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To anyone who considers themselves to be a good sight reader (doesn't matter what level):

I know there are two schools of thought about good sight reading; eyes on the notes or eyes just ahead of the notes.

I'm trying to figure out what commonalities good sight readers share with each other and it occured to me that this might be one of them.

Which do you do and, more importantly, please share why you do it.

eyes ahead, hands down.
but don't listen to me, my sight reading is a joke. Getting better though!
AS I get better I notice my eyes starting to be just ahead. I assume the better you get, the further ahead the eyes can go (to the point where you instantly memorize one bar or even line at a time and, while you play it, your eyes are on the next bar/line looking for potential difficulties )

Also you need to ask - eyes above or eyes below as you can't see both staves at once.

My piano teacher says I'm a natural sight reader. I recommend looking ahead, especially when it comes to things like LH/RH switching and other tricky stuff. But before you even start on a piece, take a few seconds to look it over and notice everything!

No, No, No. I really don't think so!

How can you be here in the present moment depressing certain chosen keys with a particular touch and duration, while also looking ahead. That is being in two different places at the same time.

I think people believe they do this, but I ask why? What is the necessity? THe music comes out of me on the beat I am playing, each and every time. Why would I want to look ahead and mess everything up?

I see and read both staves at once, reading from the bottom of the bass up through the top note of the treble with my hands responding in the distance of the intervals and pick up the notes precisely all at once for that vertical moment in time.

I know, each to his own.

Betty

Betty, I tried very hard to see both staves - even bought the glasses but to no avail. I do agree you can only be in one place at a time - in which case you need to be ahead, having left the present to the non-conscious mind to carry out. I know, sounds weird.

As I said before I'm a crap sight reader.... but when trying to read in the faster tempi you just have to look ahead... otherwise you'll fall behind. I'll ask my aunt though-she can sightread the pants off of just about anyone!!

Sorry, I'm really not conscious of my eyes when I'm sight reading, so I can't answer this question. I do believe that the way to improve sight reading is just to look at a very large amount of music (although it also helps if you have good technique and understand theory). Your eyes will do whatever they need to of their own accord.

I consider myself a good sight reader (trade off: I can't play by ear worth rubbish), yet I definitely agree with Alexander that it helps to be armed with a good technique and solid background in theory. And like memorizing, sight reading can be immeasurably improved just by doing it.

Agreed with Betty that one can't be in "two different places at the same time", yet I don't quite think it that simple. When sight reading, my eyes are usually on the notes actually being played, but I often find myself snatching glances ahead to prepare for a change of pattern, a leap in hand position, key change, etc. One needs to be on the lookout for these things... otherwise the process can come to a grinding halt.

The eyes do not stop they are in movement to the next note - they pick up the notes and execution almost instantly - I stick with a note until it's duration is over, then my eyes move again.....so I will try to examine this more closely and find what kind of a delay is actually there for me. It feels instantaneous, but perhaps it's an eyelash behind.

On machines that track your playing (at the retailer) I ace them as being with the music and the "record" of comparison shows that...and I did a lot of accomplanying, so I don't think I have lapses...I would hear about it.

I get what you are saying, Keyboard and argerichfan.

I always keep my eyes ahead, so I can read the notes before my hands play them. If I do it that way, I find that I make less mistakes, and it goes rather quickly.

I'm not the best pianist in the world (I'm a lawyer, for Pete's sake), but I'm a really good sight reader, and I definitely read ahead. I can't describe how I do it. But I definitely do it. I think it's a function if seeing patterns in the music and reading ahead for material that doesn't fit the patterns. I'm never more than a measure ahead of what I'm reading, but it's really impossible to both read, process, and play music at the same time.

Example. Yesterday in church I was called upon to play two anthems with the choir. No warning. The substitute organist was a disaster. She couldn't play the hymns, much less the anthems. I had sung the pieces before, which was an obvious advantage. but I'd never thought about playing them. We rehearsed them once, and then I played them on the Steinway in front of 600 people. My daughter turned pages for me. I had her turn the page at least a measure before the end of each page. While the choir was still singing and I was still playing the material on page x, my "mind's eye" was just itching to see what was coming up on page x +1.

