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I can probably share with you some of my son's sight reading secret. My son who is 7 years old has very good sight reading. He "self-trained" himself by listening to music and reading the notes at the same time.

My son started playing piano the same time as he went to the first grade. One of my son's early supplement material was Beyer, and I was able to buy a set of DVD lessons to go with the book. He watched the DVDs and read the notes every day after school. In the DVD, an old Chinese lady goes through every pieces in the book with a cute little girl, and my son found it very "funny". By Christmas time (after three months playing), he not only was able to read most of the notes that are at least two levels higher than his playing level, he also acquired very accurate absolute pitch.

Good sight reading really helped his early progress, since he could pretty much play any music that is not far ahead of his study. I remember when his teacher got him the level 3 book in February, he basically played through the whole book in 2 weeks, from the first song to the last (actually he played the last song first).

During last summer break, he wanted something more challenging, so I bought a set of DVD of Barenboim playing Beethoven 32 sonatas. He watched it for the whole summer break, after which he could pretty much read any music throw in front of him. It also helped his understand a lot of music theory at the same time, just by looking at the notes and checking the music.

I am not sure if this can help your daughter, but might worth a try since it at least is not going to do any harm listening to music.

You can't answer your own statement? How sad.

You are definitely on the right track! But I don't think it's possible to sight read at playing level. That'd be hard to do. Usually people can sight read music that's 2-3 levels easier than the stuff they are currently working on. For example, kids who are working on Kuhlau Op. 20 Sonatinas should be able to sight read "Minuet in G" from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook.

I can certainly tell you that the great majority of kids learning piano today are sight reading way, way below their level. It's really sad.

Do some basic research.

Then come back if you're willing to discuss music in a civilised fashion. People are getting tired of all this them-and-us stuff about jazz improvisation, and the childish "prove it" demands.

I assumed you were asking AZN, but I'll answer.
Sofia Gubaidulina, Jennifer Higdon, Einojuhani Rautavaara, John Adams, Jeffrey Harrington, Geoffrey Gordon, Rodion Shchedrin...just for a few.

Karol Befa.

Why would I research music I have no interest in. If these modern classical composers were well known, I'd have heard their name. Do you know who the latest rap artists are, or even jazz?

This argument isn't about improvising, it's about playing by ear vs sight-reading. Ever wonder why so many kids sight-read WAY below their level. It's because that's not the natural way to learn music.

Ask famous musicians like Elton John, Billy Joel, Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton how well their sight reading skills are and I bet it's below their ear training skills.

Music, like languages aren't meant to be taught by reading first rather than speaking and listening.

The classical approach is seriously flawed.

For the question of how important it is to read music notation: it's almost parallel to how important is it to be know how to read words in the non-music world.

It's entirely possible to know how to speak and communicate without ever knowing how to read. You learn about styles of speaking and then pass that on to the next person. For centuries, knowledge and stories were passed down in oral tradition. These were probably embellished and evolved. There was not a desire to keep it accurate or the same. The passion that enveloped these stories were also passed on, so people were looking at the inspiration of these stories rather than the accuracy of these stories. That worked well in those communities. There wasn't a need for literacy for everybody.

On the other hand, knowing how to read and write gives such power! The ability to do record-keeping, and the power to take in experiences of others is expanded when you can read what others have written. On one hand, those who never knew how to read would never understand how far you can go if you can only read. In the modern world, illiteracy is crippling.

I can see music residing in two separate worlds. There are people who are happy to pass on music as an aural experience, improvise, embellish, add, no need to read music. They'll go so far and they're happy with that. In some cases, they may not even know what they're missing.

Then there are others who have access to vast library of music because they can read, interpret, and produce. They have the power of music literacy, but it doesn't guarantee that the inspiration of the music comes out of that printed page at them.

