Full Version: Sight Reading & Aural
My sight reading and my aural is the poorest.Can anyone tell me how to do?
i guess that all you really have to do is just practice. find new music that you have never seen before or you have never played before. this is good practice.
sometimes i just put it off because it looks too hard or too boring but don't be fooled; you may get this in the exam and you can't exactly refuse to do it?
aural....listen to all differents types of music and during the song start commenting on it, clapping (or even dancing) to the beat and try singing it as well. this should help you with your aural.
well thats all i gotta say. good luck and you don't have to take my advice, but i now that it always works for me.
luv sparkal
sometimes i just put it off because it looks too hard or too boring but don't be fooled; you may get this in the exam and you can't exactly refuse to do it?
aural....listen to all differents types of music and during the song start commenting on it, clapping (or even dancing) to the beat and try singing it as well. this should help you with your aural.
well thats all i gotta say. good luck and you don't have to take my advice, but i now that it always works for me.
luv sparkal
I'm really sorry to have to give u a nasty answer but the only way is to practice. (i always think having to practice sight is kind of an oxymoron!!!)
but if you just take a couple of lines a day it'll make a huge difference - there are some excellent books available, can't thinkof any right now but ask at your local book shop
regarding aural, if you have an exam coming up maybe ask your teacher if you can schedule some extra lessons just for aural.
hope this helps!
but if you just take a couple of lines a day it'll make a huge difference - there are some excellent books available, can't thinkof any right now but ask at your local book shop
regarding aural, if you have an exam coming up maybe ask your teacher if you can schedule some extra lessons just for aural.
hope this helps!
The only way is to practice. Since I don't know what grade you are or what instrument you play, I can't say anything very specific. However, for sight reading, get the ABRSM graded sight reading books from a music shop (if you play an instrument for which they are available), but save those as the last sight reading practice you do before your exam as the length and standard are likely to be the most similar to what you will get in an exam. If you don't already have them, get the ones from grades lower than your standard, and work your way up. Practice sight reading pieces in your books that you've never looked at before, and borrow books from other people who play the same instrument so you are sight reading pieces which are truly unfamiliar.
With each piece you sight read, there are a few obvious things to look at (sorry if I'm insulting your intelligence here, but as I said I don't know your standard and your experience of sight reading, so please forgive me). Firstly, look at the key signature, as this is a common source of mistakes. Secondly, look at the time signature, and work out the speed, counting to yourself. If you're in exam they give you thrity seconds or something to look at the piece before you begin to play, and I think you're allowed to try bits out so it may be worth spending time working out e.g. the exact rhythm for bits that look difficult. The main thing is just to stay calm and keep going... It's better to play the piece correctly but slower than the meter than it is to play it at the right speed but riddled with mistakes. Don't let mistakes get you down either - sight reading is rarely perfect and I've always got good marks for mine with a couple of mistakes, even in grade eight.
For aural, get the ABRSM books and CDs (it was tapes in my day but I imagine it's CDs now). Go through these in your own time, as there are many examples so you shouldn't run out of new exercises to try. Your teacher can help you with the aural a lot more than they can with the sight reading so ask to do some practice exercises in your music lessons, but don't just leave it until close to the exam, do them all year round so you are used to them and when an exam comes up they don't seem like a big deal.
Good luck
With each piece you sight read, there are a few obvious things to look at (sorry if I'm insulting your intelligence here, but as I said I don't know your standard and your experience of sight reading, so please forgive me). Firstly, look at the key signature, as this is a common source of mistakes. Secondly, look at the time signature, and work out the speed, counting to yourself. If you're in exam they give you thrity seconds or something to look at the piece before you begin to play, and I think you're allowed to try bits out so it may be worth spending time working out e.g. the exact rhythm for bits that look difficult. The main thing is just to stay calm and keep going... It's better to play the piece correctly but slower than the meter than it is to play it at the right speed but riddled with mistakes. Don't let mistakes get you down either - sight reading is rarely perfect and I've always got good marks for mine with a couple of mistakes, even in grade eight.
For aural, get the ABRSM books and CDs (it was tapes in my day but I imagine it's CDs now). Go through these in your own time, as there are many examples so you shouldn't run out of new exercises to try. Your teacher can help you with the aural a lot more than they can with the sight reading so ask to do some practice exercises in your music lessons, but don't just leave it until close to the exam, do them all year round so you are used to them and when an exam comes up they don't seem like a big deal.
Good luck
| QUOTE (sparkal @ Mar 19 2004, 09:00 PM) |
| i guess that all you really have to do is just practice. find new music that you have never seen before or you have never played before. this is good practice. sometimes i just put it off because it looks too hard or too boring but don't be fooled; you may get this in the exam and you can't exactly refuse to do it? aural....listen to all differents types of music and during the song start commenting on it, clapping (or even dancing) to the beat and try singing it as well. this should help you with your aural. well thats all i gotta say. good luck and you don't have to take my advice, but i now that it always works for me. luv sparkal |
like sparkal said the simple answer is to just practice.
| QUOTE |
| i guess that all you really have to do is just practice. |
As long as you do this in advance it should solve your problems. If you still find it difficult then try getting one of the abrsm aural tapes (it depends which grade you are on as to what tape you get) which have all the aurals and lots of examples of the sorts of 1s you would get in a test that you can try out on the tape, It seems to work for me. I don't really know what else to say.
For the sight reading you should just find short pieces of music, a bit less complicated than the pieces you are playing in the test, which you have defiantly not played or heard before and try out the rythms and show your teacher in your lessons and ask him/her if you got the rythms and counting correct. Just make sure you keep a practice, practice, practice mind and eventually you should find that your playing becomes improved if not perfect.
Good luck with it all,
Ryan.
Piano duets with a friend/teacher can be good too. What level are you at? My sight reading was rather suspect but now quite good. The success came from playing duets with a friend - transcriptions of Haydn symphonies, Mother Goose (Ravel), Dolly (Faure) - and also playing the organ in church (especially accompanying) developed confidence in keeping going. In both these circumstances you have to keep on going.
If I analyse how I sight read now, part of it is not reading every note individually but recognising patterns - fragments of arpeggios and scales and repeated figures - and understanding the key, harmony and tonality of the music so that accidentals are automatic. Knowledge of these things and how they 'work' does help and one learning trick as you sight read is to name the chords and key as you play. After all, much music follows well tested rules of harmony and so understanding the rules helps with reading the music.
Curiously, the difficulty in sight reading a piece is not always related directly to the difficulty of the piece itself; given two pieces of the same grade one may be much easier to sight read than the other. It depends a lot on the style of the music and the information that needs to be assimilated from the score.
Also, just picking up the score for music you like and playing it. It all comes down to practice but playing music you like is a way of enjoying yourselfe while developing ability.
Paul
If I analyse how I sight read now, part of it is not reading every note individually but recognising patterns - fragments of arpeggios and scales and repeated figures - and understanding the key, harmony and tonality of the music so that accidentals are automatic. Knowledge of these things and how they 'work' does help and one learning trick as you sight read is to name the chords and key as you play. After all, much music follows well tested rules of harmony and so understanding the rules helps with reading the music.
Curiously, the difficulty in sight reading a piece is not always related directly to the difficulty of the piece itself; given two pieces of the same grade one may be much easier to sight read than the other. It depends a lot on the style of the music and the information that needs to be assimilated from the score.
Also, just picking up the score for music you like and playing it. It all comes down to practice but playing music you like is a way of enjoying yourselfe while developing ability.
Paul
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