The Most Important Thing to Know About Sight Reading
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
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Strategies for Sight Reading: Part I
The only way to get better at sight reading is sight reading.
0:00 - Introduction
0:38 - Why You Should Work on Sight Reading
1:49 - Reading Music Is Like Reading Language
2:50 - Challenges, Exceptions, and Special Cases
5:52 - The Only Way to Get Better at Sight Reading
6:20 - Finding Appropriate Material
7:31 - The Sight Reading Factory
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www.BradHarrison.ca
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I’m a piano/organ player that has played by ear for about 20 years. I absolutely regret not taking more time learning how to read music when I first started playing. I have had to learn more about reading music since the church I play at sings a hymn every Sunday. I know some of the fundamentals, but I’m working towards being more competent.
Honestly, it’s such a useful skill. But so is playing by ear! Some people can’t play by ear at all! It’s just tough to get into reading when you already play so well by ear. It can really feel like you’ve slammed the breaks on. Hang in there and keep moving forward!
@@BradHarrison Thanks for the encouragement!
Great pointers! Thanx!!😊
Play 10 hymns a day for 3 months.
Manuals only - hands separate (treble staff, soprano and alto in right hand, bass staff, Tenor and bass in left hand).
Manual and Pedals - pedals separate (Bass line) and hands separate (soprano line in right hand; Alto and Tenor in left hand)
Hey there. I've been playing mostly by ear for 40 years!!!! When I was a kid they tried to give me lessons but I just couldn't "get" counting the rhythms- one -ee- and a two -ee. Then when I figured it out, I just said, "Aw shucks, this piece just goes like this..and then I'd rattle something fancy off by ear, everyone would be impressed, and I moved on -without any reading ability. Now I'm finally learning to read a little bit. Does this ever happen to you? People hear you play real well and just assume that you can read real well?
I always loved sight reading because I would get bored playing the same music over and over again. Now, I can read almost anything you put in front of me and it has greatly helped with my flexibility as a performer. If my church wants to try a new song, all I need is the music or even just a lead sheet and I can go from having never heard the music before to playing it for the service the day I received the music.
Yeah! This past Christmas, my sister in law asked me to play my nephew's favourite carol and I told them I didn't really know it well enough to play it off the top of my head(it wasn't hard and I could have figured it out but I didn't really want to fumble through and miss a bunch of notes). She said, "I've got the music right here." And I said, "Seriously? Sure!" And it was great! Super easy and everyone loved it. Musical notation is so powerful and useful.
I am very bad as reading music, and I have a question: for a person without perfect pitch, if you read music without playing it on the instrument, can you form a good impression of how it sounds in your mind?
Yes! It’s called relative pitch. I found learning movable do solfege to be very helpful in developing that skill. I’m planning to cover that in pt iv.
@@BradHarrison I think I also use movable do solfège; I learned music using numbered notation as a kid growing up in China, so now when I see a A major I know I should treat A as do. However, when I see a few accidentals coming I totally lose the sense of how it should sound! Looking forward to your future video!
As a music teacher, I will always sing the praises of movable do and solfege!
Also, scales people!!! A tip I got from my director was to practice scales by playing them in different rhythms and/or with accent marks. It also helps you be more confident playing in different keys 💪
Couldn’t agree more! I made a whole video about it. Major Scales Give You Superpowers
czcams.com/video/kjlNF0QFTZ0/video.html
How long you been playin??
For winds (especially woodwinds), know your scales like the back of your hand. Once you’ve got the scales down, do key studies! Thirds, technical studies, and broken chords are just some of the really great exercises that will help you get better at sight reading because realistically things like runs are just parts of scales
You bet! I made a whole video about this!
The Reason You Need to Learn Scales
czcams.com/video/kjlNF0QFTZ0/video.html
I purchased a year's subscription of the Sight Reading Factory. The price was very reasonable and I think that the Sight Reading Factory is an outstanding program for choral singers. I like the fact that it gives you the option to ear train using one part or multiple parts (SATB). Sight singing is challenging but very rewarding.
I am very satisfied with the product and highly recommend it for choral singers.
Thank you Brad Harrison 🤗
1 thing has massively helped my piano sight reading: developing my feel for the keyboard without looking down. Now I teach my students this and it REALLY helps. But yes -- they need to actually practice it, haha! Great video, thanks so much.
That is a great tip! I also had this problem of switching between looking at hands and sheet music all the time so i learned to not look at hands and it became much easier
@@blackhole3407 Awesome!!
