We've had lots of different views about what constitutes being able to play an instrument, and most are in terms of Grade/standard. However, to have passed a certain grade, a candidate might have used great playing to cover up poor sight-reading - or vice-versa; excellent sight-reading can make up (in marks) for a performance of the music that is not of a standard that would be well recieved by an audience - be it three people or three hundred - other than doting parents.

Now, my own opinion is that to be able to play means to be able to play well - regardless of any exams. We can't possibly say that an individual has to have a good grasp of a variety of pieces from the upper end of the standard repertoire of the instrument, or there wouldn't be too many who would be considered 'able to play'! A Grade 1 piece can be well worth listening to if it's well presented, while a Grade 8 piece won't necessarily, just because it's Grade 8 and most of the notes are right.

However, where does this leave sight-reading? Is the ability to sight-read a prerequisite for being 'able to play'? Where does that leave all the piano-bar pianists, jazz musicians and the like who play by ear and from memory?

So whilst sight-reading is obviously a necessary skill for those who want to be accompanists or church musicians, how much does it figure in being 'able to play' for those who will only ever be playing what they've rehearsed and perfected- such as a concert pianist - and how much does it cover up for poor playing in exams, in that Grade 8 can be passed with good sight-reading, having failed at least one piece?

Ok I make no bones about the fact I am not musical. I can only base my response on very limited experience but for what it's worth...

I think to be able to say that you can play at a certain level then all aspects of musicality required for the level have to come together. They may not always be exactly equal but there should be some sort of balance. Sightreading, performance, technical skills and confidence will be evident in the playing.

On a completely personal level. My youngest passed grade 2 Piano a year ago. I don't think she's a Grade 2 Pianist though as she can't play pieces of a similar standard even now a year on (although she's starting to). She took Grade 2 Guitar at around the same time and has definately made progress even though it's not an instrument that she particularly works towards exams on. I do know her technical skills and confidence have developed more than Piano.

On the other hand she's just taken Grade 6 Treble, we don't have the result, but I would say that's an accurate reflection of her level as she can play pieces of a similar atandard (unpolisheded(, infact she was playing the exam peices which she taught herself between teachers, and has started playing other pieces of similar standard from the same grade and the one above, not particularly for any exam, as well as various Handel Recorder Sonatas. She'll play pieces on different sizes of Recorder too, sometimes mixing them form the same sonata other times she'll play something only on Bass.

I agree that being able to play well won't always mean that you are playing at the highest level. It's more important to have an understanding of the requirements of a level even more so than the piece of paper in my opinion.

The level you are is the level you are comfortable at and the place you are going to move forward from. Don't know if that makes sense?

To be honest I'm probably my daughter's worst critic and I don't think either of us would have it any other way.

I see where you're coming from, but I think as a working, gigging musician sight-reading is an important skill. Maybe not so much the 30 seconds then play it, but something more like the Diploma quick study.

I'm nowhere near being a pro musician myself, but I've got a few friends who are and the gigs that they do where they know exactly what they're going to be playing even weeks in advance are quite a low proportion of the work they do. Much of it is last minute (maybe depping) and involves filling a spot in a band or other ensemble for a show, gig or recording session where they may well have not seen the music in advance. Although a couple of these firends are jazz musicians, sight reading skills are no less important - if you're going to have to fill in on something like a big band gig or recording session, quite possibly on more than one instrument, you need to be able to read the charts accurately.

I have only just come back to this thread -

I think those are such sensible posts... the last three Tsax, notmusimum and Dulciana - adding a good lot to a tricky and partly subjective topic.

Of course it's difficult to pinpoint precisely what constitutes "being able to play"
a tune? a few notes? to play brilliantly with all kinds of expression? to sight-read? improvise? scales? modes?

at what stage does someone who plays an instrument become a musician?
this could go on for ever almost

A good point. Ask 10 different people and you will likely get 10 different answers as the on-going poll has shown.

I'm only just getting used to the idea that I'm a pianist (I still prefer to call myself a person who enjoys playing the piano) and I am definitely not a violinist - despite being one of the "first violins " in my daughter's orchestra.


It sure could!

This is proably not the expected answer but partly when other people recognise you as one....

TSax I completely agree with you about sight reading. It's not only professional musicians who have to live off their wits in the way you describe. It could be anyone who plays more than one instrument at their conductors beck and call.

