeks and a fluke that it went well at last" and here we are, appearing in unflattering housecoat, uncombed hair and no makeup on our face. You have my undying devotion and appreciation!

Seriously, seeing others (especially experienced players such as yourself and ranjit) struggle a little makes me feel so much better about my own attempts!

Thank you!

Pallas

Sophia we're not telling anyone that it was the 100th try in 3 weeks

Wait. I thought that was implied. Let me make this official: all of my performance videos are the 111th try over a period of weeks. There. Honesty! (And I actually don't care who knows it either!)

rogerch

Sophia Seriously, seeing others (especially experienced players such as yourself and ranjit) struggle a little makes me feel so much better about my own attempts!

I'm glad some good came of posting that video!

For me learning a piece is always a struggle. I've been working on my fast piece recital pieces for almost two months now and a lot of it is repeating some very small snippet over and over again at various speeds until I can get it right 5 times in a row. That would be even more painful to watch than the sight reading!

rogerch

WieWaldi rogerch Actually I liked listening to it. But you must admit, you cheated! There was a repeating section in your piece. Then it's not sight-reading anymore. 😂

You caught me! I always take the repeats when sight reading, hoping that it will be better the second time. Sometimes it's worse!

Joking aside: it was nice to listen and fun watching. Especially you bending over to the right side to get a look into the score.

Yeah that happens to all the time. Yet another challenge for us piano players! If the iPad doesn't work out I may take inspiration from your spiral binding of scores!

Player1

BartK
Oh, sorry. I thought you had done all your exams up to certificate level. My bad.

I'm still wondering what happens during an exam when the sight reading part is given and how it compares to the efforts here.

BartK

Player1 I'm still wondering what happens during an exam when the sight reading part is given and how it compares to the efforts here.

It's described in the syllabus and you can find videos of exams on YT. You're given 30 seconds to look through the music, prepare fingering and try out some of it. Nothing you do during that 30 seconds counts for your grade but once the time is up you have to play through and you have one attempt. Scary stuff!

ranjit

Attempting to sight read again, hoping this thread would help with accountability. Recording myself just makes me realize that I'm worse at sight reading than I consciously realize. This was the only sight reading take today that was listenable (if that!).

That said, these Pokemon themes are really pretty.

WieWaldi

Ten days later - time for the next recording. For sight-reading it is easy - grab the camera, put it in right place, plug in the audio-jack, switch it on, and press the record button. No need to be perfect, no stagefright, relax. Just check that the fly is closed...

I recorded "piece" #69 and #70 from Sight-Reading & Harmony (Complete Edition) , but #69 was so bad that I decided to upload only #70. And this tiny thing was already more than 3 minutes!😴

Was I prepared? Probably not!
Did I practice enough? Definitely not!
Was it better than 10 days ago? Not even close!
Was the piece harder? I don't think so!
But did I learn something? Yes, I need more practice!
Anything else? It is what it is!

Call it progress recording.

BartK

WieWaldi
Hey, don't worry. Some days are better and some are worse. It is to be expected. It's a process that takes years and you are not likely see improvements over days or weeks or even months. But if you look back in a year you should see a difference.

WieWaldi

My sight-reading exercises contain fingering hints, but my brain is too busy reading the bubbles on the lines and thinking about rhythm and sharps and flats and what hand has to move which finger in order to hit the right note. Even when I try to follow the fingering hints, I screw it up too often, and I run out of fingers.
It is not a problem if my thumb was the last one, because I can tuck under. But in case, my last finger was the 4th or 5th, I must too often stretch my pinky, and it seems this little finger is stretching over the entire keyboard to hit the right key.
Is this just my problem and I must fix it ASAP, or is this normal at my early stage, and it will be solved over time?

BartK

WieWaldi
It doesn't really matter. I run out of fingers all the time when sight reading. I learned to switch fingers quickly (change the finger holding down the note without lifting the key) from playing lots of Bach but if you can't do that then just lift your finger and move your hand. There is no need to keep everying legato.

WieWaldi

Actually, I wanted to record every week a new progress video, but the progress was too little to record. So I forced myself at least do a recording after ten days latest. And this is how it went:

Still not fluent, not to say still very toddler-ish. And also not free of mistakes, albeit in the less easy version, I fixed the mistake I made in the very easy one. All in all, I think it was a little bit better than ten days ago, so there is maybe a bit of progress. But I must admit this chorale number 44 was easier than the number 70 of my previous recording. So there is still a long long way to go.

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