When l started learning at 5/6; my first teacher ( Sister Roseanne!! ) the l best piano teacher l ever had! I did theory with her also, when & did my exams ,99% Honours for 6 years. Then she had to go to another convent. She taught me to NEVER LOOK AT THE KEYS, UNLESS you 💯 % need to. Learning the classical way was right up my alley, & West Coast jazz ( l’m not a purist! Honestly. 😈) , was my other passion. My DAD 💔 was a purist, kinda… 🤔… but, l digress. Not looking at the keys really gave me a huge advantage as a player ABSOLUTELY. I NEVER found a teacher quite like her. Wherever you are SISTER ROSEANNE, THANK YOU. l finished my grades, despite being without you!!!!! 😁🎹😈🎸
The most important thing about sight reading (as a pianist) is to not look at your hands. It takes discipline, but you can figure out intervals by feeling the black keys, since they’re asymmetric. With time, you can very quickly get to where you need by feel, without taking your eyes off the page.
Also crucially important, also arguably the most important thing, is to look ahead. The same thing is true if you want to be good at reading a book audibly. You look ahead to give you brain time to decipher unexpected or difficult words and to think about expression.
The same thing is true in music.
If you can develop these two skills, with practice, you can learn to sight read very well.
Finally, not as crucial, but a nice to have, is you peripheral vision can see where your hands are. This is more of an advanced skill, and not as important as the other two, but it’s a cool skill to have, and not so difficult, the most difficult part being to develop the discipline to not look at your hands.
I have the opposite problem, I’m a visual learner and find sight reading very easy, but I believe this has created another problem for me, because the route between music notes and my finger has become some sort of a reflex, my brain doesn’t work “hard” enough in this process, which makes memorizing music almost impossible for me. I can not play without the music score😅. It feels like it has bypassed some part of my brain…
What you are saying is not surprising, and actually true. I have given an entire talk to the music teachers association about the idea that people who play music well by sight reading have much more difficulty memorizing because the music does not take a side trip to the prefrontal cortex. In the process of taking a side trip through the prefrontal cortex, the musical representation is being analyzed, and the music is actually simultaneously memorized. Sight reading on the other hand, can become a completely reflexive exercise in which the content is not analyzed by the brain, as you have intuitively recognized.
This is supported by brain studies that analyze how musicians read music and the parts of the brain that are activated. Interestingly, my mother can sight read anything, but has a terrible time memorizing. I fight with sight reading, but memorize almost all the music I play and effortlessly. Also interestingly, my mother could speak four languages at one time in her life and type 90 words a minute. I cannot speak foreign languages and I am a physicist and mathematician and neuroscientist and I failed typing in the 6th grade.
We are all different, thank the lord. Good sight readers make the best accompanists.
A tip for memorizing music from someone (me) who used to have the same issue: Learn the music by ear if it needs to be memorized. If you’re not comfortable with that, then spend as little time as possible looking at the music. Read the phrase, then sing it back from memory, then play it back from memory. Going 100% by ear though is best, if that’s an option.
@@RockerProfwow, what a fascinating story you have related…yes, I do struggle with reading myself, but can memorize a piece pretty quickly. My dream is to be able to read better and play music I’ve never heard before…so I’m reluctant to do more sight reading in case that activity would somehow interfere with my memorizing ability. But I love playing the harp so much that I will work more on sight reading…
@@KevinRoddyI don’t think it will. Developing deeper neural pathways for one thing doesn’t erase the ones your already created for another thing.
What kind of music do you listen to? If you listen to improvisational music constantly you begin to develop an innate feeling
At my school, the choir sight-reads from hymnals. It's difficult but it's worth it because it helps a lot. Thanks for the video! May God bless
The best supportive, revealing, and helpful, video on sight reading I've ever come across.
This is why we have sight singing classes lol. I'm awful at sight reading piano but I'm pretty good at sight singing lol
Amazing video, was looking for a video like this everywhere, thanks !!!
I personally just set out to learn the pieces of music that mean the most to me. I find that really helps in my piano progress. If you're not motivated by the songs you're learning then I believe you'll end up quitting without intending to quit.
No doubt! Goals and motivations are hugely important. But also, if you’re trying to become a better musician in a holistic way, it’s also important to eat you vegetables/run laps/do push-ups ups, etc as far as technique, reading, theory, etc. All those things make you good in an all encompassing way.
Great timing, I just started sight reading 2 days ago.
amazing resource, thank you!
