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Joined: Jun 2009
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Hi I sometimes find trouble kicking the habit of writting the notes on the sheet music. I'm slowly weening from this habit but attempting to site read but it just starts to fustrate me! Also I want to know what you may think is the best time for pratice? As of recent I have alot of time on my hands since I'm an Unemployed college student looking for work daily in this wayward economy, I tend to pratice at night. Why the night you ask? I have no clue, it seems the best time when my creative juices are most potent and I'm up till like from 10:00 till 2:00. Strange? What are you thoughts?
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Hi Terry, The easiest way to break a habit is to drop it. I've never written the notes on my music. Just put the pencil away, don't do it. When you first start a piece, it will be frustrating, but your physical memory will take over, and that's powerful too. Your hands will learn the notes. The feeling rather than the letters.
When to practice? I think if you've found a time when your 'creative juices are flowing' then that's when you should practice. If you find a job (good luck with that) and that schedule is no longer realistic...I practice around 4pm but I usually practice only an hour, two at most. See what works for you.
"L'art est le plus beau des mensonges." -Debussy
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Practice when the time is right for you and you can be most productive. As per writing in the names of the notes - yes, you should wean yourself from this habit. Start looking at the distance between notes - the intervals - and whether the melodic line moves in skips or steps - line to line/space to space or line to space. Choose a couple of notes to use as guidenotes to start the intervallic reading process.
Good luck and enjoy the freedom you have to practice when you want and for as long as you'd like!
Dr. J - The More You Play the Better Your Day
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What kind of notes are you writing?
I see nothing wrong with it, if it helps you to remember to correct things you've botched in the past. What's the harm?
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What kind of notes are you writing?
I see nothing wrong with it, if it helps you to remember to correct things you've botched in the past. What's the harm? Well Akira when one wants to perfect his music one must learn how to shed bad habits. Ex: If I were to say hey Akira how doing girl? could you play this for me and I hand you sheet music. You start to bust out a pencil and right on my sheet I'm going to say hey what are you doing? See, it's not only a bad habit but it's offensive to the owner of the piece.
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Terry, it just takes some time to learn to sight read. Use spacing -- look at the bottom note and mark only that one. Here's a good, free, practice site online for learning notes: http://www.teoria.com/I spend only a few minutes there at a time but find it fun and it really helps sight reading skills. There are also other free music theory sites you can find by googling. Give it time and keep practicing.
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Your right. I did the counting method, like note D is is a space then a line above B which lies on the third line correct?
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Terry, this may sound completely off topic, but if you are a college student looking for work, please bone up on your spelling, punctuation, and overall writing skills. Your skills, as demonstrated in your posts, are subpar.
If you have the time to wean yourself off of writing notes in your music, you have luxury time. Please use that time to practice necessary life skills before you do anything else.
Yours, Arpeggiopaola (a former editor)
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Hi Terry, I used to do the same thing because my playing ability exceeded my reading . I actually wrote in every single note in fur elise (the whole thing!!!) Now my reading is better and I will only write a note in here and there for example if there are like 5 ledger lines... I know advanced pianists that do this as well so I don't feel bad about it-tee hee. too bad they didn't make the patch for this like I used when I quit smoking Anyway my advice is this... 1. be easy on yourself b/c it does take some time and effort and it can be frustrating. So, before you begin take a deep relaxing breath and remember that it will get easier. 2. Start with simple things. even if they are below your level now. 3. Sightread something new everyday (to prevent accidentally playing from memory). 4. I did a lot away from the piano. I would visualize the lines and spaces (like before going to sleep) and would call them out. in treble clef: third line B, second space A and so on... just keep quizzing yourself. I did the same thing with the ledger lines. 5. when you start to feel frustrated or overwhelmed just take a little break and come back to it later. I find that I learn much faster/better when I am in a good frame of mind. Good luck! I know you can do it
“The doubters said, "Man cannot fly," The doers said, "Maybe, but we'll try," And finally soared in the morning glow while non-believers watched from below.†― Bruce Lee
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Oh and good luck with your job search...
“The doubters said, "Man cannot fly," The doers said, "Maybe, but we'll try," And finally soared in the morning glow while non-believers watched from below.†― Bruce Lee
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Hey Terry....
As one who had this habit (also writing in sharps and flats in different keys, I can only offer up what I did (and am doing).
I will not write on the music anymore, but the drive is so strong in me (I learned very early in life the concept "think it - ink it", so what I do is get a seperate sheet of paper and write out the notes giving me trouble (C followed by a E which is a second, then a G which is another second which would make a C chord if played together, etc.) Anything about the run that will help me remember what the notation means when playing.
As time goes on, I do it less and less, but by habit more than anything else, I will do it on a new piece I am learning. It just helps me.
