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  • Hello, it's Tom Donald from the London Contemporary School of Piano. Well, today I'm gonna talk

  • about the topic that we all love to hate - sight reading, but the reality is that sight reading,

  • no matter where you are up to in sight reading on the piano, sight reading is something that

  • is not only just a critically important musical skill to have, but sight reading, even just

  • making the smallest improvements on your sight reading, getting it to be 5, 10, 15, 20% better,

  • is gonna have a huge positive impact on your playing, on your speed of learning pieces,

  • comprehending music, and just generally moving your musical progression forward. So let's

  • dive in and talk about this all important topic sight reading. And if you like our work

  • at the London Contemporary School of Piano feel free to click the bell button and subscribe

  • to our channel, and therefore you're not missing out on the quality videos and content that

  • we have to offer for you. So sight reading. Now, today's video, I want

  • to help you master your sight reading. I want to be a little bit ambitious here. I don't

  • just want to get you sight reading 10 or 20% better. I want you to have a little bit of

  • a sight reading revolution in your head. And I want to unblock a few things for you because

  • there's some wider concepts here. So today we're looking at ways to master our sight

  • reading, and not just to master our sight reading, but to master the way we practice

  • sight reading. And the thing about sight reading is it's not just about sitting down with a

  • score in front of us and reading note by note by wrote verbatim, looking up and down the

  • music and playing one note at a time. That's a very mechanical process and it's very unmusical,

  • and that's not how we want to sightread. And the reason why most people struggle reading

  • music is that's the way they do it. Now, you wouldn't read a book like that, wouldn't you?

  • You wouldn't just pick up a book and read word by word and not have a comprehension

  • to what the bigger picture is, what it is you are actually reading about the comprehension

  • of what it is you are reading. And the big problem with musical literacy, it isn't actually

  • the fact that people don't know where notes on the stave are. It's the problem is the

  • comprehension - they don't understand what's behind the notes and that's the real problem.

  • You know, some of the best sight readers I've ever come across have actually been conductors,

  • conductors that conduct symphony orchestras, and they have the ability quite often, and

  • I've seen this before in rehearsal to sightread an entire orchestral score, you know, with

  • all of the instruments of the orchestra on this massive score and be able to walk up

  • to a piano and play it. And that's because they have a wider conception

  • and understanding of the music in a harmonic way, in a polyphonic way, in a structural

  • way. And music is a language, and we wanna think of it like a language. And often the

  • reason why people struggle and can't read music very well is because they're not treating

  • it like a language. And that's what we're going to do today. Now, there's no one magic

  • formula to crack your sight reading, but I'm gonna say that there are three, and I'm gonna

  • show you three formulas. And if you tackle sight reading from these angles, I guarantee

  • you you're gonna make a big result and you're gonna see some big changes in your reading

  • of music. So the first tip, and this first one is more of a, a conceptual understanding,

  • but it will make a big difference to many of you.

  • So this is looking at sight reading from the keyboard angle, and this is so, so important.

  • So look at the keyboard down here and look at the notes. You know the notes of the keyboard

  • and you are playing it and you are learning pieces of music. Well, I want you to imagine

  • something about the keyboard right now. I want you to flip the keyboard, literally flip

  • it so the top notes in the air, are up in the sky and the low notes are down on the

  • floor. So imagine that these, this is the top notes up in the sky and the low notes

  • down on the floor. Now that is exactly what a musical stave is. A musical stave is basically

  • a keyboard and it's a keyboard where the top notes are higher up here and the low notes

  • are lower. Sort of makes sense. It's the verticalisation of the keyboard because

  • harmonies and music of a harmonic nature of a note given nature is vertical. And what's

  • horizontal is the rhythm, the movement of rhythm and scales. So that's why we have this

  • notation system designed the way it is, well, the western notation system. And for most

  • part it's very effective. It's a very effective way of looking at it. So I have put together

  • a special crib sheet to help you. And if you'd like to get a copy of this crib sheet, please

  • head on over to our website, contemporaryschoolofpiano.com. We will gladly send you this special sight

  • reading crib sheet. Let's have a look at it. So if you remember your first ever piano lesson

  • or if you remember the first time you learned anything about a piano, I think for many of

  • us we just learnt where all the Cs were or we learnt where middle C was.

  • So if we play all of the Cs on the piano and on the keyboard, they belong in certain positions

  • on the notation. So for instance, this is your middle C, this is your C above middle

  • C, this is your C above that. And notation tends to only work in three to four octave

  • ranges in both hands. And the reason for that is that you just get too many ledger lines

  • otherwise, and it just gets unreadable. So we have this octave sign. So the charm of

  • the notation system is that we actually only really need to read a few octaves. We're not

  • actually reading every 88 note on the keyboard. Things are then just repeated with the use

  • of the octave up sign and the octave down sign. So if I play this, I get this.

