Studio Class 25
Sightreading
Dr. Jason Kihle, Associate Professor of Percussion
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
- If music is like a language…then what are you saying?
- Music is like a language, only we often learn it much differently from how we learn a spoken language
- For any musician, the question is “how well do you speak”?
- For drum set, how many words do you know?
- For marimba, how fluently can you play? Or do you stop and start a lot?
- How often do you practice speaking?
- Do you talk with other people who speak your language? (Or do you sit in a room by yourself and talk only to yourself? Or, do you only listen and never say anything?)
- How do you practice speaking?
- Practice where you can allow yourself to make mistakes
- If you are practicing something that’s written down, practice CORRECTLY (usually this means go slower) and with a metronome
- Listen to music, then play along with it
- But most importantly, play with other musicians
The Sightreading Process
- Scan the Music
- Estimate the Difficulty
- Set a Tempo
- Don’t Stop
- Do It Again
What you must do
- Generally, time signatures only get in the way
- COUNT!: in the beginning, count out loud, because once you stop counting out loud you stop counting altogether
Goals
- Get more of it right than wrong
- Don’t look down
The Game of Sightreading
- Don’t look down
- Don’t stop