The Sight Reading Factory is useful. Besides sight reading I also used for fretless guitar intonation. Thank you for the share.
I use SRF, worth every cent. This video is also extremely helpful.
Ofc it's practice....
Thanks for reminding 🙂
I just finished the Hal Leonard sight reading for bass guitar book and was looking for the something to consolidate what I'd learnt. This is exactly what I wanted so I've signed up, thanks for the link and the discount. I just do half an hour or so every morning. For any bass players I really recommend learning to sight read, I've come at it later in life and wish I learnt earlier.
I paused the video along the way and read through all the examples on electric guitar, first treble staff at written pitch, then bass as written, then treble as guitar clef (played an octave below written), then both clefs in harmony. Intriguing, challenging. About to investigate further. I read well enough to teach the classes I'm assigned in spite of having inadequate training, but learning parts in preparation for teaching does take much longer than I'd like. Thank you for this video!
Every video are amazing you deserve more view and subs🎉
Lovely video, thanks
I love the timing of this series as I just signed up this year to sight reading factory and wanted to learn sight reading
Nice! Enjoy!
I started reading again in February this year, 2023.
Its almost December, and I can read pretty much anywhere on the guitar at this point
Currently working with a book called classical studies for Pic style guitar
I have other books that cover all the positions on the guitar. Book one is up to position seven and book 2 is up to position 12.
And then I went through Ted greens, jazz guitar, single note, soloing, volume one book
I just keep reading and reading every day and then I go back through the position books
By the time I get finished with book two, that covers position eight through 12, it is usually a few weeks before I get back to book one, so I don't remember anything that I read
So at the same time, it's like your training, running through all of these progressive lines
It does get easier and it's not as difficult as you might think to do it on the guitar
Thanks, just started getting used to reading music, I learnt it like an year back but being a guitar player, the most tempting thing, while being self taught, tabs are the worst temptation. I'm glad I made that choice. Sight reading for guitar is such a pain in the back. This video of yours is appreciated! ❤ from India.
hey paganini!
Bro I love your videos. They're seriously so well done. Keep up the great work 👏🤘
Thanks so much! More on the way!
Absolutely, Brad! Your videos are just top notch, and have a wonderful balance of information, your own experience, and humor…keep ‘em coming!
I play both the piano and the violin, but my relationship with sight-reading is slightly different between the two.
I love sight-reading with the violin, and it's so much easier and intuitive, and everything flows and pairs easily with the fingering, grouping notes etc. I find it more difficult to memorise pieces because of how I gotten used to sight-reading on the violin, particularly orchestral parts versus solo repertoire, because I don't commit the parts to memory
With the piano, because of reading two staves, I do make more mistakes, and as a result, a lot more repetition, and therefore, I memorise things quickly. Also, having the melody and the baseline also helps to put the notes in context. I can play things better by memory on the piano.
Very interesting that I can play complex pieces on the piano by memory, but I can't memorise simple parts on the violin!
Sight reading is easy because I don't have time to wait
That little screen on keyboards, staff and virtual keyboard that show note for note has helped me learn very complex music in a very small amount of time
Excellent! Most of the rules aren’t too bad. It’s the execution and scope of most pieces that’s challenging.
Fl'vr'tw'n 🤣 Your videos are so great! I use them in my teaching all the time!
This was the best informercial I have ever witnessed. I’m actually subscribing to SRF!
Haha! Glad you enjoyed! Enjoy SRF!
i learned how to play songs by synthesia, its a game changer you can learn songs twice as fast, usually i just look up videos on how to play a certain song, and just play what shows on screen since they show the note names which is easier, and it usually takes me about 30 seconds to learn a complex measure sight reading, but with synthesia i can learn it in less than 10 seconds
Super information
Good morning. I just wanted to thank you for introducing me to something that I didn’t know about. Today is the first time that I heard about SRF. I am going to look into this to see if it could help with my sight reading. Plus I am going to try to follow your videos for more helpful information about improvements for reading music better. Thank again and have a wonderful day. One last thing. I wish you continued success with your videos and even more success financially as well.
Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated. All the best!
Learning to read music after playing by ear improved my rhythm
Agree. My hand independence improved significantly after learning how to read
I can sight read!
... At about 6bpm
1 note every 10 seconds
That’s a good start! I’m not even kidding. Keep at it. You’ll get better.
