Sight-Reading: Factors That Affect Piano Sight-Reading and Practice Methods
Sight-Reading: Factors that Affect Piano Sight-Reading and Practice Methods
Introduction
The definition of sight-reading is “the ability to read and perform music at first sight, i.e. without preparatory study of the piece” (Apel, 1962, p.679). Lowder (1983) surveyed college faculty members and in-service teachers to find out what they believed were the most important piano skills. The survey found that sight-reading ability was ranked second (“cadence” was first), followed by score-reading, harmonization, and accompaniment. A parallel result was found in the more recent survey of college piano students ranked sight-reading skill as the second most desirable skills (surpassed by “musicality”) (Kostka,1997).
Many music educators believe that the most important way to acquire good sight-reading skills is by reading extensively and practising it regularly, i.e. reading large amounts of music and playing many different unfamiliar music. Mursell (1956) and Elliott (1982) confirmed the validity of this belief. Although reading and practising extensively has proved to improve sight-reading, in the 20th and 21st century, a number of sight-reading researches have found other factors that can affect sight-reading achievement and have devised strategies to teach the skill of sight-reading. This essay is to discuss the factors that affect piano sight-reading, and explore practise methods to improve the performance of it.
Factors affecting sight-reading achievements and their practise method
Orientation of the keyboard
Playing music on first sight requires treating the functioning of eyes and hands separately. Since both have grasp much at the same time and within fractions of a second, they must learn to function independently. The eyes are solely directed at the images of the notes and the fingers must learn to dominate the keys blindly. This eliminates the double attention of the eyes of reading the music and looking for the keys (i.e. blind attack of the
Introduction
The definition of sight-reading is “the ability to read and perform music at first sight, i.e. without preparatory study of the piece” (Apel, 1962, p.679). Lowder (1983) surveyed college faculty members and in-service teachers to find out what they believed were the most important piano skills. The survey found that sight-reading ability was ranked second (“cadence” was first), followed by score-reading, harmonization, and accompaniment. A parallel result was found in the more recent survey of college piano students ranked sight-reading skill as the second most desirable skills (surpassed by “musicality”) (Kostka,1997).
Many music educators believe that the most important way to acquire good sight-reading skills is by reading extensively and practising it regularly, i.e. reading large amounts of music and playing many different unfamiliar music. Mursell (1956) and Elliott (1982) confirmed the validity of this belief. Although reading and practising extensively has proved to improve sight-reading, in the 20th and 21st century, a number of sight-reading researches have found other factors that can affect sight-reading achievement and have devised strategies to teach the skill of sight-reading. This essay is to discuss the factors that affect piano sight-reading, and explore practise methods to improve the performance of it.
Factors affecting sight-reading achievements and their practise method
Orientation of the keyboard
Playing music on first sight requires treating the functioning of eyes and hands separately. Since both have grasp much at the same time and within fractions of a second, they must learn to function independently. The eyes are solely directed at the images of the notes and the fingers must learn to dominate the keys blindly. This eliminates the double attention of the eyes of reading the music and looking for the keys (i.e. blind attack of the
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