Anyone like me who struggles to read ahead while playing ? Any tips that can help me with this issue gratefully received.
Sight reading
- Thread starter PaulBR
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Study the score first, do not play any notes, just imagine you are playing a virtual instrument.
Play the score, slowly, ignoring any errors, concentrate on accuracy and timing.
Play the same score no more than three times before moving on.
Do the same for the next score.
The idea is you are reading the score at a pace you can handle, the speed will increase in time.
What you do not want to do is learn the muscle memory of each song, that is not learning to read the score effectively.
Practice and more practice, little and often.
Play the score, slowly, ignoring any errors, concentrate on accuracy and timing.
Play the same score no more than three times before moving on.
Do the same for the next score.
The idea is you are reading the score at a pace you can handle, the speed will increase in time.
What you do not want to do is learn the muscle memory of each song, that is not learning to read the score effectively.
Practice and more practice, little and often.
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I'm unable to play music while reading it, mainly from lack of practice I suppose, but also because I need to keep my eyes on what my hands are doing on the keyboard.
And I can read music okay, but unless the notes are marked with accidentals I'm likely to play a natural when a given note is supposed to be flat or sharp.
So what I do is read the music as slowly as needed while learning to play the song, but then I play from memory as much as possible.
And I can read music okay, but unless the notes are marked with accidentals I'm likely to play a natural when a given note is supposed to be flat or sharp.
So what I do is read the music as slowly as needed while learning to play the song, but then I play from memory as much as possible.
Rayblewit
Love Music / Love Life
My eyes are fixed to the sheet music.
My fingers seem to know where to go. So totally the opposite to SeaGt.
Occassionaly throughout the piece I glance down to the keybed especially if there is a huge step say displacing the hand to a new octave.
I find if I look at the keypad too long I tend to lose my place on the sheet.
So my suggestion to paul is practise playing without looking at the keys so that your brain can focus on the sheet music.
Reading in conjunction with playing rather than reading ahead would be my suggestion.
Play play play often. Muscle memory as biggles says works for me. It developed for me to my astonishment over a few years.
Makes playing music such a pleasure.
Ray
The key to reading notes is just to keep reading NEW notes. This is so important.
here are two things I would recommend which were KEY to sight reading.
www.bachscholar.com
-- This is the best thing I found for learning to sightread.
www.sightreadingfactory.com
--It will generate unlimited notes for you to keep playing.
here are two things I would recommend which were KEY to sight reading.
The Art of Sight-Reading (Part 1) — BachScholar®
In this article, Dr. Hall clarifies the often misunderstood art of sight-reading. The first half of the article discusses sight-reading in general, while the second half of the article (about midway down the page) summarizes the world’s #1 sight-reading system, “Sight-Reading & Harmony” (SR&
www.bachscholar.com
Practice Sight Reading and Sight Singing Exercises Online – Sight Reading Factory®
SightReadingFactory.com makes practicing the important skill of sight reading quick, easy, effective and fun! This cloud-based service allows you to customize and generate unlimited sight reading examples instantly, on-demand for students of all ages and abilities.
www.sightreadingfactory.com
Perhaps subscribing to an App like Flowkey for a while and work through the exercises will help.
I think that they do a free trial for a set period.
I think that they do a free trial for a set period.
After decades of playing guitar I'm setting out to learn keys. In the world I'm leaving behind we didn't sight read. You either know the song or not. Sheet music on a stand is a sign of weakness. My last project covered about 50 songs. Whew. I know I'll be reading along for a while but hope to be able to play both off the page and be able to play from sheet music sight reading. Hope this makes sense.
Rayblewit
Love Music / Love Life
How come?
Good question. Several reasons, among them music stands on stage set a barrier between the band and the audience, bar,restaurant. Bands consider it unprofessional not to know how to play all the songs in a set. You need to own the songs and know them well enough to make changes on the fly. Focus on sheet music takes away from improvisation. This prevents players from listening to the rest of the band and moving in different direction with the group.
Ray has nailed it here. Being good at sight reading is a matter of practice.
I’m a lot like Michael - my reading is passable but I’m pretty slow and I only do it until I don’t have to. I read off charts when I play live but they’re usually fake notes more to jog my memory.
However when I was a teen studying classical music I was pretty good at reading - purely due to practicing it more often.
I’m confident that If Michael and I devoted the time and energy purely to reading we’d improve dramatically. As I’m sure OP will too.
Sorry but that is an inappropriate comment.
Using your weakness logic all the Members of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and every other classical musician is weak.
It is also an insulting comment to those members here (including me) who use sheet music.
Rayblewit
Love Music / Love Life
I am pretty sure that Jack wasn't being insulting by making that comment. It is a feeling of weakness to HIS playing style. I asked "How come?" His reasons are valid and make sense.
In my case I would disagree but only because I don't remember notes wholeheartedly. I play over 500 tunes and the list is growing. I can play melodies without sight reading on many tunes but I do not remember which chords to play without notes. This is my style playing "auto acmp" . If I was playing bass lines it might be different.
I don't feel inadequate playing with sheet music. Afterall it is the end result which is most important. The "Sound" more so than the "Visual".
Ray
In my case I would disagree but only because I don't remember notes wholeheartedly. I play over 500 tunes and the list is growing. I can play melodies without sight reading on many tunes but I do not remember which chords to play without notes. This is my style playing "auto acmp" . If I was playing bass lines it might be different.
I don't feel inadequate playing with sheet music. Afterall it is the end result which is most important. The "Sound" more so than the "Visual".
Ray
Thanks Ray, in my prior experience in bands and musicians I played with were a heavy influence on getting off the page as fast as possible. You were expected to show up at rehearsal "ready to play" and that meaning... how to stand up an play the music as if you wrote it. This is essential for "tribute" bands. Just imagine two key players show up at an audition for your 80s cover band. Both play equally well. One has a two inch binder of songs. The other knows all the songs without paper. Which one do you choose?
While some genre like orchestra rely on sheet music rock, blues, jazz and such usually don't. Don't recall Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Clapton or Santana hitting the stage with a music stand in their hand. I am just like everyone else just learning to play keys using sheet music and it will be that way for some time. But my goal is to be able to play without them AND sight read songs I don't know.
While some genre like orchestra rely on sheet music rock, blues, jazz and such usually don't. Don't recall Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Clapton or Santana hitting the stage with a music stand in their hand. I am just like everyone else just learning to play keys using sheet music and it will be that way for some time. But my goal is to be able to play without them AND sight read songs I don't know.
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I've seen keyboard players in famous bands with digital sheet music on their keyboards' music stands-- presumably in one of those apps that transmit MIDI to all of your connected keyboards to automatically set up their sounds and effects for each song or portion of a song. For example, I was watching a Yes concert a few years ago and Geoff Downes was using a digital sheet music app.
It’s horses for courses.
Reading while playing won’t preclude you from getting gigs if you display all the other qualities your band requires but giant music stands can be a poor stage look.
There’s not a right or wrong way it’s what works for you and your band. Reading music on stage certainly hasn’t held Jordan Rudess back any.
Reading while playing won’t preclude you from getting gigs if you display all the other qualities your band requires but giant music stands can be a poor stage look.
There’s not a right or wrong way it’s what works for you and your band. Reading music on stage certainly hasn’t held Jordan Rudess back any.
Practice, practice, practice. Learn scales with both hands, and the proper way of fingering while playing the scales. Practice only correct methods and it will really help you subconsiously have good hand placement while sight reading. Mind over matter. Don