Joining a community ensemble as an adult student was a great way to get in sight reading reps
the fart nuggets text got me😭😭😭😭 5:10
I went to the site and the free exercises were challenging but playable, since I chose my own level. On Monday I'm going to check with our band and choir teachers to find out if we've tried anything like this in the past, whether we can get it for our students, etc (I'm an old teacher in my first year as a String Orchestra and Introduction to Guitar teacher at two high schools in the same district). I'm guessing it's a bit late to get a 2 schoolwide subscriptions for this year, unless they can pro-rate the subscriptions. If I don't get it through our school district I'll get an individual subscription. For me the price point of just under $3 per month is an excellent deal.
Perfect timing. I have a thing in 6 days.
Good luck!
I play drums and have always played by ear. Most drummers work this way and it has served me well for decades…. Until I tried to play big band jazz. I attended one ‘try out’ and someone dropped the “pad” on the wooden floor next to me as I was setting up. It hit the floor with a loud ‘Thump’ and had 125 drum charts in it. The conductor said “we are going to play everything exactly as written”. And I thought “Oh no you’re not!”. I’ve been trying to learn ever since… so I am looking forward to this series.
This tutorial is not only wonderfully helpful, it is also hysterical. Thank you 🙂
Thanks for saying so!
I've always been sick at sight-reading because I rarely actually practised, so every lesson I had to basically sight-read everything every lesson and do so slightly better in each lesson than in the previous
Haha. Amazing! And can you imagine how good you’d be if you also practiced? ;-)
@@BradHarrison yeah, there is that haha. As a strategy it works for sightreading skill, less so for like, technique and such...
Yeah, we’ve all got blind spots and weak areas. I’ve got plenty! I always recommend a balance between being as well rounded as possible but also identifying your strengths and leaning into them.
@@BradHarrison yeah, so with me being a multi instrumentalist on top of that I've always been the one that gets asked to change part last minute. Like once in an orchestra where I was first chair of the violins, on concert day our very organised principal oboist phoned the conductor uncertain whether or not he could make the concert, so in the dress rehearsal I was now 1st oboe instead of leader for the symphony, as the 2nd oboist didn't feel comfortable sightreading that on concert day (but was fine doing that for the rest of the music as it was easier). The principal oboist did eventually turn up 5 minutes before the concert though lmao
I’ve started playing trumpet again and this will definitely be helpful 👍
Nice! Are there any bands to join at school? Or maybe a community band?
@@BradHarrison there are a few
Nice. Some of those bands are really good. I bet you’ll love it.
Super underrated skill! 😅
I am using the adult level 1 Alfred book and work book , it has lessons to do and fill in etc , I’ve learned so much already only half thru the book , even though I’ve tried other books , I recommend , and looking forward to level 2
Hey, could you share the name or link to that workbook? I looked at the level 1 alfred book and it seems fast paced by itself.Would be helpful to practice before proceeding with new concepts.
thanks!
3:15 all the TIMES! Ha!
Thanks, that was inspiring and helplul, as a guitarist, having the same pitch some times in as many as 5 different spots on the fretboard, sight reading is a bit of a tongue twister! You know how the saying goes: "If you want a guitarist to keep quiet, put a score in front of him!" 😀
😂😂😂
SRF $35 a year is pretty good, i thought it would be a lot more. I looked at flowkey and simplypiano but they are a lot more expensive and not what i'm looking for. I'm learning the piano now and sight reading too, the biggest improvement was NOT to write the notes on the sheet. It seemed like a good idea first, but then i was looking at my note letters instead of the actual signs, and this way i'd never learn to read, just play.
Hilarious presentation! I grew up playing piano and guitar, but like many people, only played by ear. At some point I really wanted to learn classical repertoire on piano, and I found watching tutorials (note by note) or the trial by error method by ear was so tedious, that I decided to learn to read, maybe just 5 years ago. Now I can sight read bass & treble clef with relative ease, and have even been learning C clefs like tenor/alto so I can study orchestral scores. No, I can't sit down and sight read Chopin immediately, but point is, I went from not having any idea what I was looking at to being able to read a lot of works quickly in a short amount of time. One of the things that has helped me get here is noticing patterns across so many works, as well as using intervals to guide me so I'm often able to take in a lot more information at a glance rather than reading one note at a time. Taking your language reading analogy a step further, it's a bit like how we read words - we are able to scan and absorb full words and sentences at a time, and use context clues and patterns to make sense of it, rather than slowly reading o-n-e-l-e-t-t-e-r-a-t-a-t-i-m-e.
Here's a few additional things which helped me:
- Bach Chorales (keyboard edition). They're great because they are very short and you also learn a lot about counterpoint and voice leading at the same time. You also start to observe patterns which helps you read them faster and faster.
