19. Progress -- New Recordings

Not much new to report. I have been faithfully doing at least two hours of sight-reading each morning. I have good days and bad. I recorded the same songs that I posted on this site on March 24, and I'm encouraged that I've improved a bit more than I had realized. You can visit that post to see the sheet music for these recordings.

Of course, it's not technically sight-reading to play these pieces again, but it's been a while since I played them, so you can still make a comparison. For the Rondino, I had a technical problem when recording, so I had to record it again, so that one had a little more practice this time around.

Hymn 296 Then
Hymn 296 Now

Rondino Then
Rondino Now

Humpty Dumpty Then
Humpty Dumpty Now

Goosey Goosey Gander Then
Goosey Goosey Gander Now

Tom Tom Then
Tom Tom Now

18. Hit the Accelerator

Well, things are starting to happen. Today I got a book out from the library that I had borrowed back in December, and pieces that I could barely get through at 50 BPM I can now read at 80-102 BPM. What's better is that I have a feeling that the music just flows out.

The music is very easy, but hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

Hitting the Accelerator

Prompted by a post by Akira in a piano forum, I realized that instead of choosing a tempo at which I make only a few mistakes, perhaps I should speed things up a bit. That is, play at a speed at which I make lots of mistakes. This seems to be a good thing.

For the last few days I've been choosing tempos that are fast enough that I can just barely keep track of all the notes. Above this tempo, I start to ignore parts of the music (usually the left hand); at this tempo, I feel like I'm just holding on by my fingertips.

This works well because it forces me to interpret the notes quickly, and move my hands quickly.

A lot of people suggest that your sight-reading will improve rapidly if you play a lot of duets with others. If practical (it's not practical for me), this is a good idea since it forces you not to stop and go back and correct your mistakes. But I'll bet that another reason this is good is that you probably play things faster than you would if you were practicing alone.

I'll let you know whether this new paradigm works for me.

Hymnal on Steroids

Yesterday I received a copy of Bach's 371 Harmonized Chorales and 69 Chorale Melodies, which was recommended on a forum. But found that it's like hymns on steroids, and is too difficult for me now. The print is very small, too.

17. Progress Report with Recordings

I continue to make slow but steady progress. While I see a real difference in how well I sight-read, I'm still surprised that I haven't progressed further.

I wish I had some revolutionary insights to pass along to others suffering along this path. I will say that to some extent, all that matters is doing it. That is, I've talked a lot about things like recognizing intervals, but if you do enough sight-reading, that's going to happen whether you try to force it or not.

One article I saw said that an important component of learning sight-reading involved learning hundreds of common patterns. That's happening for me. That is, I'll see some common pattern and be able to play it instantly. I can take in larger blocks of notes at once. There's an indescribable change in how I see the music.

Unfortunately, I find that even when playing the simplest of music, I can still have a problem reading some part of it. And I am still not good at playing anything fast.

I'm hoping that I'm going to progress more quickly now -- as if what I've learned so far will let me gain traction, and move faster. My #1 short-term goal is to get better at looking ahead in the music.

Samples of My Playing
Well, I've put this off long enough -- it's time to let you hear some of my sight-reading (oh, man, do I have to?). Embarrassing, but this is the best way to show what 3.5 months of heavy-duty sight-reading has bought me.

The first sample is of the song "On a Slow Boat to China." Here's the music -- not terribly challenging, but not super easy either.

Click here to listen to me sight-reading this for the first time. Pitiful, huh? You can hear how slowly I have to play it. But at least I was good about not going back and correcting mistakes, right? I also noticed, in listening to it and reading along, that I'm playing some parts the way that I remember the tune, rather than playing exactly what's written.

Click here to hear how I sound after I've read it through 5-10 times. In this recording, after I read through this first page, I start playing as if it were a lead sheet. That is, I ignore what's written, play the chord in the left hand, and play the melody in the right.

Next is a hymn from my 1937 Christian Science Hymnal, which I picked up for free from www.PaperBackSwap.com:

Based on my handling of measure 2, I'm probably not going to heaven, but click here to listen to me play this with a church organ sound.

Now, here's an early classical piece:

Click here to hear it sight-read. Beautiful, huh? Sign me up for Carnegie hall. I have the most trouble with music that has separate musical lines going on at once. And for those of you who noticed that I didn't follow the dynamics, phrase markings, or staccato notations, two words: bite me!

And I'll finish off with three sophisticated melodies, "Humpty Dumpty," "Goosey Goosey Gander," and "Tom Tom the Piper's Son." These are from It's Easy to Play Nursery Rhymes, which actually has good arrangements with some surprisingly nice chord voicings.

Click here to listen to me knock Humpty Dumpty off his wall.

Click here to bring Goosey Goosey to life.

Click here for my tasteful rendition of Tom Tom.

So ends my recital. Hopefully, when I'm done with my year of sight-reading, I will be able to sight-read pieces like these at a normal tempo. We'll see.