I practice early in the AM. My job for years had me getting up at 3AM, and I still have the habit of rising early even though I am retired. I do my best work between 3 or so and 8 or 9 AM, then it's downhill from there. Whatever works is my motto.
Good luck on the job hunting. I am so happy I do not have to worry about such things anymore. Makes being old almost a good thing.....
Last edited by gmm1; 06/30/09 02:24 PM.
"There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Johann Sebastian Bach/Gyro
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gmm1 reminded me of something else I learned to do... read in intervals. So not actually identifying every single note (only when there is a big distance between them). So, say for example you identify the first not is G then just go up or down however many spaces/lines the next note is. Once you get used to it you can do this very quckly. I just remembered this book I had http://www.amazon.com/Super-Sight-R...mp;s=books&qid=1246392233&sr=8-1It has some good suggestions in it.
“The doubters said, "Man cannot fly," The doers said, "Maybe, but we'll try," And finally soared in the morning glow while non-believers watched from below.†― Bruce Lee
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Writing the notes in is not in itself bad, sometimes in a passage that's difficult to read or is easily confused with similar passages, I do this occasionally in pattern-type pieces or pieces with lots of accidentals in addition to the key signature, like in some of Debussy's pieces.
Meri
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...what I do is get a seperate sheet of paper and write out the notes giving me trouble (C followed by a E which is a second, then a G which is another second which would make a C chord if played together, etc.).
gmm1 - What do you mean by "a second" in the above sentence? C to E is a major third, and E to G is a minor third. A combination of M3+m3 = a major chord.
Professional pianist and piano teacher.
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I went through part of this book last summer (it was in my local library). What is good about it is that it has exercises of increasing difficulty which makes for a nice structured element to learning how to read and navigate around the keyboard better.
Professional pianist and piano teacher.
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A couple of things that will help: First, do a search on sight reading on this forum. There's a ton of questions about it with lots of information just waiting for you to read. Secondly, with regards to reading, it sounds as though you may be making it harder than it is. If I find a student writing in all the note names on a piece, I erase them and tell them not to do it again. You should do the same. Then there's the reason why they did it in the first place that needs to be addressed. The problem is that you are trying to read every note, but that is not what musicians do - even when they're sight reading! That takes too much time and concentration to be of any use. All you need to do is read direction: does the note go up, down or repeat? I'm not sure what you are playing, so you may need to take a step back and start with very simple melodies, one note at a time using both hands, in stepwise motion. -First, find and *read* the first note for each hand, and decide what finger to begin on (many elementary sheet music will tell you what finger to begin on). Once your hands are in place, leave them there. You can even write in the starting pitches for each hand if you like, but go not further than that. -Then from your starting note look at then next note. Does it go up, down or repeat? Since we are only doing stepwise motion to begin with, any movement up or down will go to the next key and therefore the very next finger. The lines and spaces help you distinguish between repeats and moving up and down. If a note is on the same space or same line as the previous note, it is a repeat. If the first note is a line note and the next note is on the space above it, it goes up, etc. -Continue going through the entire piece like this, without reading any more notes! Since these are simple stepwise motion melodies, you will not have to change hand positions This is the key to reading music in general. Yes, use those helpful things like FACE, Elvis' Guitar Broke Down Friday for Treble clef and All Cars Eat Gas, Good Burritos Don't Fall Apart for Bass clef. However, the point is to not read every note like that. Too many variables to consider, whereas reading Up, Down or Repeat simplifies it tremendously. As you get good at this kind of reading, then you will want to move onto pieces that have skips or 3rds in them. So if a note is on a line and goes to the next line up, you are going to skip up. A great series of books I use to help this is called Let's Sightplay published by FJH. It gives you 6 activities per unit with detailed instructions, so you can do one activity per day in a week (with a day off :)). It starts at a very basic level and drills both your note-reading ability and intervallic reading (which is what I described above).
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Opps - corrected. Always proofread is my motto.....I just don't do it...
Thanks Arghhh....
Ah , not corrected...guess we have a time limit now.
Last edited by gmm1; 07/03/09 11:26 AM.
"There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Johann Sebastian Bach/Gyro
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I started out writing all the notes on any music I attempted. I've been recognizing the notes much better and have actually gone back and erased alot of stuff purposefully to make myself read better, but I find there are still some situations where I "need" to write notes in. Some ledger lines, and when notes within chords change by only one or one half step. I find that I don't notice the changed notes quite often and there are just some groupings of notes I have trouble seeing. They sort of hover over the page sometimes and I have trouble determining what line they're on.
I'll figure it out eventually. Until then you may want to keep a safe distance.
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Little Blue This is perfectly acceptable. Writing a note in every once in a while to either draw your attention to that note or help you read it is fine and helpful. When it is done on every note, however, it becomes detrimental.
private piano/voice teacher FT
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