I think the fact that the various skills are not necessarily present in everyone is a positive thing - it means you can find the sort of musician needed for a particular task. I know one keyboard player who can transpose anything at the drop of a hat - he's quite happy to have an instrument tuned at a'=415Hz for an ensemble playing at 440Hz - he just plays up the semitone; as a soloist he isn't necessarily so inspiring, so he's best doing the things he's good at - and there's no doubt that he can play. On the other hand, I've also met keyboard players who can't play nearly as well at sight, and need to practise, hone and polish, but the end result is at a higher standard than the first one can manage - such musicians make better soloists and obbligato players - they also can clearly play, just not as spontaneously as the more flexible but less polished players. Sure, both groups would improve the ranges of what they can offer if they work on both aspects, but in practice many musicians will gravitate more to one style of learning and performing, because as they get a reputation for their particular skills, they'll be invited back for more of the same.

Sight-reading has nothing whatsoever to do with being able to play an instrument. It has to do with being able to play a piece of music you don't know.

There really cannot be any debate about this. You only have to think of (for example) Louis Vierne and Jean Langlais; great musicians, gifted composers, fantastic organists (church musicians, indeed) and both blind. Sight-reading for them was not an option.

Sight-reading is a great skill to have, but lacking it does not preclude one from being a musician, or an instrumentalist.

Best wishes

barry

There are always exceptions ot the rule. No doubt there are lots of talanted plyers who learn by ear but the biggest majority of people will learn formally by reading Music. In normal circumstances to play with ensembles, bands or orchestras will need to be able to sight read to a reasonabl;e degree.

I don't think this thread is just about being a musician it's about saying you are playing at a certain level generally and that requires a combination of skills in my opinion. It doesn't mean if you don't have one of those skills that you are not at the particular level.

Except that if you have ###### technique, you are extremely likely to be ###### at sight-reading as it's all about pattern recognition - on a violin at least you recognise finger patterns from scales and technical exercises which makes sight-reading easier. Sure, it's possible to have good technique and still not be a good sight-reader, but I think the key thing about sight-reading is knowing your way around the instrument.

Obviously bringing up examples like blind people isn't really what most people are talking about.

I do agree with you that sight-reading is fairly unimportant to the concert musician, though I don't care how long it takes Perlman to learn something because he plays so damn well.

As a follow-on from my previous post, the reason I am not entirely comfortable with being called a 'pianist' is precisely because my sight-reading is rubbish. I can rattle off pieces from memory but put an unfamiliar score in front of me and I go to pieces! Makes me feel a bit of a 'fraud'

I know exactly how you feel. I don't think I can play the piano very well at all which is why I'm going to take my grades. I can't play a grade one piece from sight but from memory I can just about play anything I wish to learn if I practice long enough. Personally I don't consider myself a musician at all unless I can sight read and improvise and do both extremely well. I can't do either, but I'm working on it.

Of course you can be a great musician without being able to sightread. I'd go even further and say you can be a fantastic musician without being able to read a note of music, otherwise what are you going to call the virtuoso Romanian and Hungarian gypsies, many of whom can't read a note? What about Django Reinhardt who in my view was one of the greatest musicians who ever lived?

But surely the important question is what you'll be able to do with that unfamiliar score, given some time? Some will be able to rattle it off fairly quickly in a recogniseable manner, but so what? Unless it's for a purpose where basically any sort of rendition will do, who wants to listen to somebody sightreading? If it's an accompaniment, then the soloist obviously isn't very demanding if the most basic will do! I think, as I've said before, that the DipABRSM Quick Study is probably a good test, as it would give a soloist looking for an accompanist a reasonable idea that somebody could learn something to a reasonable standard fairly quickly, if they had to find somebody through qualifications alone rather than through personal experience or word of mouth.

If you can't play by ear and aren't a natural improviser, and are not therefore an impromtu performer, it comes down largely to reading. But not sightreading. It comes down to reading and working at. Or hearing and working at if you can't read, for whatever reason. The proof of the pudding is in how good a polish you can put on the music - I think, anyway.

I think, to a certain extent, sightreading (or learning new pieces relatively quickly) is an important (although not the most important) part of being able to 'play' and instrument. Pretty much anyone can play pretty much anything, if they work at it for long enough, but being able to play one really difficult piece really well, but to struggle to play other much easier pieces can't count as being able to play, surely?

