Barbara Fast on Sight Reading

Sight reading can be one of the most difficult, frustrating, and ultimately rewarding skills in all of music. The reward: being able to sit down and play nearly anything put in front of you, as well as drastically reducing the amount of time needed to learn music. The best way to get there is simply by doing it day after day, month after month, going through as many pieces as possible in order to become a true sight reading ninja.

Whether you're learning or teaching this integral skill, you should definitely check out Building Blocks to Effective Sight Reading by Barbara Fast in the July 2008 Piano Pedagogy Forum. She talks about research into several facets of this skill, including some interesting eye movement facts:

It is helpful to understand how the eye functions when working to improve sight reading. There are several surprising facts to note. While musicians often feel as if they are staring in a fixed manner at a piece of music, in reality the eye is constantly moving very rapidly, performing large and small movements, about 4-6 per second. The eye takes snapshots, similar to a camera, and the brain hooks these snapshots together, so that it seems that our eyes function like a movie. (Lehmann, Andreas, McArthur 2002).

Secondly, with these frequent small and large movements, the eye moves ahead in a score, but also returns to current or even previous material. This fact runs counter to the practice of improving sight reading by covering current notes students are playing in order to force the eye to read ahead. This can be helpful in some circumstances, but should not always be utilized. The eye movements of better sight readers not only travel further ahead in the score, the eye constantly moves around, including returning to the current point of performance (Young, 1971).

She also looks at the influence of rhythmic fluency, harmonic understanding, ear training, solid technique, scanning music beforehand, and the importance of ensemble playing in a successful curriculum. Pianists here can take a cue from wind and string players, whose participation in ensembles from an early age probably results in a higher level of sight reading proficiency than their pianistic counterparts.

More Reading:

10 ways of Improving Your Sight Reading Skills
Build Sight Reading Into Your Practice Session
The Extreme Piano Guide, or 30+1 Ideas to Improve Your Practice Time
15 Ways To Add 10-Minute Practice Blocks To Your Routine

8 Ways to Improve Your Enjoyment of the Piano Through Playing Christmas Music

As the holiday season approaches, the perfect season for developing keyboard skills in unexpected ways also approaches through playing Christmas piano music. Pianists often miss out on much of the fun and growth that playing festive holiday rep can bring. Here are some of the benefits from learning and playing selections from this huge body of repertoire and how you can accomplish them:

1. Super-size your repertoire. Many pianists at the intermediate and senior level in preparation for exams, recitals, competitions, and college auditions, only work on a handful of pieces, missing out on many of the lessons that learning a larger repertoire can bring. When you delve into the world of Christmas music, you find that there is a huge depth of carols and songs that form the corpus of the Western tradition, most of which are not too difficult to play. Why learn one Christmas carol when you can learn 20 of them?

2. Enjoy the fun of music-making with others. Christmas is a prime time to discover the joy of leading friends and family in song. The usual separation of performer and audience is gone in much Christmas music-making. If you play, they will sing!

3. Learn how to play from a fake book. One of the most gratifying keyboard skills (and one that most classical pianists have turned their backs on) is the ability to play the accompaniment of a melody from popular chord notation in a fake book. Learning the language of pop chords can be tricky, but an easy path into this skill is through learning to add chords to melodies you already know. Once you've got the hang of it, you can add your own accompaniment style and personal vibe.

4. Learn how to transpose. You're playing carols at a family Christmas party and after the first carol, someone complains: "Uh, I can't sing that high. Can we sing it in a lower key?" This is a prime opportunity to learn the lost art of transposition. What helps here as well is already knowing the melody line, and learning the ear, sight, and tactile clues that can help you to develope one of the core skills of jazz pianists, and one of the most neglected skills of classical pianists.

5. Learn to sightread. So much Christmas music, so little time. What do you do if someone plunks Christmas music in front of you that you've never seen in a roomful of merrymaking family members? Why, you sightread, of course. And there's no better place to learn to sightread than in festive situations, with the pressure off. Those skills your piano teacher taught you, which seemed so theoretical and arcane at your lesson the other day, suddenly come back with a vengeance to assist you becoming being the hero of the evening, and a keyboard skills ninja to boot.