Going back to music reading...it's a decision of whether or not you want to give that power of literacy to a music student. If they student just has difficulty reading music, either because of lack of interest, lack of ambition, or lack of talent, do you still push it? Or do you allow a middle ground? Let the student use a play-by-ear method of learning and perhaps make the process more enjoyable. The student will not be playing in certain programs...but in some cases, that may not be the goal?

I do think that learning to read music gives so much more empowerment. My daughter once asked me why she had to learn to read. I told her that it's so that she can read books and learn from others. She told me "But all I have to do is listen to books-on-tape.". Maybe that's true, but her reading would be restricted to only to where she can have access to books-on-tape. I want her to be the person producing the books-on-tape, not listening to it.

Nope, can't say I know who the latest rap "artists" are, nor do I care to know. The reason that kids don't sight-read very well has nothing to do with it not being natural. It's because not nearly enough importance is placed on sight-reading in the teaching process. There are a lot of uninformed "teachers" (many of whom leave me scratching my head), who really shouldn't be teaching, because of the lack of their own ability in regard to that which they should be teaching. Ear training is, certainly, important and should be taught along with sight reading and other skills, but, definitely not the basis, by which one should form a foundation solely.
The "classical" approach is not flawed. How that approach is administered, however, often is.

I am not saying that reading is unimportant, for classical music it would be needed. And obviously very difficult to play a high level score entirely by ear.

But for all other types of music the ear is of utmost importance.

My early piano training was all classical. I got frustrated because I couldn't play simple tunes by ear. If I heard a song I liked on TV or the radio and didn't have the score I would be lost.

So I taught myself to play by ear, and THAT has opened up a whole new world. Comparing music to literacy is slightly off because with music, reading isn't that important, but in life being illiterate can be crippling.

In jazz often times you are playing with several other musicians at the same time. You need to have a good ear to have a musical "conversation" with the other players and not clash.

In classical you play mostly solo so that skill set is not utilized.

If sight reading is so important then how did all those rock and roll guitar players learn? Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, BB King, Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai. These guys are virtuosos and bloody great musicians.

Ask most guitar players and they'll say they were listen to records in their room and playing those tunes by ear. Nobody who plays guitar would only play by sight-reading. They'd be looked at as nuts and their fellow guitarists would wonder why they can't pick up the tune by ear.

The classical approach is different - not flawed. You seem to be threatened by that difference and determined to attack and derail many useful threads from people who are enjoy the classical approach. You didn't enjoy it... that's fine - but many do.

Not threatened at all. I learned classical piano up to the highest grade level for my country and found the approach to be lacking to be a complete musician. It did not prepare me to play in a church worship band, nor taught me how to play jazz, or pop tunes off the radio. Like many others, without the sheet music I was literally lost.

If all you want to do is play music from a score and nothing else, then that's fine. If you want to learn how to play in a trio, accompany a singer, compose, improvise, then you better start developing your ear.

That comment alone shows how little you know.

You remind me very much of another poster who was really only interested in jazz, like you, but amused himself by coming to the classical forum and stirring up the people who loved classical with this sort of stuff. (Granted, he was a bit more articulate, but apart from that he was similar)

Now think of it like this, O Wiz - would you be annoyed if the classical players came over to the non-classical forum just when you were discussing something interesting and started with "jazz is flawed, you have it all wrong, you should all be playing Beethoven"..? Not that anyone has, as we apparently have too much sense and not as much idle time on our hands as you. But it would be pointless, would it not?

Then ask yourself why you are doing the same thing?

I started in jazz and improvisation... I performed with singers and with other musicians. I enjoyed and still enjoy every moment of it. I can play pop songs from the radio and can play without music. Though I could read music - I didn't have to rely on it.

But I also feel that the classical approach is equally essential for musical literacy. I felt there were great holes in my musical education and ability having not learned the classical approach.

So twenty years ago I began learning classical. I wished I'd started earlier. Having a good ear is all very well... but being able to play classically provides a far greater technical challenge... and provides a much better foundation from which to make a choice about where you want to go with music.

