Ok then
You've played your pieces, done your aural tests - it's all going fine until the examiner plonks that annoying little piece of music on the stand....your 30 seconds start now - then you play it.....LIKE HELLO - IF I WANTED TO PLAY IT, I WOULD HAVE PRACTICED IT DUH!
anyway, she gives us the half a minute and then she says, ok your times up - begin when you want to...i was wondering in my grade 4 exam - if i left it a couple of months while i quietly worked away at being able to play it - that 'begin when you want to' could stretch a bit...
but what about you.....what happens when you come to this annoying little itty bitty piece of exam
Do you panic, or are you so supernatural that you absolutely love sightreading - LIKE COME ON
just post your views here
G4PB

In the one exam that I have done... which will if I have my way be the only one... I panicked when it came to sightreading!!!

The thing is that like everything else you have to practice sight reading.
What happens when you begin to learn a new piece? You have to read the notes then don't you?
The sight reading is the same thing but not quite so difficult as the pieces you have to take time to learn.
Do you play lots of different music for fun? This is good sight reading practice.
Learn how to look at a piece of music..... check the time signature and key signature.
Think through the rhythm, especially any awkward looking bars. Look for patterns..... are there scale or arpeggio like patterns? Try to notice these things in every new piece you play and you will get used to seeing them.

It's a while since I did exams, but I have to admit I never minded sightreading - it was the aural that scared me witless! I always enjoyed trying to play music I hadn't seen before (my Mum and older brother played the piano, so there was always lots around to have a go at), and found once I'd learned a few hymn tunes the exam sightreading didn't seem too difficult at all.

I think you will find that different people dread different bits of the exam - for some it's scales. If you find sightreading hard, try playing more things at sight just for fun; you never know, you might even get to like it if you do it often enough.

I really like (and am pretty good at) sight reading proper music. But when it comes to the exam extracts, for some reason, it goes a bit wrong - not a total disaster, but somehow wrong. I've no idea how it is possible that i can have a pretty good go at sight reading grade 8 pieces, but suddenly, this 3 line thing doesn't work!! I'm sure they're written to be deliberately confusing!!

Having said that, sight reading's nothing compared to aural

I 've a rather nasty experience with my recent grade 8 exam sight reading. I guess I was given <10 sec to prepare and the examiner said " you may begin." I remembered vividly that I was reaching only my 3rd bar ...

Sight singing was terrible ! Almost immediate. At most 5 sec, I was trying for the 1st bar when she said : let's begin.......

During my last grade 5 exam, I was given sufficent time as it was expected. After this recent attempt, I was very upset and I asked my pianist regarding the time for preparation. She did her grade 8 long time ago but she has the same experience too. Both sight reading and sight singing for grade 8 was conducted almost immediate !

Practise, practice, practise!

Get hold of ABRSM sight redaing book. Go through ervery singhle exercise. Do it proper;ly and dont cheeeeet. Sight reading is so important for youer overall musicianship. If your doing grader 4, then do the grade 5/6 sifght reading examples. You will pass with flyinbg colours.,

i didn't realise you were meant to have time to prepare for the sight-singing, i always just jump straight in anyway. As for not bein given 30 secs for th e sight reading, surely you should be abl eto complain if they don't give you it, seeing as it says in the syllabus that you're allowed it.

I was probably too used to the abrsm cd and other practise test (Aurel Time!) for sight singing practise. They give some 10-15 secs to prepare.

wow i never realised how many people would reply in under 24 hours!
8 - wow
anyway
i like seeing that people actually like sightreading - and hate aural tests!! thats scary
anway
G4PB

I've never been worried about sightreading on an instrument. But coming up is my Grade 4 Singing exam and I'm dreading the sightreading. I worked my way through the Trinity course and can actually sing Solfa - but it takes a couple of minutes to work it out - not 30 seconds

You're allowed to play through as much of it as you can in the 30 seconds.

I don't think you're allowed a run-through of the sight singing in the Singing exam on the piano though - that would be nice though.

I often think that!

I used to hate sight-reading - always found it nerve-wracking, always lost my most marks in that section, etc.

I decided that for flute (my main instrument) I would work really hard at it - practised from the example books, got hold of as many "learn to sight-read" books as I could, sight-read any and every bit of music I could.

Last exam I did, I got 20 out of 21, and have recently been complimented on how good my sight-reading is by several people. Practice works!

It IS hard on piano because you're reading two clefs at once, but practice will really really help, even if it never becomes your favourite bit of the exam.

In LOVE sight-reading, but when it comes to doing it in exams I get a bit freaked out too!! The examiner says to begin and I often hestitate and am just like "ahh when do I start? What do I do?!" Usually the first few bars are not that great, but then once I get going the middle to end of the piece isn't too bad!!

But now I practise sight-reading all the time!

well, u reminded me my grade 5 exam last month!

sight reading is such a nightmare too for me..

i just tried for 30 secs and then must play it as good as i can

and the piece tempo was allegro (cheerful)!!!!!!! that was really scary.... i hoped i could have adagio or lento.....

I'm sorry that you felt under pressure to start the sightreading so quickly. I don't think it's fair when that happens, and perhaps you should have said that you weren't ready (though who is going to do that in the middle of a grade 8 exam!). I hope your result will be good.