6. Learn correct rhythm. Here's another skill to be learned in the heat of battle: that a steady pulse is an integral part of keeping everyone together in group singing situations. And what better way to keep them together than by playing with a steady and reliable beat. The flipside, of course, is that any lack of rhythmic pulse will leave the singers in a swirling cacophony of disarray and headed to the bar for another shot of rum and eggnog.

7. Drastically reduce performance anxiety. Many performers experience crippling cases of nerves in the minutes and hours before performances. One of the best ways to solve this common malady is to both perform more and perform in positive, low-stress situations. The lessons learned in playing carols for a roomful of family members on Christmas Eve can easily be brought into the concert hall, along with a realization that the social aspects of music-making are what make it such a wonderful way to connect with people.

8. Develop functional keyboard skills. Playing piano isn't just about preparing music for your lessons, doing exams, and winning competitions. It's also about being able to bring spontaneous enjoyment to people through one of the most social of all musical instruments, and learning the skills that can bring a lifetime of enjoyment to yourself and others.

Below are links to some useful Christmas music collections. Be aware that all Christmas music at Sheet Music Plus is discounted 20% until November 20, 2008, so make sure you order early enough to take advantage of these prices.

Reader"s Digest Merry Christmas Songbook For voice, piano and guitar chords. P/V/C Mixed Folio; Piano/Vocal/Chords. Reader"s Digest Publications. Easy-to-play arrangements and lyrics for more than 100 songs. Christmas and Holiday. SMP Level 4 (Intermediate). Songbook, performance CD (23 tracks) and lyric booklet. Vocal melody, piano accompaniment, lyrics, chord names and guitar chord diagrams. 255 pages. Published by Alfred Music Publishing (AP.48-0762108681) ...more info

Charlie Brown Christmas By Vince Guaraldi. For solo piano. Piano Solo Songbook. Jazz, TV and Christmas. SMP Level 7 (Late Intermediate). Songbook. Chord names and illustrations (does not include words to the songs). 40 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.313176) ...more info

Level 1 - Christmas Book (Piano Adventures®). By Nancy Faber and Randall Faber. For Piano. Faber Piano Adventures®. Christmas. 1. Softcover. 20 pages. Faber Music #FF1138. Published by Faber Music (HL.420206) ...more info

Sleigh Ride (Piano, Four-Hands) By Leroy Anderson (1908-1975). Arranged by Michael Edwards. For piano four-hands. Duet or Duo; Piano Duet (1 Piano, 4 Hands). Late Intermediate level piece for the Piano Duet event with the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) Festivals Bulletin 2008-2009-2010. Traditional Pop and Christmas. SMP Level 8 (Early Advanced). Single. Primo and secondo parts. 12 pages. Published by Alfred Music Publishing (AP.26544) ...more info

My First Piano Adventure® Christmas - Book A (Pre-Reading). By Nancy Faber and Randall Faber. Faber Piano Adventures®. Pre-Reading. Softcover. 16 pages. Faber Music #FF3001. Published by Faber Music (HL.1471) ...more info

15 Ways To Add 10-minute Practice Blocks To Your Routine

The power of 10

A recent article on LifeDev about getting work done in 10-minute increments got me thinking--can we pianists utilize a quick 10-minute practice session to get things done as well? From the article:

Oh, but 10 minutes… now that’s a tasty number. Not only will ten get you started, you’ll probably be finished too, if you focus. And focus is practically required with 10 minutes. It’s a small, focused amount of time.

And if you’ve got five blocks of 10 minutes lying around in your day, that’s 50 minutes of highly-focused time. Compare that to a larger chunk of 50 minutes. That’s right, more time for procrastination. Small, focused, manageable bursts of productivity are much more effective than those flabby blocks of time.

How to make 10 minute practice blocks work

Here are some ideas I brainstormed on how it might be possible to integrate 10-minute windows into your practice and rehearsal day.

