New Year Music and Musicians Thread

I think that to get good at sight-reading, it helps to learn a high volume of easier pieces but that's not compatible with getting through grade exams rapidly. In contrast, as a child, I took only three piano exams in nearly 10 years!

DD played a high volume of pieces on recorder, sax and guitar and she's very good at sight reading on those instruments. She has played a small volume of hard pieces on piano and her piano sight-reading is rubbish ...

I'm not sure whether starting in the middle of pieces helps much. DD plays longer pieces now, four or five pages, that have to be broken down into sections to be worked on, and she can do this from memory without a problem (she's clearly using auditory cues not visual ones).

My daughter is having exactly the same issue with sight reading. She has a photographic memory( which was only highlighted a year ago). It was her strong point in the past where helps her to learn and progress in learning very well( Eg. very good at mental maths, learnt the time tables in 2 months after I sticked the table in the wall, she just memorises it after some glances, knew it by heart by end of year 1) and also helps her to learn the pieces really fast and scores well( Eg. started learning G3 beg Dec, had 2 weeks Xmas off, 3 weeks mid term holidays and took G3 piano test mid March with only around 2 months), the same story to violin. However I found it more of a long term issue rather than her strong point as she is "lazy". She failed her sight reading every single music grades she did( even she had gone through the joining the dots, ABRSM sight reading books), this has brought her down to a string of Merit only while her pieces marks were good. Academically, I found it will be an issue also as she scores 100% on any maths tests however failed to explain the result and "lazy" to think above getting the results(which will be an issue once she starts secondary when maths requires deeper thinking, physics and science are intuitive). Reading and writing is the same story. Arggg!! Most embarrass of all we went to meet her teacher a month ago and read her note on her maths book when her teacher asked her to explain why she got the results "the answers just popped out of my head"!!! I am on the other hand glad that I found out now so I know her weakness and know I need to find a way to help her. Well, it might be in a very long run.

Her teacher suggested to slow her down however I think it comes with practise, might be learning alot of new pieces(however not to the point of perfecting it) and as Loose once suggested if we repractise then start in different places of the pieces

Regarding to practices, we have been having a super relaxing break( lazy), only wandering around and "get wasted"( I am still at work, she is with childcare and they have been going out for coffee, playground, cycling, swimming). Before I was hoping this long Easter break could be productive then it hasnt been proving that way. Well, thats ok then because I feel being lazy myself, we will go out this weekend both days, museums, theatre, eating out, swimming--after all, we need this break!

Oh well, its hard, and when its hard, its exciting, if its too easy then it wont be that fun( trying to remind myself to lift my motivation up)

[Drat: tuaght->taut]

Your DD has time fleur, mine is a stubborn teenager who isn't interested in or motivated to sight read. I've occasionally tried to encourage her to practice but it always ends in melt down!

I am a very good sight reader on piano mainly because I did piano lessons for about 10 years as a child and for much of that time I hardly practised, so every lesson was basically 30 mins of sight reading ...

Same with DD mistigri, she only reads the notes once and then never refers to the music sheet again, her memory is impressive.

Hopefully the practice books will improve her sight reading, I am not giving up on it just yet

Thank you Mistigri!

Thank you prada!

PiqueABoo your Dd sounds just like mine, an introvert, she doesn't like the idea of performing much, and yes, I even recognise the worry of DD holding her breath for the whole exam duration.

Well done to your DD for her exam result, grade 6 must be a great satisfying achievement!

As expected, I had to spend quite a few minutes to explain why a merit is ok, why a pass is good, why it doesn't matter really what you get as the 10 min in the exam do not really reflect her ability 100% and while I do get the satisfaction of a distinction, even just preparing and taking the exam is an achievement by itself. As I was expecting this I was prepared with treats to celebrate and a new book for DD as a pressie. She was happy in the end.

Congratulations to your DD fleur and of course well done to all the theory passers!

Re sight-reading. Being good at sight-reading on piano takes a lot of practice - it's inherently more difficult than reading a single line of music. I think very musical kids who make rapid progress in terms of the difficulty of the pieces they can play quite often find that sight-reading skills lag behind simply because it's a hard skill that takes a long time to become automatic.

My DD is a terrible sight-reader on piano. She can read a single line of music just fine (she was the best in her theory class at note reading last year and she's a good sight reader on sax and guitar) but reading two staves fluently, while playing the notes at the same time, is quite beyond her! She can make a pretty good stab at playing Chopin nocturnes but I'm not sure she'd pass grade 3 sight reading (actually I'm sure she would fail it lol).

I don't think she will ever sight read well now - when she learns a new piece she memorises it immediately so she never needs to refer to the sheet music. And much of her "leisure" playing is by ear.

Oh all the best children dislike sight-reading . I sometimes tell my DD (12) she's the better pianist which inevitably causes a cross, noisy protest because I'm "miles better at sight-reading!" i.e. the part that vexes her the most. Nevertheless, she's got more of that built-in 'musicality' stuff and much better technique.

Anyway, DD took her G6 practical last week and after a run of merits she got her very first distinction which of course was extremely pleasing. Then even more pleasing. Plus a bit more pleasing. Grades are such difficult occasions here though. There's never any doubt in my mind that DD is at/above the relevant grade but she's a more introverted, self-critical type who winds herself up extremely tightly, so my delight is really because she held together enough to demonstrate to them what I already knew. This time when she was guided back from the examination room I caught a kindly "..you can relax now and breathe" and it was quite easy to imagine that DD had held her breath for the 20-odd minutes because she looked so taught and flushed. Momentary guilt-trips etc.