Sight reading and being able to read from a score and play what you read provides great pleasure than being able to play by ear... and opens up far more opportunities for musicians.

There's an absolute world of difference between slavish dedication to the printed score, and what amounts to improvisation on a classical theme. The idea that the purpose of sight-reading is to foster dogmatic adherence to the whims of the composer (or editor, more likely) is completely wrong.

If you want to play the classical repertoire, with even a reasonable approximation of what the composer intended, you need to be able to read. Either that, or you need to develop an _exceptionally_ good ear and have a great deal of patience and an understanding family.

After about 40 years of playing by ear and improvising, I reckon I'm reasonably competent at it. But I'm never going to be able to improvise or compose like Bach and Mozart, even if I had a dozen lifetimes to work on it.

But I can _play_ the great music that those guys left us, because I've put the effort into developing tolerable score-reading skills.

If you don't want to play the classical repertoire -- and many people don't -- then whether you want to spend time on sight reading is much more a matter of personal preference. For my part, even for jazz I find reasonable score-reading an advantage. Unless you're doing it face to face, it's hard even to communicate musical ideas in any other way.

I never learned to read music when I was a kid because I didn't have to. I had a natural gift for playing by ear and an intuitive understanding of melody and harmony. These things served me well for a long time, but when I decided that I did want to play some of the classical repertoire, I found that I couldn't do a good job of it with the skills I had. I'm pretty sure that learning to read music in your 40's is much more painful than learning it before you're 10.

The best benefit I got from classical was the technique and fingering. The actual physical playing, where all those scale drills build up dexterity. But the sight-reading part I found a burden and hindrance.

currawong, you aren't talking about BJones are you? Man that cat was funny, too bad he's gone now.

I wouldn't be annoyed at all, in fact I welcome you to come over anytime. We're doing a thread on the ABF for jazz intermediate/advanced. See if you can add something of value, but since you don't play jazz I doubt it.

This argument isn't about jazz vs classical. It's about the relative importance of ear training vs sight-reading.
You may think sight-reading has greater value, I disagree.

My classical teacher didn't show me any ear training and that lack of skill showed itself when I tried to play other styles.

Funny how the piano teachers association here hired a jazz pianist friend of mine to teach them how to improvise. They knew their training was not complete. What I'm trying to do is to open your eyes that the classical method of teaching piano is flawed and incomplete.

Why do so many people who used to take piano lessons as a kid say they hated it and quit, but wished they learned again but with a fun and different approach. Look at the methods like Sudnow, Piano Magic, Play piano in a flash...etc..why are they popping up.

If you are taking offense to what I post, then that's your problem.

Well... communication is a two way street, don't you think? You actually believe that someone taking offense to what YOU post has nothing to dowith what YOU post at all? Give me a break...

Now, onto the rather silly debate.

I play classical music, I play with bands, I play in piano bars with a great singer (amazing actually and very beautiful and... not my wife! LOL). I'm emabarrashed to attempt even to admit I know jazz, cause I don't. I don't listen to jazz, so I wouldn't be able to comment much on that.

But I'm rather annoyed to the idea that improvisation is limited to jazz, that some people seem to imply. And also rather annoyed to the comparison between apples and oranges. Both are interesting, tasteful and useful.

This year (2009-2010) I extended my lessons by 15 minutes more each day, to a couple of my students to accomodate more theory. This involves mainly writing in scores, and reading from scores. I also tried sight reading (something which they've never heard about) and explained the necessity of it. And then I had them singing their favorite song... :-/

I doubt one can be a 'complete' musician (when playing classical at least) without skills in reading, listening, playing, thinking, etc. and sure, in the film music/computer games music world there are tons of 'whistlers' (Zimmer and Elfman are said to not being able to read music) so it's very doubtful if this means much. But it also should be noted the army of people behind these people who MAKE the music work (by notating scores, orchestrating, making parts, etc).