1. Warm up with technical exercises. Hanon, Dohnanyi, scales, arpeggios, chords, etc.
2. Warm up by jumping right to that passage that is making your life miserable.
3. Warm up by playing some piece or passage with the most beautiful sound you can summon. String players are known to do this. It works.
4. Sight read!
5. Review memorization for a piece or passage.
6. Review by ultra slow practicing a difficult passage.
7. Play a difficult passage in as many different ways interpretively as you can imagine.
8. Play a difficult passage with the left hand only.
9. Play a difficult passage with the right hand only.
10. Play a difficult passage in one hand with the other hand shadowing its part on your knee (a technique used by Kissin).
11. Visualize a passage, then play. Repeat.
12. Visualize a passage without doing any playing.
13. Play something in a completely different style from the rest of your repertoire. Known to restore sanity at difficult times of the year.
14. Play through repertoire related to what you're playing. For example, if you're playing Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, play through the Andante Favori (the original second movement).
15. Do a cool-down. Slow technique, easy sight-reading, or a favorite passage are possibilities.

A few caveats

While I don't recommend practicing for only 10 minutes a day or for that matter in chunks of only 10 minutes, these types of power practice blocks can be very useful when used in conjunction with larger units, ie. 10 minutes + 1 hour + 45 minutes + 10 minutes. And do not under any circumstances use the absolute worst practice system ever, in which practice is only done during the commercials of a hockey game!

Introducing The Collaborative Piano Store

Since my decision to monetize around 6 weeks ago, it's been difficult decision just what formats would be the ideal ones on a niche site such as this. You may have noticed that the AdSense ads weren't totally optimized for this type of site ("Free piano lessons!!! No practicing!!!") Today I finally decided on the course to take--a store that would sell the type of products that collaborative pianists really need for the subjects they care about.

After many hours of building, I am pleased to announce the launch of The Collaborative Piano Store, a place where you can find a wide variety of books on subjects such as practicing, sight reading, piano pedagogy, anthologies, diction, poetry, opera guides, getting organized, as well as some fine audio equipment. The permanent link can be found near the top of the sidebar, just below the bookmark and feed subscription buttons. Enjoy!

Greetings sight readers

I've been noticing a fair number of hits to this site via Google with search terms such as "how to improve sight reading" or "sight reading help", so I have surmised this is the season when legions of pianists are frantically trying to improve a vitally important but much neglected skill. Although I've already weighed in on some important aspects of the art (or science?), the graphic at left (via Add Letters) adds yet another spin on the topic.

10 ways of improving your sight reading skills

1. Practice sight reading every day. Practice makes perfect. Great sight readers are more often made than born.

Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests: Book 4 By Boris Berlin And Andrew Markow. Daily Exercises for Piano Students. Ear Training and Sight Reading. Early Intermediate. Level: Grade 4. Book. 56 pages. Published by The Frederick Harris Music Company. (4S4) See more info...

2. Practice in the dark. Piano playing isn't just an intellectual exercise but a physical activity as well. You can teach the body to trust its instincts so that when sight reading the eyes can stay focused on the music while the rest of the body does its thing with confidence and grace.

3. Read through songs and arias with a singer, or through sonatas with an instrumentalist. Sight reading isn't just forced labor. The process of reading through repertoire with a singer/instrumentalist can be extremely satisfying, deepen the level of partnership, help to build skills, and be fun.

4. Work as a pianist in the studio of a voice teacher. A voice teacher can put you to work learning a wide variety of music from the art song, opera, oratorio, and music theatre genres without a lot of lead time to learn music properly. The more you do, the broader will be your knowledge and skills, and the better you will get.

5. Read about Chunking Theory [wiki] and try to figure out how you can group musical elements into perceptual groups. Reading music, like reading text, is a process of finding perceptual groups. When you read from a book, you perceive not just letters but words, phrases, and clauses. Music is no different.

6. Read soundtrk's observations about sight reading on My Other Life.

7. Read Martha Beth Lewis's remarks on the process of teaching sight reading.

8. Improvise in the style of a particular composer or genre. It's not just about notes and rhythms, but the totality of musical elements, including style. The more you are able to re-create the style of a particular time and place in musical history, the more your sight reading will sound like the real thing.

