From: maurices@spock.dis.cccd.edu (Maurice Shihadi)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers,rec.music.makers.guitar,alt.guitar,rec.music.synth,rec.music.makers.synth
Subject: Re: Concrete questions on music reading
Date: 9 Jan 1993 20:33:24 GMT
Organization: Coast Community College District, Costa Mesa, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: spock.dis.cccd.edu
Keywords: music, reading

In article <C0KJJC.C0v@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> norlin@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Norman Lin) writes:

>
>(1)  Do sight readers "see" in sheet music:
>     a.  Absolute notes, i.e., "D, F, A, C, D"
>     b.  Relative positions within a scale, i.e., "2 4 6 1 2"
>     c.  Intervals between notes, i.e., "D, up a minor 3rd, up a major 3rd..."
>     d.  Logical groupings of melodic notes (movites)
>     e.  Progressions of chords/parts of chords
>     e.  Combinations of the above (and if so, when for which?)
>     f.  Other?
>
People have different views on sight reading.  Some believe its a gift from
god, while others think that it is developed like anything else.  My view
is that you must view the reading of music as a "Living Language" and either be
very patient with yourself or stick to reading charts.  That
is to say you are currently an adult illiterate and will have many of the same
problems as adult illiterates in our society that caters to the english 
language.  Learning english as a second language (ESL) takes approximately
five years according to data provided to secondary school teachers.  
Since I have experience in teaching both ESL and music I would say that it 
would take one at least five years of reading every day to gain more than 
functional ability to read music.  If your really interested, go to the 
University library and poke around in the ML sections.  Look for books on
sightreading.  I prefer fixed do(e) but you may want to start with 
moveable do(e) in your solfege training.  Also, look for Microsomos by
Bela Bartok and go through it.  There are at least two small volumes which
can get you started.

I'm not a good sight reader myself on piano but my abilities do help in
playing other instruments.  It all comes down to pattern recognition and
how one is receptive to recognizing those musical patterns that are represented
on paper.  Good sight readers recognize phrases while brilliant sight readers
recognize whole compositions of music.  One more thing to keep in mind is 
that all written music before the 20th century is a representation of 
of a performance and may not capture all events that need to be acknowledged. 
The addition of dynamic markings helps a little but the resolution of written
notation is still far from realistic in representing music past the 
twentieth century.  Jazz is a perfect example.  Try notating that in 
traditional notation.  My point is that you should look to written 
notation as an outline for what you are playing in a performance 
and not get hung up on the notes.  Granted, knowing the horizontal 
tendencies observed in counterpoint plus the vertical tendencies 
found in tertian harmony will help, but internalizing all the concepts
necessary will take years.  Maybe a more important question for you would be
"Why do you want to be a proficiant sight reader?".  After all, you don't 
have to sight read well to play piano functionally.


>(2)  What is the best way to learn sight reading?  

Find yourself a Conservatory of Music somewhere and take ear-training and
sight singing over and over and over.  Eventually, it will make sense to you.
You'll find that there are many different methods.  You should try a couple 
of different ones until you find one you can relate to the most.

>
>(3)  How do people read 2/3/4/more parts at once, keeping track of
>     all the various rhythms, etc?  I can barely do this if I don't
>     already know how the piece is supposed to sound.
>
Think for a moment about a drummer playing on a drum set.  Upon first 
glance you'd wonder how a drummer can play a hi-hat, bass drum, snare
drum, etc. all at the same time but after playing for a while you'll
realize that all of the individual actions are merely part of a greater whole.
In other words, the drummer views playing as one action while observers of
the drummer have quite a different view.  All the parts you are referring to
can be recognized vertically as chords while all incidental notes left over
are recognized as passing tones, escape tones, appog, etc.  You would
be wise to develop the ability to focus in and out of a piece--kind of like a
magnifying glass--so that you don't get hung up on the trees despite the 
forest.

Hope this helps.  Bye...............



maurices

Newsgroups: rec.music.makers