16: Progress Report (3 Months)

Here's the short summary of this month: I'm still making progress, but I lost one week to the pain in the back, and one week to a surfing vacation in Hawaii.

Pain in the Back -- Solved?

The practicing-related pain in the back continued to get worse. Some of my jazz gigs were torture. Assuming that the basic cause is bad posture, I worked on several ways of solving it.

First was to make a wedge, to put on the piano bench, that would tilt my torso forward, and force me to sit up straight.



That didn't really do it, since I could still sit in such a way that allowed me to slouch.

I then tried putting together my piano bench such that it was tilted, and putting it end-on to the piano.


This was just too uncomfortable.

Finally, I found the solution: Use a chair.


I was surprised to find that my computer chair, at full height, was the same height as my piano bench. If I sit with my back supported by the back of the chair, the pain is much less. I had one three hour piano gig with no pain at all.

I expect this will solve my problem. Another thing that should help is a week away from the piano. I implemented this cure by flying to Hawaii with my wife for a week of surfing, hiking, and drinking.

Hawaii Vacation





We got back yesterday, so it's now back to work with two hours per day of sight-reading!

15. Progress Report (2 Months)

I'm now one sixth of the way through the year, and where do I stand? Well, progress continues, but it is still less than I had hoped for.

Some days I'll have a breakthrough, but it's always hard to tell whether I've gotten better or just hit a patch of easier songs.

For example, a few days ago I'd already put in my hours of practice, and was surfing the web for some new sight-reading tips. After looking through KeyPiano.com, and some other sites, I realized that though I've been working at recognizing intervals rather than pairs of notes, I should extend this concept further. That is, I should try to see all the music in terms of intervals. For example, instead of seeing this (treble clef):



as a a sixth with B in the bottom, followed by a third with E in the bottom, followed by a D, I should see it like this: A sixth with B in the bottom, then move up a fourth, and play a third, then move down one step.

The idea is to eliminate all note names as much as possible, and just look at the movements within the notes in the key.

I tried this out, and immediately saw an improvement! However, the next day my new skill wasn't as evident.

So I continue to slog along. I've read through an entire Presbyterian hymnal -- some of it reading only one hand at a time.

My middle back pain has gotten worse, so now it hurts on jazz gigs as well as during sight-reading practice. I'll be on a surfing trip in a month or so, so perhaps it will heal given a break in practicing. Until then, ibuprofen is my friend.

14. One Hand at a Time

In an online discussion of sight-reading tips, one piano teacher recommended reading through an entire hymnal playing only the left hand part, then going through a second time playing the right hand, and finally playing both parts.

So for the last two days I've been playing just the left hand part of the hymns, and this exercise has some advantages:

• First, I'm playing at speed (for example 85 BPM). This gives me practice at recognizing and playing intervals quickly. If I want to learn to play pieces at the normal tempo, perhaps it's smart to do some practicing at a normal tempo.
  
• Second, I have a little more time for working on looking ahead, and recognizing intervals. Yes, I'm playing faster, but it feels that my mind is freed up a little to work on these aspects of sight-reading.
  
• Third, one gets more playing in. I can plow through almost twice as many songs when I'm playing this fast.
  
• Fourth, it's less discouraging. Although I always try to play fast enough that I make some mistakes, I sometimes sound like someone who actually knows how to play the piano. Even if it's just the bass part, it sounds more musical than playing the whole song at a glacial pace.

However, this exercise has one big disadvantage: I'm not practicing the one thing that gives me the most difficulty, namely reading and playing four or more notes in two hands at the same time.

So, I plan to use this learning technique in addition to my hands-together practicing. In just the two days I've been doing this, I already feel that my left hand playing is more automatic, with less conscious thought required. Some passages just seem to play themselves.

On a side note, one problem with hymns is that they'll often include intervals in the left hand that are not playable with one hand. Like this:


This is a bother, since you have to interrupt your sight-reading practice to deal with it. Some piano forum members recommend either playing the upper note with the right hand, moving the lower note up and octave, or playing the lower note and a copy of it up an octave.

13. It's the Intervals, Stupid

As mentioned before, quick recognition of intervals seems like one of the keys to sight-reading well. That is, I expect my sight-reading to be faster and easier if I can learn to see this

as a sixth with E as the lower note (bass clef) rather than as an E and a C. Why do I think that? Well, first, as soon as I know I'm dealing with, for example, a sixth, my fingers automatically take on the proper positioning for playing a sixth. Second, when I try to force myself to use intervals, sight-reading seems a little easier.

One problem is that, for the larger intervals, and to my untrained eye, it's hard to quickly see what interval I'm dealing with. For example, the difference between a sixth and a seventh is hard to see in an instant.

I figured I need to learn to "attend to the distinctive features" of the different intervals, as one of my psych professors would say. So here's something I've tried -- no idea whether it's useful or not.

I sit down with a piece of music and scan along one clef as quickly as possible and call out the different intervals.

For example, for this music:


I'd say "5, 3, 1, 6, 8, 6, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9," etc.

Will this help? Who knows?