- Church Hymnals - even if you're not religious, find an old hymnal book and practice. They're short, simple, predictable, as they were written for public audiences to sing along. Oftentimes church pianists and organists would have to play a random song from a large book of hymns, so it wouldn't be possible to have every song memorized and rehearsed in advance - so the part writing is usually simple too, often 4-part harmonies. All of this makes them great for sight reading practice.
- Studying intervals & basic triads - like I mentioned above, just learning to see the contour of melodies or harmonies by seeing if notes are by step or leap, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. For example if I see a C, and then the next two notes are a third apart, and my key signature is Eb, I know immediately I have a C minor chord (C, Eb, G), without having to think about reading each note.
- Lastly, and this has helped me so much - WRITING! Even if you're not interesting in composing, simply transcribing something by ear onto a page by hand, or using notation software, you learn to read even that much better. Again with the language analogy - as children, we usually learn to write hand-in-hand with reading, and I believe the skills inform one another. The proof is in the pudding - since I've begun to write and transcribe, I've noticed my reading skills have skyrocketed.
Hope these suggestions help anyone cruising this comment section haha. Cheers!
This video is amazing!! Also, a tip that I find very useful for me!
Get familiar with chords, also, if you can write them in the measure It's gonna be fantastic. But write them analyzing the notes and chord progression. Meaning, try to write the chord like C7 not only looking at the accompainment but also the melody, because more often than not, the melody is built around chords.
Jazz pianists oftentimes use this as a tool for improvising, but It's also super useful for sight-reading if you take a little bit of time. Needless to say, you'll have to get familiar with scales/keys.
Hope it helps ☺️
Absolutely! This kind of on the fly analysis is hugely beneficial to my own sight reading skills. I’ll be talking about this later in the series but I also covered a bit of it here:
Why Scales Are Worth Practicing
czcams.com/video/kjlNF0QFTZ0/video.html
@@BradHarrison Omg I'm so glad that It is helpful!! I'll watch the video right away ☺️
When i learned to not look at hands, sheet reading became much easier. Though pieces with lots of accidentals still drive me mad
ive been playing piano for about 7-8 years, and even though i do my sight reading tests from RCM i still suck at them, my teacher doesn't give enough attention to sight reading since it doesn't give u many marks to pass or to go to the next level.
Amazingly thoughtful video, conveying lots of insight in an impressively short time. I'm looking forward to subsequent videos in this series, and I'll definitely check out the site. As a guitarist, I hope some of your content covers some of the challenges specific to guitar.
One way the analogy to spoken language breaks down is in regard to reading an unknown piece, like, say, the etudes you mention or the SBF content, specifically made to be new to the sight reader. With text, because vocabulary is limited, and we are exposed to spoken words all the time, when we read a new text, it's mostly pretty obvious to know when we've misread it-a word will be unrecognizable, or a phrase will be ungrammatical. If I'm reading an etude that I've never heard, just to practice sight-reading something new, I'm likely not to know I've made a mistake unless I've already heard the piece (or listen to a correct performance as soon as I've attempted reading it). Put differently, there's a different level of contextual familiarity for reading new text vs. reading new music. But I suppose your point about learning by ear vs. sight reading being equally important speaks to this. When we learn by ear, we build up a "vocabulary" of rhythmic/melodic/harmonic themes specific to a genre, and that forms the context in which we read new pieces. Etude books are often in a particular style, providing some context for the sight reader. It would be great if a site or tool like SRF could produce genre-specific new content, drawing from musical vocabularies for a genre. -Tom
I hear what you’re saying but part of the reason you know if you’re said a word wrong is because you know the language so well, and you read so well. If you were reading in a new language, maybe not so much. You could make a small error that completely changes things and not realize it until the native speakers listening to you start laughing. Many musicians don’t hear when they’ve missed a key signature of play a wrong note. But familiarity with reading and with musical conventions guards against that. There are finite number of notes and a finite number of rhythms, and the more you read the more you start to see patterns. Half the time I’m not reading individual notes, I’m identifying and executing chords, arpeggios, and scales that I’ve seen before, just in new combinations, just like reading text. Musical vocabulary isn’t that different from linguistic vocabulary.
Most of what I’m planning to cover is instrument non-specific. But what kinds of things about guitar specificity, or reading in general, would you like to hear about?
