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Betty, that was in answer to my question - We were looking at the physical component. One can be rigid and claw-like about it, or softer with alive fingers, and this is what was being discussed. You can't really come to a chord and arrange your fingers afterward, so what we come down with has to be that hand shape, but in trying to bring one note out more than others as in voicing the fingers still have to be alive. 30 years ago I would have had a relatively tight claw.

All I have to say about the original posting is:

Lysdexics Untie!

keystring said:
My main need now is to add the notes to the shape which is backward.

I'm not sure this is backward, keystring. I think it's the best way to read music. You see the whole shape first, and this makes playing the actual notes easier because they have a context. We learn the basic concepts first - that pitch is represented vertically, and duration horizontally - before learning exact note positions. Or at least that's how I teach it.

Reading the outside fingers in a chord first - the 1 - 5, it's like bread for a sandwich. Putting the inner notes in is the filling - like roast beef, cheese, etc. The 1-5 are the "frame".

Quickly recognizing intervals help the hand shape up into position (I know a lot of people hate that word) but I don't have another word for it.
L to L 3rd, 5th, 7th
S to S 3rd, 5th, 7th
L to S 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th
S to L 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th

The 1-5 degrees are with 5 fingers, the 6ths, 7ths, 8ths, are because the 2nd finger moved away from the 1st finger which stayed in position:
RH
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5
1 - 2 3 4 5
1 - - 2 3 4 5
1 - - - 2 3 4 5

Betty

Thanks, Currawong - In that case I had half the equation for 30 years, and got the other half recently. It could be worse.

I was not referring to simply reading the outer notes of a chord and assuming it is such and such, although with a lot of music, such as Clementi Sonatinas written in C, for example, such an approach is reliable.

Instead, I was referring to reading the entire chord, both outer and inner notes, as a pattern.

If you go back to the original scrambled mess posted by Betty, you will find that just the outer two letters is insufficient to a correct reading of the scrambled word. Those need to be in the proper place (according to the research), but the inner letters are just as important, otherwise if two different words had the same outer letters, but different inner ones, how would one read either correctly?

Thus, when I look at a chord, I don't just see the outer notes, but rather the entire chord, which usually registers as a pattern, which, when related to the key signature, results in my playing the proper chord.

And, when a chord appears with additional notes to be played by the other hand (which often add up to a larger chord), my mind sees aqain the entire chord/pattern.

This is also true with seeing scale runs, or thirds, or any other pattern...my mind reads it as a pattern, and hopefully, I can play it!

It is only when faced with the unfamiliar that one must go slowly, and "parse" out the music, and commit it to muscle memory, as you correctly illustrate in your post.

What you say about muscle memory is thus completely applicable here...if you study and play piano long enough, you gain muscle memory for many chords, runs, thirds, fourths, etc, in the keys that you are familiar with, and therefore reading music in those keys is, for the most part, reading a series of familiar patterns that quickly register with the mind.

Thus your thought is correct:

"My finding is that these hand shapes only come
with dutiful practice when muscle and aural memory
help in meeting the requisite tempo."

Once you have learned those hand shapes, another piece in the same key using those hand shapes will be quite easy for you to play.

Which is analagous to learning written words, and thus having them in your memory, which is why I mentioned that youngsters, (and those for whom English is a second language,) sometimes cannot read "Cambridge University" in Betty's post because they have not yet read/learned those exact words, and thus do not have them in their minds as patterns.

That is amazing! Spelling is still important I assume? :-)

Before this thread goes moribund ...

Nobody has risen to the bait of the PTOLEMY teaser ... but in line with the marvel of our system of spelling where alphabetic symbols convey sounds ... which in combination produce
instantly recognizable words ... which in turn trigger imaginative processes in the brain ...

The Frenchman Campollion ... after nearly 2 millennia of hieroglyph inertia ... some even believed that Egypt had been colonized by the
Chinese (an apparent association with picture-writing) ... allowed his mind to conjure the absurd thought that the ancient monument writings could just be PHONETIC ... seems obvious now ...
but by aligning the first 5 symbols with the Pharoah PTOLEMY in the top cartouche ... and substituting the letters . LEOP.T..
in the lower cartouche ... the name of a later queen leapt out of the canvas ... CLEOPATRA.

Chaps ... the Everest challenge is officially closed ... so you can put away those skiis!!

It was interesting to me that most posters did not say whether or not they could read the original posting - easily - with effort - or not at all.

Was it fun? Was it ridiculous? Was it frustrating? It is trivia? Is it important?

I'm glad there was an explanation written along with the test, because I would not have understood what might be happening that it was readable. How could that be? All those years in learning to spell and take spelling test and to depend on spell check!

Thanks for participating!

Betty

I wonder if this is more so for the English language. If truth be told, one must guess at the meaning of words. I remember that one of the "spelling" strategies in primary school was one in which the shape of words was set out, and a student to find the word that fit the shape. Or students traced the shape. Ponder this:

tough, through, though, bough

English is the only language that does that to my knowledge. Therefore we must develop a "guess what this word might be if only the language were logical" approach, and whatever faculties we use are similar to what we use in music.

Here is a fun one, though:

punos

It occurred as a typesetting mistake in a local newspaper, in an article describing a performance. "The blabla orchestra had a nice punos." punos?

The word "sound" had been inserted upside-down. Can you see it?

sound punos

In fact, once you know that it is the word sound upside down, can you still see PUNOS or do you end up seeing an upside-down "sound"?

Hi Betty !

I read it easily and thought it was great fun !
I was particulary pleased with myself since English is my second language

I think I read music in some of the same way, at least chords, arpeggioes and alberti bass.
First I notice the top and bottom note, then I fill in the others, if I try to read too fast it is the inner voices that gets wrong.

Thanks, this was a very good example to show how the brain works !
(and I'd love to hear that orchestra with the nice punos )

Ragnhild

What good news you share, Ragnhild!

The brain loves to work and play! It's good for us!

And, keystrings joins us in play and work with her "punos" and the "oughs". It's enough to be confusing, unless you already know, and then you never forget.

The advantage of 2 or more languages belongs to both of you, Ragnhild, and Keystring. I simply have a few Latin words and Spanish un poco with which to find "roots" and then English gets helped along through the root.

Brain food!

I could read it easily...I'm happy to say!

As lnog as you hvae the frsit and the lsat lteerts at teihr cerocrt psiootnis and the smae nmbuer of lteetrs, you can ustndrenad msot of waht you raed.

How cool woz that - the brain really is amazing isn't it? Thanks for sharing

I'm not at a piano now (at 1:05 AM), but quickly glancing at the notes, the patterns jumped right out at me.

In the RH, for example, the first measure is just as scale; starting with the F7 chord, and the top note just goes down by step. The third measure just has a repeated G four times in the top voice. There's another scale in the LH of measure 4.

Obviously just reading is different from reading and playing, but the reading itself isn't that complicated. The only times I really identified any notes was when I wanted to write in this post "F7 chord" and "repeated G". All the other notes are based on patterns and shapes that I've seen over and over again.