The other aspect is this age and (near) teenage um.. volatility. DD goes to a state secondary which tries a bit with music, but this is relatively solitary classical piano, she’s unusually accomplished for her age at that school and there’s very little there for her in a musical sense. On the positive side she managed to escape a primary school ‘friend’ who had spent years slyly dismissing all of her achievements (something recently described as one form of bullying by the ‘Behaviour Tsar’) and now has some lovely, sincere friends who are very encouraging about both this and other areas, but there’s always the risk of “I quit!” and I’m forever tripping over adults who did quit at some point during their teens. Piano was only supposed to be good for DD’s soul and I didn’t care much for grade collecting, but I was outvoted and now that we’re here I’d like her to get the technical foundation finished i.e. that G8. I think this shinier than usual result has happened at just the right time to help keep her motivated.

Well done Fleur!

Thank you for the good thoughts!

Yes the Paul Harris books are the ones we'll start working with, her teacher was of the principle that you can practice sight reading with new pieces but DD memorieses really quick, from the first time which makes her sight reading poor. Therefore she decided it is time to allocate more time by actually practising from a sight reading book.

loose she won't take grade 5 for a long time based on the list of new repertoire her teacher has in mind. She'll skip the actual exam but just to give her time to play other stuff so I expect it will still take a couple of years before getting to grade 5 standard. Definitely doing some festivals instead to get her used to perform in front of other people. She is only 8 and quite shy so the nerves get in the way a lot of times.

With regards to the secondary school places we'll give it a go for a music place also, but we won't make it a priority as such. At least I don't think we will yet.

Well done for all the results - and not least Goo's result! In wifi free zone this week do sorry not to post more; still waiting G5 clarinet result. Enjoy the sunshine everyone!

Nice one minifleur.

The Paul Harris books are great for sight reading - I really like them. Needless to say, DS2 does not share my opinion. He will not be impressed that this thread has reminded me to chase him to do some!
I won't be taking grade 4 for some time - aiming for December but we'll see. I think Minifleur and MiniGreen are going to get to grade 5 before I do! 😀

Congratulations Fleur
Making the ABRSM "improve your sightreading" books part of the practise routine for my 2 is definitely working, even though they hate them. It does come with time and getting more secure about key signatures and timing though.

Fleur: many congrats, now you can completely move on and know what to work on. I think when we practise we most focus on the pieces and forgot other things: scales/ arpeggios, sight reading, aural and these could drag the marks down, not enough for them to fail however not enough for a distiction either. The same story to us, argggg!!!

We wont apply for a scholarship, we are not interested, I think the pressure is too much however my aim is for her to be in the school orchestra and plays high quality for both instrument as an extra curr. Its now time to learn, they will be much busier later on. And for none musical family the later we leave/delay it very little chance she will ever pick it up again.

Loose: we have a silent mode with head phone in our digital yamaha now however I dont trust her on it yet :)

Loose when are you taking the grade 4 exam? Good luck with the pieces, they must be truly hard from grade 4 onwards.

Amazing that practice makes perfect isn't it?

Yes DD is good at aural, rubbish at sight reading, I've ordered the "proper" sight reading books at her teacher's request. Until now sight reading was practised by playing new pieces so no formal training.

She'll skip grade 4 and do grade 5 but only when all the areas of the exams are up to scratch, so it may be 2 years until then. Maybe doing some festivals on the way to perform in public.

Yay! Well done, Minifleur! And don't worry about the sight reading, that will come as she gets older and plays a wider range. I remember she is very good at the aural, which isn't so easy to develop over time - at least, it's more of a struggle for me! Very exciting for her to be starting some new repertoire!
I am trying to use the Easter holidays to improve my grade 4 pieces. Just mentioned this morning that I was about to practise, when the next thing I knew a pyjama-clad child zoomed over to the piano and is doing his grade 3 pieces - he has the earphones on but I can tell what he's playing by the thumping keys!
He has also made the staggering discovery that practising his cello pieces has resulted in a big improvement in a week. I love his amazement - who could have predicted that, eh?

Actually I asked as one of my friend's son got in St Clair and during preparation time, he gave it a break to Piano ( He was Grade-2) that time and resumed after 1 year.

Yes, I forgot to add to my explanation that I am referring to state schools (grammar) 11+, not private schools.

Thank you!

mom17, just to clarify, if the scholarship applications are for independent schools (vs 11+ grammar as I think Fleur is referring to), then irrespective of the child's musical ability, the academic entrance papers must be passed first (if selective) before they will consider shortlisting for auditions. Of course, having musical ability adds value to an application, but is conditional on the respective pass mark being achieved first.

It is then very likely that a child will be offered a place at the school, even if the music audition is unsuccessful in scholarship/award and non-scholars can live full musical lives at school without wishing to take further in HE.

Fleur, congratulations on the result!

Congrats li'l Fleur, your mom was worrying unnecessarily...

Got the exam result, very proud of my little one, merit. Sight reading a big let down as usual (she failed it).

Her teacher already has a huge repertoire planned to dive in and lots of sight reading exercises.