Sight-Reading

by Frederick Scott

‘…the sight of the notes will at once induce the fingers to assume the correct position’ (Jozsef Gat, Technique of Piano Playing, 1965).

Music can be said to exist in several media: the imagination (memory or the creative instinct), aural perception (passive listening), notation (static, visual) and performance, which unites these processes in simultaneity. Sight reading is the activity that further combines all the above in one spontaneous act of re-creation and is reason enough to re-consider the importance of being able to read at sight and to aim to improve in line with one’s technical abilities as a player. Sadly, it is often the case that pianists deny themselves knowledge and experience of so much great music in many genres because of a lack of confidence in sight-reading. As a consequence, growth as a musician can be compromised even though the pianist is in possession of a more than adequate executive ability. Repertoire choices therefore also necessarily remain limited, as are opportunities to perform chamber music and accompanying.

This last aspect is important for any pianist wishing to add to their expertise as a soloist a communicative, interactive dimension to their music making.

With these thoughts in mind how does all this apply to the piano teacher striving to build enthusiasm for sight-reading in his or her students?

I believe it has to start with an understanding of how to demonstrate a clear and achievable strategy for improvement. Just about everyone learning piano starts by reading and playing very simple melodic configurations, slowly and accurately, in much the same way that we learn to read text. Somewhere along the line it becomes easier to ‘play’ and less important to ‘read’. The attention is naturally drawn away from the page as the student memorizes hand positions and finger movements that become increasingly complex as their technical ability increases. It is also perhaps important to realise that reading single lines of melody is a predominantly horizontal process and much easier than the vertical and horizontal nature of reading music with multiple simultaneous events, right and left hand playing together. It is at this point that a new approach to reading at sight must be considered and introduced, not assuming that the transition implied is a natural one. While we continue to read text horizontally there is almost nothing else for which we must learn to read across, up and down in combination with an act of physical co-ordination. Often the description of a process can seem forbidding (remember learning how to drive?) but we can break down the problem into manageable units and make progress more easily than it seemed at first.

Motivation

I have found it useful in allaying the fears of students about the ‘dreaded’ sight reading tests in exams to approach learning to read at sight always as a musical activity, a performance and not just a test (the same can be said for scales too).

For example, in teaching a new beginner recently we began by deciding together on a pre-performance checklist for approaching the test-piece; look at the sample, determine the mood, speed, dynamic, smallest note values (the speed with which you can manage these determines the overall tempo) any potential point of struggle, last bar or closing gesture. We then reviewed several test pieces and worked on each aspect for each piece, looking at the pieces and making a decision about mood, speed and so on for the other criteria. Once a student feels they have a ‘key’ the execution becomes less of a problem.

Slow and Steady

Let’s move on to the more experienced player, say, mid-grades, in the exact situation where attention has wandered from an immediate relationship between page and performance to a focus on motor-coordination. Again, I find that it’s important to emphasize the benefits of sight-reading rather than just the ‘test-factor’. There is no quick and easy short cut to this and in order to grow in ability a certain element of slowing down is necessary. It can be frustrating to be able to play to a certain level yet be a comparatively poor sight-reader. The way to correct this is to read as slowly as necessary to avoid errors. I insist on the pre-requisite of a totally relaxed demeanour at the instrument, reading slowly and accurately and listening intently. I find it equally useful to use pieces of all tempo indications but playing all slowly. (It is easier to play an allegro movement of a classical sonata at sight slowly than a typical slow movement, which usually has more complicated rhythmic configurations).

I also demonstrate this by performing some sight-reading and narrating what I am doing and decisions I am taking, slowly. Enough regular practice of this kind will eventually yield greater facility as the responses and reflexes develop.

Continual Improvement

In advanced players good sight-reading is essential, though often neglected.

I believe it should be part of every day’s practice to set aside time to read through music at sight for several important reasons.

i) Increased technical ability

If regular sight-reading is already part of a student’s routine it is easier to develop solutions to technical problems in music because of a base-line familiarity with a composer’s style or indeed a period practice. For example, enough exposure to the music of a particular composer will reveal that there are a finite number of physical configurations used by that composer in his musical language. Inevitably, a composer’s own style may have evolved (‘early’ v. ‘late’ Beethoven) but this does not preclude the fact that reading through the repertoire is an invaluable way to develop technical and even interpretative strategies as a by-product of sight-reading itself. Being familiar with style will naturally affect ease of memorization in a positive way

ii) Increased Imagination     

An invaluable aspect of the teaching I received from John Bigg was his advice to learn music ‘away from the instrument’. In this way the player has to conceive an interpretation in the imagination and develop a technical approach by mental rehearsal in the first instance. This form of ‘extreme’ sight-reading is very challenging, though useful and is best attempted using small samples at first, increasing as confidence develops.

iii) Increased Intuition

In his excellent book ‘Piano Notes’ (Free Press, 2002) Charles Rosen writes of an inspiring challenge to aspiring pianists to become familiar with the vast piano repertoire by reading the complete works of various composers. He writes ‘In about six months of sight-reading for three hours a day, one could go through most of the keyboard music of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms.’ Rosen adds Schoenberg, Webern and Berg to the list (under three hours) and goes on to say that for a pianist to have neglected this activity is at a great disadvantage. He later broadens his survey to include chamber and orchestral scores. One might perhaps remember that it was Sviatoslav Richter who said that playing through opera scores ‘saw to the essentials of my musical education’

I hope that these observations on sight-reading will be useful in inspiring a practical application of an activity that has the potential to unlock the knowledge of so much great music to even greater numbers of our students.

‘The only stimulus one needs is curiosity’. (Charles Rosen, Piano notes, Free Press, 2002)