  • And of course, we're not going to be using that many ledger lines very often. And when

  • a composer does that, they almost don't need to do it. They can use the octave sign to

  • save the many, many ledger lines. So it's a real priority really just to know this range.

  • And it's actually good if you go to our website and ask for this sheet, it's the sight reading

  • strategy sheet. You can actually as a little bit of homework just fill in the gaps and

  • notate the notes in between. And that's a really useful thing to do. It just gives you

  • that wider concept. But this is what it looks like. This is when you notate all of the white

  • keys on the piano, by the way. That's what it looks like. You get all of these, all of

  • these ledger lines. So these are the notes in between these C octaves and beyond.

  • You can see how middle C is not entirely in the middle of the piano there. And then when

  • you go down to here - this is the same thing. I've written it out exactly the same notes,

  • but I've used an octave sign just to make it a little bit more accessible to read. So

  • it continues moving through all of the white keys on the keyboard. Now there are many variations

  • you can conceptualise with this as well. You could actually notate all of the notes on

  • the keyboard in different scales. So this is like a C major scale, but you could do

  • the same thing for D major and you can find all of the Ds on the musical staff with the

  • notes in between following the D major scale. You could do the same thing for the E major

  • scale, the F major scale and so forth. The purpose of this exercise, the reason why

  • we are doing this, is to translate the keyboard conception into the notation conception. So

  • if you'd like to have a copy of that crib sheet, it's just a nice thing to hang up on

  • your wall, put near your piano. It just gives you that conception of the way you need to

  • readdress your thinking in comparison to the keyboard, the vertical concept of the harmony

  • and of the notes written on the musical stave. And so that is one little angle - it's a conceptual

  • angle that can make a huge difference to your understanding of reading musical notation

  • on the piano. Here's the second one. And this is, I'm going to use a very useful piano method

  • book to demonstrate this sight reading method. And this method is the Bartok Mikrokosmos

  • method. And it's a lovely bunch of books that the composer Bela Bartok put together.

  • But I'm not just talking about these books, I'm talking about the approach. It's the approach

  • that really, really matters. And so this method works really, really well, but it only works

  • well again, if it's in combination with some, some of the other methods that I'm going to

  • be talking about. And it is a very powerful method. And for those of you who particularly

  • have a good ear but you don't read music so well, this is a very good method because you

  • can't really rely on your ear to do some of the cover up work for you. You actually have

  • to read everything. So the purpose of this method is to not think about individual notes,

  • is not to look at the score here and go - that's a C, or that's a D, that's an E and so on.

  • The purpose of this method is to think about patterns and shapes.

  • And really that's what good sight reading is about. It's about thinking in patterns

  • and shapes. So for instance, the only note we have to think about is the starting note.

  • And in the right hand I'm playing a C above middle C with my thumb, and I can use that

  • c axium handout to figure out where all the Cs are in these notation examples. And the

  • left hand, I'm using the C below middle C, and these are unison melodies. So that means

  • both hands are doing the same thing. So the thing I need to think about now is not C D

  • E F G, I just need to think about two things - up or down. Now, later on, when the more

  • advanced patterns turn up in this book, I need to think about other things like skipped

  • notes and repeated notes and different things happening in both hands. But let's just do

  • this as a starting point. Let's think of the notes going up or down because that's what

  • happens in musical melodic phrases. Notes either go up or down or repeat or jump around

  • a little bit inside the scale often as well. So let's have a look at this exercise and

  • not think about individual notes, but think about patterns and shapes. So we have the

  • first note. And let's do the next one. Next one has more

  • quarter notes, so it goes a little bit faster. It starts in the same hand position.

  • So if you are to practice through a method book such as the Bartok Mikrokosmos, you are

  • not guided by knowing what the melodies meant to sound like. The only thing you have to

  • go by are the patterns. And a really important tip when you play through this repertoire

  • is don't look at your hands. At all costs avoid looking at your hands. Just get your

  • hands into the right position to start with first. So you can, you know, you can write

  • down on the music the starting note, you can give yourself a bit of a clue, but once you've

  • got that starting note, what you are meant to do is you're meant to see the melody as

  • as shape, as a pattern, as notes that ascend and descend and that repeat or skip that are

  • creating musical patterns. Because that's what a melody does. And I think actually singers

  • seem to understand this better often than pianists.

  • Pianists can often can get too abstract about notes and think of notes as, you know, individual

  • entities that don't have a connection to other notes. And that's a real risk if that's the

  • way you think it's gonna make reading very, very hard. Now, if you're still on this video,

  • if you're still with me you are about to be super rewarded by the third approach I'm going

  • to show you because when you put the first and the second approach with the third approach,

  • some real magic can start to begin. And it goes back to what I was talking about with

  • conductors being such great sight readers, often understanding the deeper concepts of

  • what's happening in the music. And the piece of music I'm going to refer to is the famous

  • C Major Prelude by JS Bach. Now, sight reading again, as I said before,

  • is not about note after note after note after note after note going, C E G C E G C E and

  • reading like that, I mean it's just impossible to sound musical if that's how you see sight

  • reading. So what is the deeper concept behind the music? Well, one of the most important

  • things to consider on the piano is chords and harmony because all of the music we listen

  • to on piano is built on chords and harmony. And if you have a deeper understanding of

  • what is happening harmonically with the music, reading the notes becomes much more palatable.