I read ahead, but it's not a mechanical "play bar 1 whilst reading bar 2" thing - that really is trying to be in two places at once, a bit like circular breathing. I read and take in the phrase I'm playing (flicking from stave to stave as keyboardklutz says - you try it, you CAN'T focus your eyes on both staves exactly simultaneously), whilst flicking ahead and back. This doesn't mean that I'm not with the music, as Betty's post might suggest. I don't have to have my eye on a note to be concentrating on it, nor have all my focus on one note. In fact, you can't play a phrase musically if you haven't seen where it's going, surely, just as when reading prose aloud you need to flick to the end of a phrase or even sentence to grasp the structure so that you know which words to emphasise - if you are to read with meaning that is.
I really can't believe Betty never looks ahead. If you have a bar consisting of a held chord, followed by a very busy bar of semiquavers, you can't tell me that you keep your eyes glued to the chord and don't allow yourself to glance at the busy passage until it's time? Perhaps an extreme example, but if you do it there, why not elsewhere?
And when accompanying, remember you are not only reading the 2 staves that are the piano part (if you're any good, that is) - you are also reading (though not playing) the soloist's part. Try to do that without moving your eyes from the note you're playing!

Beautifully said, currawong. Your thoughts mirror mine, but you stated them much more artfully than I did. I guess that's the difference between someone from "Down Under" and someone from "Down South" in America.

I do think that trying to tell people how to sight read in writing is somewhat akin to trying to tell people how to walk. I don't think about doing it. I just can. Frankly, I think anyone who wants to develop her sight reading abilities should buy a protestant hymnal and just read. Read. Read.

The other thing I meant to say, too, was this:
If as an accompanist you have a bad page-turner (wherever humanly possible I do my own turning so as to avoid this), most I've spoken to would rather have them turn too early than too late. Why is this? Because they are reading ahead.
If the page is turned too late, so that the next bar appears at the exact moment when you should play it, it's rather difficult. You actually need that quick flick of the eyes before you play, in my experience (which, if not vast, is at least considerable ).

You here me complaining a lot about my slow progress, but I am decent nonetheless.

I find that forcing yourself to look ahead doesn't work. It should come naturally, and you get better at it with practice.

One way I have sort of been practicing this,though, is to bust out the ol' hymnal, put the metronome 'round 60-70, depending on how hard the particular piece looks, then look at a measure for the length of a measure (by the 'nome) and then look away and play it. That's only half of it, though, you have to play what you just read while taking in the next bit.

And, I'm always told by my mentors that good sight readers don't always play all the right notes, this is where theory knowledge comes in. Think about how structurally predictable a lot of classical is, like mozart.

Reading music should be approached no differently than reading this sentence. However, tempo will affect the rate at which, and distance that your eyes need to drift ahead to preview the musical contours of what's to come, just like in speed reading.

The key to demystifying music reading is to view the music as sounds, not notes, just like we read words and in doing so, they are immediately translated by our brains into action that can be pictured.

HEAR the music on the page. The shapes or contours of the lines. Hear the distances of the intervals. Let the notes represent SOUND plotted on the staves rather than notes that must be translated to sound by your eyes and fingers.

Also, reading through a piece of music before you set it on the piano to play it is invaluable to engrain the music before you play it. Once read through, it shouldn't have any serious surprises for you, like reading the same paragraph twice in a book.

currawong :

Your post has saved me a great deal of time that I would have spent trying to express how I "read ahead" of where I am playing when I am sightreading or, indeed, when I am just playing from the score. It's not something I do by forcing myself to do it; my eyes are always at least a fraction of a beat ahead of what I am actually playing. The extreme example you cite is a good illustration of how this principle is applied to any sightreading situation I have found myself in.

To illustrate the opposite extreme: If I did not read ahead then there would be "gaps" or disruption of tempo in my playing. Read this note (chord), play it; read the next note (chord), play it, etc. If your hands don't know where they are going to go because you don't read ahead, how can you play the next note (chord) in tempo if you have to stop and read it when it's already time to play it?

Being in the situation of having at my side a page-turner who waits until the last note of the page is played before turning to the next page reinforces - indeed proves - for me, that I read ahead.

The analogy of reading a text aloud applies, for me, also to playing music from scores.

Regards,

Again, currawong, your point is "on the nose." I always tell page turners to watch me as the page break approaches, and then I give them a nod. I even do this with my daughter, who has played for 11 years. Unless the turner is really on top of things, the urge to read the music like a book is just too much.

I know I should turn pages for myself, but I'm enough of a spastic that I always worry that I'll throw the music on the floor. I should copy accompaniments and put them in a binder, but my "jobs" (I never ask for payment) tend to come out of the blue, I'm just not that organized.

That's a pretty interesting concept. My first thought would be how do you deal with two sets of unsynchronized music; the one emanating from your piano and the one in your head, just a few notes ahead. How do you get your brain to pay attention to both simulatenously?

Would love to hear more.