@@BradHarrison Thanks for the response. "Half the time I’m not reading individual notes, I’m identifying and executing chords, arpeggios, and scales that I’ve seen before, just in new combinations, just like reading text." That's just what I was getting at in reference to musical "vocabulary." In linguistics and natural language processing there is a notion of "topic model," comprising the vocabulary specific to a corpus of text under consideration. E.g., the vocabulary (understood more broadly than just a collection of words) for software user manuals is different from that of science fiction novels. For music, there's a baroque vocabulary, a classical vocabulary, vocabularies for jazz, blues, rock, pop, etc.. Someone sight reading jazz is partly picking up on different patterns than someone sight reading pop tunes. So in the context of an automated tool like SRF uses, I was wondering if there is any consideration given to this. A book of baroque sight reading etudes is going to have somewhat different content from a book of sight reading etudes in the style of the American songbook. Neither is just a collection of random notes and rhythms from a particular key. (I'm not saying SRF is just using random notes; I don't know what it's doing.)
Re: guitar-specific issues, one of the challenges guitarists face is that most notes have two to four different places to play them. This is an oft-cited obstacle for guitarists learning sight reading; there's an extra hurdle vs. most other instruments. Orchestral string instruments have a similar issue, but their repertoire is largely melodic; they aren't sight reading triads or 4-note clusters, etc.. So there must be some heuristics for figuring out where you should be on the neck, involving some look-ahead. It probably still boils down to pattern recognition, but linking the pattern of notes, not merely to notes on your instrument, but to the choice between different places with those notes. It's a little akin to learning a fingerings for keyboard sight reading. But guitarists need to learn fingerings as well; they must additionally learn to choose a good position.
To elaborate a bit on the guitar issue, part of why it's an issue is that the intervals between the pitches of the strings are fourths-except for the third between the G and B strings. As a result (and in contrast to fixed-interval string instruments like violin), the fingering for playing the same harmonic or melodic note cluster in different positions is different. It's not just the shift-and-translate situation one encounters on a violin, say.
Right. Every instrument is going to have its challenges there. As a trumpet player, the way the instrument works means that half the horn isn’t too bad but the other half is brutal. But guitar has a lot of advantages that most instruments don’t. The fact that the same shapes work all the way the neck is incredible! But yeah that B string really messes up the pattern. At least it makes a lot of chords much easier, which is why it exists in the first place.
@@BradHarrison Thanks for that-I had no idea about those challenges on the trumpet.
The important thing is to key on rythem.I don,t subdivide I hear the rythems.Ii memorized all figures by sound.
Came here after watching the twoset sight reading videos lol
You had me at 'Fart nugget'.
I thought this video would be geared towards those who already can read music well but need some extra tips sight reading effectively especially in chamber or ensembles.
Check out part 2 & 3!
See now why do I see this video right after I just had my MPA concert and I was very much worried about sight reading ( side note we got all ones if anybody was asking what are score with for MPA)
I like how 'my weekly social media intake' is pi. 😁 (and also true)
Good catch! First one to mention.
Sir you made a great explanation.
I actually would love to have someone like you as my music teacher. I have been watching your channel recently.
Actually I started to learn piano.
I am starting with basic chords and sharps and flats.
But I wanted to learn by sight reading simultaneously.
I will try the app first but is there some books you would recommend to a beginner for someone like me?
That would really be helpful thank you.
I don't recommend any specific book but if you can go to your local music store, you'll probably be able to find the beginner section and flip through a few books and tell at a glance if they look too easy, too difficult, or just about right. Also, if you'd like to set up some lessons, I teach over Zoom! I only play basic piano, but I can help you read and count rhythms and explain any musical concept you need help with. Head over to www.bradharrison.ca/lessons for more info and to get in touch. All the best!
Piano marvel has a feature where granite it's at your own pace but it immediately tells you you hit the wrong note. Though would that be actually beneficial for sight reading maybe not.
That site doesn't seem to have harps as an instrument you can select, do you know if they plan to add it? I suppose piano can proxy at early levels, since it uses the same clefs, but at higher levels, piano music might not work on a harp (and vice versa).
Any chance you can make more videos about modes? They really interest me and I want to learn more about them and how to apply them, and how to find what mode a song is in.
It’s actually on my todo list to explore modes a bit deeper as far as how they sound and feel. Thanks for mentioning! It would probably be later this year. Got several things on the docket ahead of it.
@@BradHarrison Great to hear!