  • So for instance, if I even just analyze what's happening in this piece, in every bar in the

  • left hand, we only have two notes. And it repeats - I am just playing the left

  • hand and the right hand consists of three notes, which forms more of this chord, the

  • first bar being a C major chord, the second bar being a D minor chord, the third bar being

  • a G seven chord. When you add the left hand, it turns into a chord. So if I play this piece

  • entirely by putting all the notes together and treating it like a chord, the whole piece

  • is really just a collection of chords. So by understanding a little bit about the chord

  • system, even if it's just the bare minimum, knowing our major and minor triads for instance,

  • and using our reading skills just to understand the starting and ending point of the chords

  • or the intervals between them, all of a sudden reading turns into something like this

  • as opposed to this - note, note, note, note, note. I'm now just thinking C Major, I can

  • even write it on the music. This is not a test, right? Great concert pianists and great

  • musicians when they're practicing, they scribble on their music, they write this down, they

  • write above the stave the fingerings they want to use, but they also write down things

  • like what are the harmonies that are taking place? Things to just give them that assistance,

  • that understanding to confirm that deeper understanding. On the first bar we have a

  • C major chord, Second bar - a D minor seven with a C in the

  • base, then a G seven with a B in the base, Then

  • a C major, then an A minor starting on a C, then a D seven with a C in the base, then

  • a G major with a B in the base, then a C major seven with a B in the base,

  • Then an A minor seven, then a D seven, then a G

  • major chord, then a G diminished chord. And if you are

  • learning this piece, or you would like to learn this piece, if you head on over to our

  • website, contemporaryschoolofpiano.com and ask for our special sight reading pack, we

  • will send you the lead sheet of Bach C Major Prelude. We will send you these, let's say,

  • DNA clues of the music because Bach didn't just think of this piece of music as a bunch

  • of isolated notes. He didn't get his quilted pen out one day and go, okay, I'm gonna write

  • a C and then I'm gonna put an E above it. And then what, what should I put above that?

  • Oh G, he's thinking about harmony. He's painting colors with major and minor chords. And if

  • you are not taking the time to even understand this vocabulary, the systems of major minor

  • chords, if you can't recognise these connections of chords, sight reading becomes so, so difficult

  • because you are reading all of the notes in isolation.

  • And that's why at the London Contemporary School of Piano, we put a big emphasis on

  • learning chords and harmony at the piano. Not just because it sounds great for playing

  • popular music and jazz, it actually also suits learning classical music much better. All

  • of the great classical composers were fully trained and fully aware and obsessed by the

  • movement of harmony in music. Harmony has been around in classical and western music

  • for centuries and centuries, and it's such a useful thing to tap into, to understand

  • the depths of our notation system. So and this doesn't just apply to a piece like the

  • C Major Prelude by Bach. I'm gonna show you one, one other piece of music where thinking

  • in chords is also paramount. And this piece needs almost no introduction at all. Beethoven's

  • Moonlight Sonata, the first movement, and again, this piece is built entirely off broken

  • chords, harmonies, arpeggios. And if we just cover the first few bars here, what I've done

  • on this sheet music is I've added above the chords the name of each chord taking place.

  • And of course I'm using modern notation methods for this.

  • You can use traditional notation methods as well, such as Roman numeral, so all be it

  • how you'd like to do it. But by having an understanding of what the shapes and the chords

  • are, all of a sudden the notes all make sense in combination and you can focus on what really

  • matters. And that's playing with musicianship, clarity and not chasing every single individual

  • note as if it's some sort of horrible sight reading examination. And so this is really

  • important, and again, you can just with the power of a pen and your paper, you can just

  • write down the chords above each change that occurs in the music and create these harmonic

  • analysis of these pieces of music. And it makes such a huge difference to your

  • sight reading. It will revolutionise the way you look at music. All of a sudden, you are

  • not hunting for each individual note. You are actually learning how to understand the

  • deeper construction of the music, and that's gonna pay off massive dividends on your sight

  • reading. So if you enjoyed today's tutorial, head on over to our site, contemporaryschoolofpiano.com

  • and ask for our sight readers kit. It will have a couple of the wonderful resources we've

  • covered today, and it'll really help you take those big bold next steps in your musical

  • journey. It's been lovely seeing you, and I look forward to seeing you on our next tutorial.

  • Bye-Bye.

Hello, it's Tom Donald from the London Contemporary School of Piano. Well, today I'm gonna talk

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