9. Play an afternoon of voice auditions as the house pianist. Do or die. The best incentive to rise to the level of a top-notch sight reader is to be thrust into a situation where you must read at a high level under a considerable amount of pressure.

10. Play at the same level sight reading as you would in a well-prepared recital. Okay, this is impossible, but having it as a goal will propel you to the next level.

Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course - Sight Reading Book (Level 1) (Carefully Sequenced Examples Designed to Enhance Music Reading Skills for a Lifetime of Piano Enjoyment) Written by E. L. Lancaster, Gayle Kowalchyk. Instructional book for piano. Series: Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course. 48 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.14539) See more info...

Vacation time? No

This is one of the busier months of August that I can remember, and the reason why there haven't been any updates in the last few weeks. In addition to the current filming of the Bathroom Divas second season, I'm also one of the two reps (new hip abbreviation of repetiteur) for Tapestry's 11th Composer/Librettist Laboratory, the other being fellow Eastman grad Jennifer Tung. The writers this year are Leanna Brodie, Dave Carley, Lisa Codrington and Krista Dalby, and the composers are Craig Galbraith, Kevin Morse, David Ogborn and Anthony Young. The liblab's resident ensemble are all veterans of the program and consists of soprano Carla Huhtanen, mezzo-soprano Jessica Lloyd, tenor Keith Klassen, and baritone Alexander Dobson. The program is run by Tapestry Managing Artistic Director Wayne Strongman and Michael Albano of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.

It is always fascinating to follow the composer/librettist partnerships that form out of the liblab and see the works that germinate, sometimes over the course of many years, from the 16 scenes created each year (each of 4 writers partners with each of 4 composers to write these 16 scenes over only 10 days). Above all, the quality of the process in which all the participants engage results in both an awareness of the key elements of opera-writing--there are many--with a view towards building relationships between composers and librettists that can result in future commissions and works for the opera stage.

This is my fifth year as repetiteur for the liblab, and every year has a different flavor and direction determined by the talents and agendas of the participants and their interactions. Another fascinating aspect of this lab as a performer is that for each musical reading session the singers and pianists arrive without music, rehearse the scores--at sight--that have just been written, and perform them in a dramaturgical master class after only a short period of rehearsal.

Selected works from this workshop will then be selected for Tapestry's Opera Briefs program to be performed in the Distillery District on September 22 and 23, with an additional performance at Toronto's Word on the Street Festival on September 24th.

Needless to say, no holiday this August.

Inside an Opera Creation Workshop

Only in the last few days have I got back into a regular teaching schedule at the RCM--the first few weeks of the year were spent at the OTG workshop held at the Distillery District.

We workshopped all six of the one-act operas that will be opening in early March. For those that have never witnessed an opera creation workshop, here's what happens. Present are the composer, librettist, director/dramaturg, musical director/musical dramaturg, stage manager, singers, and repetiteur. Sometimes the music is finished before the start of the workshop, but often it is finished just before which requires the singers and rep to sight-read.

From the pianist/repetiteur's point of view, playing at workshops requires reading skills and flexibility above all. Much of the music I play at workshops is in orchestral score and requires some quick decisions about what to play and what to leave out. In addition, the singers will be new to the work and will require you to shadow their vocal lines whenever possible. As the dialogue between dramaturgs and composer/librettist develops, there will be musical and text changes, sometimes significant, which need to be pencilled in constantly.

This type of playing is difficult in that the ground is never level beneath one's feet, so to speak. Whereas in a traditional opera, the score is fixed and will never change, in a workshop, vocal and musical details are worked in, and sections and entire scenes may be either added or excised from one day to the next while the work is fine-tuned and re-thought by the creative team.

The satisfaction of playing in this type of workshop is in seeing a work take shape before your eyes, watching elements such as character, plot, ensemble, and music crystallize in preparation for the work's production rehearsals leading up to opening night.

Participating in this process is both difficult and incredibly fun, and it makes you realize just how much inspiration, thought, craft, and magic goes into creating successful works for the stage, and how much we take for granted the finished product.