I would prefer to start without reading music and having the feeling of it at the beginning, for example I know many classical musicians that I show 4 chords of a mainstream pop/rock song and they can't play it in rhythm, they are kind of stuck because the only information they have is C - Am - F - G, even if they know these chords super well, they don't know how to improvise or have the feeling of playing these chords with someone singing, but they can play a lot of complex classical pieces. So in my experience and looking at very classical musicians, my recomendation is two dedicate two years of learning the instrument, learning some songs by ear, get used to the scales an improvisation using scales, maybe start doing jazz and improvisation, and after you are confident with your playing, move on to learn to read (obviously you need to learn music theory for the first part) so after this you already have the skills to play, just need to practice the reading, you will get it very fast because you are just going to be praciticing one skill and you already know how to play by ear or feel the music and not stay to the music sheet
Just play lots and lots of easy pieces.
Lire les clefs séparément m’est plutôt accessible mais ça devient dramatique et décousu dès que je dois lire et jouer les deux clefs (sol et fa) en même temps. Est-ce que cela vient à force de s’entraîner (je n’ai pas l’impression de progresser) ou y a t’il une méthode particulière quand on lit deux lignes à la fois ?
When people say " you dont need theory or sigh reading to be a good musician" i say... It can only help.
Perfect timing for me..
P.S. greetings to your Brazilian wife😬😅
Brazilian wife!? haha. Don't think I have one of those!
@@BradHarrison 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ok mate
2:45 Brother John (Frère Jacques)
2:47 the licc
2:49 nyan cat
Thanks, makes me much less anxious when it comes to learning new pieces. BTW, what on earth is a fart nugget😆
... fart nuggets ... 🤣
I love the fact that I learn English and music theory at the same time
to pee or not to pee xD haha that got me, along with face expression of the infant.
On the website, is the sheet music autogenerated randomly, or is it some real music that sounds pleasantly?
It’s autogenerated. Fresh music every time. It makes sense though. I wouldn’t call it random. But it can be surprising, which is great for reading.
I play horn. my sight reading, counting and rhythms are bad. Fantastic tone, one of the best, but technically awful. time to regroup. hope this works.
The more you do it, the better it gets! It can be difficult at first, but I don’t think you’ll regret spending time on it. Good luck!
@@BradHarrison Thank you. I just moved to Winnipeg and now in 3 concert bands, and a high end Big Band on trumpet - way above my head, but the music community here is increbibly supportive and want to teach others how to be good at it. I realized all along that sight reading is not good- and with about 70-90 pieces overall, I have to be able to play these without intense studying after hours - there is just no time. Since counting is my biggest flaw, it has almost messed up every piece played and i have to fix it. REading the comments below is extremely helpful - 'learn scales by heart'. Learn patterns, timing and rythms with them. The video I listened to was so encouraging. Basically I have no choice but to learn how to do this fast and well executed. Playing with the experts is fantastic and I am learning a lot - but i must get this fundamental in place.
Now I can finally fluke easy demons!
Hmm. Not sure this is for me , I haven’t - FART NUGGETS - OK, I’m in.
i saw the L I C C in 12TET enharmonic equivalence followed by Nyan Cat underneath
Yeah you did!
"If you want to get good at sight reading, you have to practice sight reading." It's sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but I've never actively tried "practicing sight reading" in my 20 years of being a (non-professional) musician 🤯
Right? I almost felt like a fraud releasing this video but I’m glad the response has been good. It’s really true. And it’s a big value for the kind of musical work I do.
C flat is a note that , I think, only brass players can seem to play, cause I’ve only seen on brass scores…
It’s definitely not limited to brass players!
I never seen it in a piano score. But I havent remotely seen all, if not most, piano scores, so I probably have missed it a few times.
How about a handy-dandy (useable) link to SRF?
Fixed! Thanks for letting me know. Also, here it is. www.sightreadingfactory.com
@@BradHarrison I signed up with your code :D We made a NY Resolution to learn theory and ear training and consequently reading. Your channel has been INVALUABLE!
That's great! Enjoy the site! And thanks for the kind words. I'm so glad you found the videos helpful.
My problem is I can read it pretty easily, but hell if I can tell you what a given note sounds like without stopping to think about it. There are only a handful I can identify without buffering. Even those, though, I might not catch them if it's in a certain key.
That’s common. Perfect pitch is actually quite rare. But if you can develop decent relative pitch, it can be very useful.
How did you get so good at sight reading?
Forgetting to practice.
Oh.
If only that worked for everyone.
I'm confused about the part about Cb not existing at 4:24 and the Gbmaj scale. Wouldn't it still be the same thing if instead of Cb we just called it B?
