Transcripts
1. Introduction to sight-reading: Hello guys and welcome. I'm Ben and I'm a music teacher based
here in London in the UK. And I wanted to create a class based on how to sight
read on the piano. So I've done also a
beginner's guide to sight reading in
a previous video. But this particular course
is going to be aimed at more intermediate
players looking to improve their general
sight reading skills. We can look at things
like how you might approach the harmony of a
piece and learning about that. And also how you
might use robots and expression to allow you to
play a more challenging piece. Along the way, we're going
to look a bit at some of the technical
challenges that you'll face when you're playing
an unfamiliar score. I hope that you will leave this course being infused about wanting to sight read new pieces and it not being a
particular chore. I hope that you find the course useful and I'm looking
forward to working with you.
2. Harmony and key: Okay, so first things first, let's look a little bit at
the harmony in this piece. So we've got this piece
by Greek, the better. The first thing to
notice we're in the key of E flat major, E-flat major three flats. So the first thing I'd
encourage my students to do is to play that
scale E-flat major. You might play the
arpeggio V flats. Basically what he wants to gain a real familiarity with being in that particular key area. Because that will
then rule out a lot of the notes that you're
not going to have, okay, so get used to
the key of E flat. The thing also to notice is that we're not, a
piece of music, isn't simply going
to stay in that key, is it's going to move off
in different directions. As we go on to the second
system that is bar five, you'll notice that from E-flat, we've actually moved
to the key of C minor. C minor being the
relative minor key, the relative minor
to E flat major, it's worth knowing the relative
minor key relationships. So to work out the
relative minor, we go down three notes, B-flat, E-flat, D, C. The relative minor and
major are connected by those three notes and they
share the same key signature. Often composers will move into this area in a piece that's good to know where you might
be potentially moving. Another thing when
we're looking at the harmony and the key
is to start to notice particular note that don't fit within the
structure of that key. For instance, in B2 were happily going
along in E-flat major, we, we introduced a couple of quite alien
notes to see flats, the left hand and the E natural. In the right-hand,
they create what we call a diminished chord. A diminished chord is one that's made up of lots of minor thirds. Look for those little
details in the music because they help you understand how
you might shape the music. So when you're looking through with the
harmony of a piece, it's definitely worth
knowing where your heading, but also notes that
don't quite fit within the mold because
they can help you know, how to interpret a piece.
3. Expression : Next up, we've got expression. Expression is so important. Expression is how high
you might shape a piece. And Grieg in this
particular piece gives us lots of indications
about what we might do. At the end of the first bar, you see at the top of the first bar we see
a nice crescendo, getting louder and then getting quieter marks by the sort of hairpin crocodile mouth opening symbol and then closing again. Look for those
moments in the music, whether composer wants you
to shape, for instance, naturally, then
we're leaning onto that diminished chord in the second bar and coming
away throughout the piece, you see this coming
back time and time again between the third and the fourth by
little crescendo, if you were to play that without any expression,
without any shape. Quite plain, isn't it? The thing about sight reading is that you want to take
any opportunity to create a bit of interest
and a bit of shaping the piece as if
you've known it for longer than you have denoted me. The best people at sight
reading and those that can take the information, the plane notes in front
of them and actually create it into
music, into a piece. And that's essentially what
we're doing, isn't it? We want to be creative. We don't just want to,
we're not computers. We don't just want to read
the notes on the page who wants to create,
shape and interests. Other moments there to watch out for in terms of expression. The very final bar, you see there's an indication, PEP, which means a
pianissimo, or very quiet. So the whole thing just kind of comes to a stop at the end. You see there's pauses. So that's the half-moon
shape with the dotted indicating that those notes in the final bar of the piece
should be held them. In terms of expression. Look for those
moments where you can get a little bit louder
and then get quieter, you often see the ebb and flow. Actually another
example of that is on the third line of the
piece where we go. Now, you might want to imagine that you actually
not a piano player. I know that sounds a bit silly, but you were an orchestra. And at the first
violinist takes up a tune that as the melody. Yeah, I think the more that
as you're submitting a piece, you can imagine these kind
of grand orchestral colors. The better you'll find it. Because if we just kind of sticking to the
sound of the piano, it can get a little bit boring. So be imaginative
and think right, these parts are strings. And this is her violin or
a flute solo or something. The more you can draw out that, that color, the better. Right at the beginning. In fact, we've got
different layers to the music Hemingway, in bar one, we've got what
we call a pedal notes. In the left-hand,
we've got an E-flat. They're lasting for four beats because it's tied
between bars 1.2, and then tied again between
bus 3.4 called the pedal. In the middle of the texture, we've got this sort of
rippling string effect. We'll cover that more later
because there can be a bit tricky how it's split
between the hands, the upper part there we've
got to select effectively as a piano player performing
three functions here. We've got the bass part, we've got the string
accompaniment in the middle, and then I've got to
tune over the top. The mind needs to
be in three places. And I think that's part of the challenge of sight reading. The fact that you've
got to be performing both the solo role
accompaniment and a bass part. So there's a lot to think about and we'll cover
more in the next section.