For example, if you started a new instrument, and learned to play one diploma level piece really well, but that was it, would you say you could play?

I think it's pretty useful to be able to learn new pieces relatively quickly, but sight-reading, as we see it in grade exams, is just a test of quick visual scanning.

I'm much better at 'real life' sight reading than at exam sight reading.
I think that something which would be a good and useful attempt at sight reading in real life would not necessarily get too many marks in an exam situation where they seem to be looking for more notational accuracy.

This is an interesting thread, and is a reminder of why music and and learning to play music on an instrument are so fascinating. There are so many skills involved, and we all have different proficiencies in the many areas ... visual patterning, learning body patterns, discerning pitch, maintaining pulse, pulse subdivision, emotional awareness and communication, instrumental ability etc. The combination of these is so complex!

Of course there are countless examples of fantastic musicians who either couldn't read a note of music (for whatever reason), or weren't very good at it. Many of the early jazz improvisers learnt without notation (and, one might argue, that the languge and practices of jazz developed in the way it did partly because it was unencumbered by notation). The vast majority of opera singers until later on in the 20th century couldn't read a note of music.

BUT, in the commercial world, not being a good sightreader is a big hole in your CV, and you'll be found out very quickly. The London orchestras are famed for their sight-reading skills, and picked up enormous amounts of work because of it - for instance, the LSO recorded most of the Star Wars music after one sight-reading play-through. Much of the training for a professional musician consists of building up millions of different patterns to be readily playable, and being able to recognise the visual patterns which represent the learnt patterns - or modifications thereof. Of course, they do rehearse ... but they will assume that nearly everything will be in place on the first play-through, the rehearsal time being devoted to interpretation.

To be a REALLY good sight reader, you really do have to be an excellent musician. By REALLY good, I mean not just being able to play the correct notes, but to do so musically, conveying appropriate emotion or whatever. And to do that you need to understand something of the intentions of the composer ... the dots on the page are only the first stage in that understanding. An audience isn't concerned about what the notes are on the page, but rather what they represent. Oh, dear, I'd better stop before I get into the murky world of semiotics!!

And the good sight reader will not only just be able to hear the notes on the page before he/she plays them, the sounds of the dots on the page will actually make the body make the right pattern of body shapes (be it hand shapes, embouchure shapes or vocal chord shapes) to produce the sound that the player is hearing in his/her head. This, after all is the way that singers MUST work if using notation (they've got no buttons to press).

I suppose, in summary, all I'm saying is that you can be a great musician and not be able to sight-read - but for most musicians for whom their musical skills have commercial value, sight-reading ability is a very valuable (as in money) skill.

yes, a good post briantrumpet.

as I think you imply, there is a heck of a lot of different things involved in making music.

This is an interesting thread.. and could go on for a long time without repetition, deviation or hesitation
Part of it is to do with Playing, some to do with Performing... not the same things ..
and so much is concerned with wide-ranging skills etc etc

Improvising, sight-reading, composing and performing. I guess each of us will find our strengths in different aspects. I love composing more than anything, but I would love to be better at the other 3.

Sightreading doesn't necessarily use the musical brain whereas playing by ear does.

I know a cellist who's a good sightreader - but only up to a point because something gets in the way and she often plays the notes out of tune. Get her to play a piece of music by ear though and her intonation is perfect - because she's listening. God knows why a grown woman can't sightread and listen at the same time - perhaps she hasn't done enough sightsinging?

Perhaps being able to sightsing, then, is a prerequisite for string players, which makes me realise sightreading for string players and sightreading for pianist and other 'fixed note' players are two very different things, or they pose very different problems. The sightreading pianist often has to read 10 notes at once, which takes immense skill but at least he doesn't have to worry about playing in tune as well. The violinist only has to play one (or two) notes at a time but he also has to focus closely on his intonation. And then of course there's the interpretation and the expression, all of which need further skills....

But having said all that I still think being able to play by ear requires very particular musical and aural skills - even if you're talking about just playing the bare notes, whereas to do the same with sightreading (just playing the bare notes) doesn't require any musical skills at all - just the knowledge of what each note means with relation to the fingers. And a pianist just playing the bare notes (minus expression) doesn't even need any aural skills whatsoever, whereas a string player does, to be able to play those notes in tune. But I still think being able to play well by ear should be essential for any musician.