It’s the same to your ear but not on the page. If you look back at that moment in the video you’ll see a number of new rules and exceptions you’ll have to explain if you ignore that Cb exists. Life is simpler with Cb.
@@BradHarrison I still don't understand. If they're actually different then they should sound different. This is like calling a zebra a striped horse instead of a zebra and then saying they're the same thing but not. Why wouldn't you just write it as B instead of Cb?
The same reason you use F# in some contexts and Gb in others. And there are lots of enharmonic equivalents. Cb is the one most people most commonly make a fuss about because it shows up less often than other notes. But this note and others allows for greater consistency and reduces exceptions. Are you familiar with major and minor scales and other theory rudiments? If not, check those out. If you are and want a deep dive on this very topic, Adam Neely did a great video about the ways Cb and B are the same in some contexts and how they’re very different in others. Hope that helps!
I read fart nuggets out loud and then all the sudden you said “I told you not to read it” 😂
Ha!
Cool
i agree
@@sirchicken1041i agree too
I also agree
I agree
How do you get negitive 1 likes
my exam's tomorrow! wow, thank you
Best of luck!
My laptop is folden on my music stand so when the flip animation happened I thought my laptop was falling off
Oh no! That would have been scary.
@@BradHarrison it was
@cyrusthe0ther795 I hope the rest of your day goes much smoother. Cheers!
@@BradHarrison thank you, I'll sight read any ruffles away. Oh yeah you too, sight read any problems away
I never learned to sight read because the vast majority of what I play (rock lead guitar) is not written, thus there was nothing for me to read. The better you can read the less you have to practice is stupid. Practice develops skills, performance skills, that you will not get if you're just sight reading stuff you've never practiced before. If you can't read at all you have to learn by ear.... All I can say is YEEESSSSS! That develops your ear. Trial and error is perhaps the best way to learn! Learning by ear does not exclude learning theory. You can do both. All you need to do is say ""Gee I just learned the part by ear. I love that part. Let me now examine why it sounds so cool"
Sure! Reading isn’t a goal or value for everyone. But this video isn’t for people who don’t care about sight reading! I do need to sight read quite a lot. To the point where I often play gigs with no rehearsal. In fact, I’m on break between sound check and gig right now and I haven’t played a lot of the tunes we’re doing tonight. Some I’ve only played a few times. I can do that because I have good reading skills. I don’t need to practice these tunes, I just read them. Maybe not a goal for you but super useful and important for people like me. Learning by ear is also super useful and important. Many reading musicians don’t make it priority and might benefit from increasing those skills, but that’s a topic for another video.
I play trombone in band. I can sight read in choir no problem and I can sight read on piano. I think the trombone kills me cause I know what the notes are but they just dont translate to the trombone.
To pee or not to pee 😂
Sightreading practice: play the notes as you see them while trying to play correctly and in time,
Killing your ability to sightread: analyzing the piece and figuring everything out ahead of time
Indeed. It is like any other language - many of which have terrible writing conventions - far from phonetically accurate… Pacific Ocean… the C in it… three sounds. Really?
Starts at 2:30
Am I the only one that noticed the lick? Lol nice
First one to mention it! ;-)
🤩 nice. Love your videos by the way! I always point my non-musically-educated friends to your channel!
Excellent. Thanks for the support!
and nyan cat right below it
Nailed it!
To pee or not to pee
pee’int
❤🎉❤🎉❤🎉
I consider myself dyslexic in music notation.
That can be tricky! For what it’s worth, my high school music teacher is/was dyslexic and he’s a great musician with solid reading and theory chops. If you’re just overwhelmed by music that’s really challenging, go slow, note by note, and sometimes it helps to focus on grouping of notes(like how 8ths are beamed together) to make bite sized bits to work through. And also, practice readings easy stuff until it becomes second nature. Good luck!
@@BradHarrison I’m not dyslexic in reading words and am familiar with several writing systems. When I tried learning Thai, I had the same feeling as when I read music: I have to stare at every letter/note for some seconds to recognize them, and I ended up not learning Thai. I spent some more time with Arabic, and was able to recognize shapes of words. I do believe my problem with music is about not practicing enough instead of a neurological thing. I think I will give SRF a try!
I’m sure some systems come easier than others for all sorts of reasons. Music can get *really* complicated, but you can still do a lot with a relatively small number of notes and rhythms, so it’s good to limit yourself and then expand the complexity. Let me know how it goes with srf! It really is a pretty great tool to force yourself to read new stuff. All the best!