4. Rubato : Rubato is the real gift
that is given to us as site readers have rebar to
literally means robbed, as in you Rob time
from one section and you give it to another. Excellent opportunities
here to use rebar, take this style of music and
the romantic period, e.g. Mendelssohn, Schumann,
those types of composers, Greek we're playing
now where you can Debussy, the modern French. You can really take your
time on a particular moments and you can actually use rubato to addressed technical
difficulties. For instance, that very final bow of the
piece, where we go. You see there's two
little grace notes before the final
bar that we've got to take the time over those, use rubato to buy you that little bit more time to be able to get up to the
high note at the end. That happens again, doesn't it? On the third system, at the end of the fourth
bar, we go from here. So find those moments to
use who party, who by two, obviously makes it sound
more musical as well, which is what we wanted to do. Again, we want to lift
this piece from being just a piano piece to having orchestral colors and having
shape and having interests. So find those moments, especially that third line. Got to be honest and say these, are these intermediate
techniques or are they more
advanced techniques? They're probably going
towards advanced. And you might say, you know what, Then I just want to be able
to play the notes. That's all very well. But the more that you can create music with your piece rather
than just playing the notes. I think the better
recite ready you can be. I personally don't think
sight reading is about just replicating exactly
what's on the page. I think it's about
making a piece of music. How does something that
you've never seen before? I think that's the more
important point and the bigger challenge to always
be trying to create music, even if you are struggling a little
bit to read the notes, always be trying to create
something out of a new piece.
5. Dealing with technical challenge: Now, technical challenges. This is quite an important
one because often say you've got a concert
coming up and you have to sight read something that
you've never seen before. Perhaps to accompany soloist or a singer,
something like that. And you're thinking, it's just not gonna be
able to play this. Sometimes you just got
to simplify what's in the score to be able to get through and deliver the concert. Let's look at some of
the challenges here. One of which we've mentioned, which is where you leap, play this in the final bar. Again, use robotic,
take the time over it. Imagine if a violinist was playing that they
had to sort of, I'm not a violinist,
you can probably tell, but they had to cross
strings or lift the bow, retake the bot to be able
to play a new notes. They take a little bit
of time, if it wouldn't, they wouldn't just
simply do them. Play all the notes very quickly. Find those moments
where you need to take a bit more time to deal with a technical challenge
and take that time. It's perfectly legit
right at the beginning. In fact, pretty much
all the way through the PT got this kind of
rippling in a string bit. That might take a
bit of practice. Do I take that apart and
just try that intersection? You might find it
difficult because it passes between the hands. It goes from the left hand, drew them to nuts, from the left to
nodes in the right. If you struggled that just take it apart slowly like this. Really slow and deliberate. And just getting used
to that sensation parsing attune
between the hands. There was a conductor
once told me you, you've got to make the accompaniment really good before you can actually
worry about the tune. The melody is so true. If you can get the
accompaniment to be really gentle and
really reflective, then your melody will come
out better if you just solely focused on who's
in the spotlight, who's performing, then
it's never going to work. So really focus in on getting
that melody really smooth. You see that nodes are
connected by a slur. For notes together you get a really smooth and you don't want any particular needs
to be sticking out. What we want to avoid is this
sounds really awful to say. Really smooth as if a violins
to us was playing it. And then you can focus in on
your melody over the top. To really draw them most out. It can be the most beautiful
melody in the world. But if the accompaniments
not quite right, then it's going to
be a challenge. In terms of other
technical difficulties. Just look for those
moments where there are notes that don't fit within
our scale of E-Flat. So we have them right
in the second bar j. We have them actually
on the third system. The third line of music, we go from down to an F sharp, resolving to a, to a G. They could just catch
you a little bit unawares, but remember, can take time and
those sections use rubato to kind of
navigate that move down. So I hope that's covered
a little bit on some of the technical challenges
that you might find inner peace and how you might
go about addressing them. Important thing to
remember is that sight reading ability
doesn't come overnight. It's a skill that you just need to keep focusing on and just try a little bit
every day to keep improving.
6. To conclude : I hope you found this
little journey into sight reading at an intermediate
level useful. So a couple of
concluding thoughts. Not going to become
an expert in sight reading overnight took
a, it's, it's really, it's a skill that you
want to keep working out. But what I would say is
don't let it become a chore. Don't just set it to size is one of those
things that you're bad at and you never want to try because I really
want you to enjoy. I want you to be able
to pick up any piece of music and just be
able to play it. So the way to do this, I say students is
to have a book, an album of music on the piano, the piano that you
really enjoy playing. And to just dip
into it every day, every day for five or 10 min, whatever you can manage and not pieces that
your teacher wants. He played pieces that
you want to play. The important thing is that you, you've chosen them because you want to play them and you
want to make a nice sound. Remember that sight reading
is about being quiet musical. It's not about just simply replicating the notes that
you have on the page. It's about creating music and creating different
orchestral colors, and about using expression and dynamics and varying the tempo. Now, yeah, I hear the naysayers. A lot of this does depend
on the style of music. So if this was a piece of bark, perhaps we wouldn't be
using perhaps as much, Roberto, we might be a little bit more
cautious with that, but because this piece is Greek, its front of Romantic period, we can really express
ourselves and we can pull the temperature around and it can be flexible. And romantic
composers are typical of this writing pieces that could be re-imagined with a singer over the top or
perhaps an instrumental player. Mendelssohn was
famous in his sets of pieces, songs without words. The piano has got, the pianist has to perform the function of both the service and the
accompaniment at the same time. So it's an additional challenge playing pieces of this sort, but obviously exciting
because we get to be both the melody and
the harmony underneath. So I hope that you are at the least encouraged by
this course and go away and look at some
of the elements of the music that can help to improve your site
reading skills. But more importantly, to
choose music that you enjoy the play and keep
at it a little bit. Every day is going to
improve your sight reading. So thanks very much for
tuning in and all of this.
Ben Lewis-Smith, Musician