True. But I would still maintain that to sight-read well is to sight-read musically - and to do that you need to have both extremely good recognition of visual patterns linked with instantaneous access to those patterns (and their musical significance) as learnt by ear and fingers. Isn't that what we're striving for as literate musicians?

Yes I agree with you that to sightread well is to sightread musically. But if you were faced with two musicians, one of whom couldn't read music but could play stunningly well by ear and the other of whom could play stunningly well from never-before-seen music but couldn't play a note by ear, and you had to choose one of them as more of a musician than the other, which one would you pick?

I'd pick the non-sightreader, because I'd wonder what was going on musically with the one who couldn't play by ear.

It would depend on what I was picking them for, really. If it's a sight-reading job, then the sight-reader gets it - after all, if they can sight read stunningly well (and so, by definition, musically), then they must be musical - even if they haven't got the admirable and desirable skill of being able to play by ear! Great improvisors are useless in a big band if they can't read. No-one is going to be the perfect all-round musician ... so it's going to be horses for courses! I'm not going to get into the game of saying that one is more of a musician than the other!!

Personally I don't think that performing and sight-reading should be mixed although it often is. I find performing a piece that I've memorised sounds better because you can concentrate more on the expression of the music rather than reading a piece of music. Music is after all just a reminder of what should be played, no matter how detailed a piece of music is it cannot describe the subtle expressions a musician can perform.

Unless you were the conductor/ensemble leader of the second one

Playing by ear for singing I find quite straightforward - its easy to get the right intervals irrespective of starting note. But on a keyboard I find it much harder as I find I need to think what the next actual note will be rather than just letting my fingers find the next note automagically, which the voice can do.

Most of my playing tends to be sight reading - on a Sunday morning I'll open a book of music at the organ and start playing - the tempo will be set by a) how fast I think it should go b) how fast I think I can play it on first reading whilst still maintaining some sort of musicality. I will therefore make a reasonable first stab at something but seldom will I work on something properly.

I find sight-reading on the organ much easier than on the piano - as long as we're talking about manuals only. Pedalling at sight is just not on my agenda yet! I've often wondered why I find it easier, and have thought about whether it might be because the notes that you play on the organ will sound with the same volume however you strike them. I know that touch comes into it to an extent, but there is no aural sensation of hesitancy in the way that there can be on the piano if you strike a note timidly. This all adds to confidence levels in keeping phrases going. Not having to think so much about dynamics helps too - or having to make a LH part rise through the phrase while the RH is doing something different, for instance. Would I be committing forum suicide to suggest that more musicality is required on the piano than on the organ, and that this could be why it's harder to make something sound really good in a first play-through on the piano?

Sorry for going a little off-topic, by the way.

I think both instruments require musicality - you just have to express it differently on each instrument. To add a little emphasis to a note on the organ you have to create more space around it (by shortening the neighbouring notes) or lengthen it slightly, instead of just hitting it a little harder. And subtle dynamic shading has to be done with stop changes and/or expression pedals. As this involves a lot of organ management, it's harder to do for people who are primarily pianists (or for inexperienced organists like me). But it's definitely possible to play the organ with a LOT of musicality.
Organ is also a lot less forgiving in some respects. Many have a time delay, which means that by the time you hear a mistake, it's way too late to do anything to correct it. And as the notes don't decay and there's no sustain pedal, you have to be very precise about which notes to hold and how long for, and articulation has to be very carefully done.
When I play the piano (which is definitely /not/ my instrument!) I have to make a conscious effort to make use of what it offers that the organ doesn't.
From grade 4, organ sight-reading requires pedals (3-stave reading and a full pedal part, not just tonic and dominant pedals or stepwise movement) and manual changes. I got a better mark on my piano grade 5 sight-reading than I did on my organ grade 4 sight-reading (taken a week apart, so a reasonably fair comparison) even though I'm much worse at piano overall. (It's hard to do direct comparisons of piano and organ grades, because organ tends to require keyboard facility equivalent to that required by piano a couple of grades higher.)

T.

If I play a piece from memory I'm concentrating so hard on what the next note actually is that I forget about the one I'm playing. With the music I can think about it and remember what I did before, or pencil in reminders.

There are different tools for different jobs. I wouldn't call a screwdriver a rubbish tool just because I couldn't bang a nail in with it very well, would I? But I wouldn't call the hammer the be all and end all of tools either because it won't get very far when faced with a screw