There are many students who have great musical potential and ‘a good ear’. So if we all have good innate aural skills, it’s really a matter of how developed our skills are in relation to music, and in particular in relation to the aural component in a practical exam. If you speak with inflection, you have pitch! If you can change gears in your manual car, you can hear changes of pitch! When you differentiate between an English accent and an American accent, when you phone your mother and know instantly from her tone of voice you’ve done something wrong – these are all finely tuned aural skills, and we all have them. How many people have told you they are tone deaf? There is almost nobody in the world who is actually tone deaf. The irony of this situation is that we, as humans, all have innately good aural skills. ![]() And they wonder why the tests are hard! Tragically, the aural component is often ‘written off’ as a small and unimportant part of the exam. Many students are not exposed to aural activities until 3 or 4 weeks before an exam, if at all. It is a similar story with aural training. The more we do it, the faster we get at transferring what we see on the page into actual sound. ‘Practising’ sight reading means opening up a piano book and playing what’s on the page, and then moving on to another book, and another, and another. When we pick a book off the bookshelf and open it up to read, we have no idea what the words inside are going to be, we just start reading. They maintain that once you’ve practised it, it’s not sight reading anymore! This is true, of course… but the student has missed the point. Many students believe it is not possible to practice sight reading. A student who can master the list above will be a fabulous sight reader. Playing under pressure (because it’s most often tested in an exam!)Īt first, each of these concepts must be presented separately, and then gradually combined.Playing with dynamics/articulation (combines all elements).Two hands reading/playing (combines 1-4 and requires coordination).There are many factors involved in successful sight reading: This is how we should address sight reading! We start with simple repetitive readers and gradually move on to more complicated books. When we first start to read English, we are taught the alphabet and then how to recognise patterns. However, for beginner sight readers (who are sometimes also advanced pianists!) who are frustrated with their ability it is essential to break down the elements of sight reading. The only way to become a good sight reader is to sight read constantly. There is no-one ‘born’ a good sight reader, just like there is no-one who is born able to read English fluently without having read a lot. They will tell you: because they do it ALL THE TIME. Practising a certain Mozart sonata over and over for 6 or 8 months will not be helpful when trying to sight read a different Mozart sonata.Īsk anyone who is a good sight reader how they came to be so. The first thing a student must understand is that sight reading is a completely separate skill to virtuoso performing. Good sight reading is a skill that eludes many a good pianist (or any instrumentalist, but I’m going to focus on piano skills here), and frustrates both student and teacher. ![]() ![]() Good sight reading and good aural gives you access to any music, any time, for life. It is so important to develop these skills, and not to concentrate solely on performance skills. Sight reading and aural skills are essential components of being a good musician.
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