Sight Reading
|
A piano has 88 keys and you need a mechanism of depicting all these notes, and for how long you are going to play the notes, on a piece of paper. This is what basically appears on a sheet music. Your aim initially should be to become good at reading the melody part. Once, you become good at reading one clef, you can proceed further to include the bass clef as well.
Advantages
Sight reading is not very difficult to learn as some people think. It is just like learning a new language, it takes time. Besides, if you become good at it, you will have a lot of advantages on your side.
• You do not need your teacher all the time. Pick up any song book, sheet music, exercises and start playing.
• Increase your value as a musician. If later on, you decide to become a teacher this skill will help you.
• If you can read, you can write as well. You can share your compositions with others; write part for other band members.
Topics to learn in Sight Reading
Here is a brief summary of the topics that you would be expected to learn as part of your sight reading lessons.
Staff & Cleffs - The notes and their timings are captured on a piece of paper by drawing a series of dots and lines on a group of 5 horizontal lines, containing 4 spaces in between, called a musical staff. You will need to know the names of all these notes.
Timing the Notes - All the notes that you play will need to be played for a few beat or less than a beat. Depending on this timing, the notes are known as sixteenth notes, eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes or whole notes.
Rests - I am sure you must have noticed that almost all the songs have "pauses" in between where certain tracks do not play anything for some time. This is known as a Rest; it is just a pause where you play nothing. For all note lengths mentioned earlier, you will find a corresponding rest which you will need to learn.
Time signature - Time signature gives you an idea about the meter or rhythm of the song. The rhythm pattern tells you whether the song is a Waltz or a March or any other style.
Scales & Key signature - Scale is nothing but the arrangement of notes in some specific order and all the songs are based on some scale. There are different kinds of scales but to begin with at least you need to know all the major and minor scales.
Harmony - This is where you start learning the chords. Chords are necessary to make your music sound fuller and richer. Again, there are lots of chords that can be played but to begin with concentrate on the major, minor and dominant seventh chords.
Articulations - Articulations are used so that your song does not sound monotonous. Here, you play additional notes or play the keys with different accents (force) to change the dynamics of the sound. You will need to learn what the different articulations mean.
Once you are able to sight read, you will realize that you just need to go through it initially to know the melody. Once you know the melody there is no need to look at the sheet. You can play it from memory, improvise upon it and just concentrate on the playing instead of the notes.
Go back to the "Piano lesson" page
Go back to the Home page from the "Sight Reading" page