I guess it was during lunch and the examiner must be hungry . My exam was scheduled at 12:19noon but it got delayed. I end up walking in at around 12:40 and came out after 1:15pm...

I was quite pleased with my sight reading and aurel's result as I knew I was pretty bad on that aspect.
I've got 16/21 for my sight reading and 14/18 for my aurel.

You are only allowed a run-through on the sight-reading. Apologies for not being clearer.

I just ignore all speed instructions and play everything Andante

HAHAHAHA!!!!!

i played it as allegro as i can with MANY MISTAKES!!!!!

I'm with you on that!

Everything is usually "piano" too.
Frightened he might hear me!


A

I don't mind sight-reading on an instrument where you only play one note at a time and only have one stave of music to read, especially if it's treble clef. The more I have to read/play at once, the worse it gets.



They are written specially and often don't seem much like other music that you might sight-read in the normal course of things. I don't think they're deliberately confusing per se, but they are quite artificial, so it can be difficult to get into them.




I have the AB specimen test book. There's /one/ book, covering grades 2-8. So, very few examples at each grade. For grade 3 I worked all the way through the grade 3 piano specimen test book first, which helped. That's no use for grade 4 though, so I'm having to play "guess the expected difficulty". I do sight-reading almost every time I practice (regardless of whether or not there's an exam on the horizon), but it's usually a matter of picking something fairly random and trying to play it - it might be quite playable or it might be way out of my league and I never have any real idea of what grade it is.




*mutters darkly about reading three staves at once*
;-)

On the bright side, at least there's no score-reading at this level.
(Note, this doesn't mean following an orchestra score, which is easy enough. It means playing from 3-8 staves, using up to 4 different clefs. I'm currently working through a book of 3-4 stave stuff without C clefs and that's bad enough - I've got a book that has C clefs and I'm scared to even try those ones! And the idea of ever doing it with more than 4 staves isn't one I want to think about.)
No sight-transposition either, though I quite enjoy that.


Using the 30 seconds prep time (if you actually get given it) strategically can help. Don't just start at the beginning and try to play through as far as you can get. Glance through the whole thing very quickly and spot the bits with tricky rhythms or lots of accidentals or whatever looks like it might trip you up and try to play that bit. Work out how fast to take it, according to what you can manage the tricky bits at (keeping in mind what it says of course!) and, even if that's a little slower than indicated, you'll probably do better than if you start briskly and slow up when you hit the awkward bits.

T.

those are SMUG smiles because I'm a good sightreader ... in fact I've never dropped more than 2 marks on sight reading in any exam from grade 1 -8

but memorisation ................

mine's tragic !

I usually play i v e r y slowly and with MANY MISTAKES
in fact - i can play that notes, but not necersarily in the right order
what is the slowest marking you can play in a piece???
anyway
nice to here from so many people
keep up the good work

- I think they are looking into this at least with regards to piano.



Well, if you will insist on playing the organ...

It must take you an awful long time to learn a new piece if you have trouble finding the notes like this.

Any word about whether they're going to do the same for other instruments too? Most of the exams I've done recently have been on flute and the SR for that seems fairly contrived too.



*grin* One of the good things about organ sight-reading is that it makes piano sight-reading seem slightly less scary in comparison. ;-)

T.

I don't know, but I hope so.

The SR I got in my last flute exam was really nice - lovely little piece. Didn't seem too scary either but that I suspect is largely due to my having done lots of practice!! (Last exam I thought I'd done pretty well in the SR and got 16 I think! )


NOW you're talking, I can see that being a reason to take it up (me+piano SR= )

Far be it from me to discourage anyone from taking up the organ (it's an amazing instrument and I'd certainly encourage you to give it a shot), but I don't think that's a good reason to do it. Do it because it's a delight. :-)

To make 2-stave sight-reading seem less scary, try score-reading on the piano. Either get your paws on a score-reading book (like Lang or Morris), or just find some choral stuff that's written in open score for 3+ parts and try to play it on the piano. Or use recorder trio/quartet music, or other similar chamber stuff.
Or try sight-transposing on piano. Then just having to sight-read in the original key will seem easier in comparison.

T.

Don't worry - it would be a naff reason and I was definitely joking! (Having taken up instrument for naff reasons in the past, I know it doesn't work.)

The sightreading IS important because there will be times in the future when you play for/with others and you'll be expected to try new pieces with no warning.

I always considered myself a pretty good sightreader. That is I did until I joined a wind band. Our conductor produces a new piece for us to try every few weeks. He hands out the parts, explains a little about it, then we start.

I am amazed at how good some of the other players are. Some of the flautists, the soprano sax and first clarinets just whizz through the allegro bits as though they've been practising for years! Rather unnerving at first.

On the positive side, it brought me down to earth with a bump, snapped me out of my complacency and made me realise there was still lots to learn!

Steve

Well, I actually really like sightreading

Its kind of a cool experience playing a piece for the first time.

Although, when I did my grade 3 exam I was no where near as confident as I am now at it (One and a Half years later) - I had been playing for 6 months...

Well, I'm doing my Grade 8 in january - That should be interesting...

I play piano by the way lol

oh yes - hot topic
now this topic is really picking up speed
I really agree with everyone
I'm ok with a new piece because as i have a piano at home i can practice there
take that sbhoa!
anyway
keep on posting -

G4PB