06/20/2024
A couple days ago I turned the real book to Nefertiti and tried to play the head. I was able to sight read it almost perfectly the first time. I was somewhat surprised but I knew learning some tunes on upright recently had made a difference in my reading. This got me thinking about how reading music works and how I do it.
We're taught to read music by learning what note each position on the staff represents, and learning where to find those notes on the instrument. Decades ago I realized that I mostly don't use that method when I'm reading music. I've learned what the interval is for any two notes on the staff, and how to move that interval on the instrument.
So the actual process of sight reading is more like this:
- Figure out what the first note is.
- For successive notes move purely by intervals.
- If something sounds fishy figure out if I'm on the right note.
- If it's the wrong note, try to understand where I moved the wrong interval and try again.
- Even if everything sounds okay, double check once in a while.
Something that goes along with this is understanding where the half-steps are on the staff. For instance on the bass clef, the 2nd line from the bottom to the 2nd space from the bottom (B to C), and the 3rd space from the bottom to the 4th line from the bottom (E to F). The fact that this exists is a defect in the design of classical notation. Then knowing that, look at the key signature and mentally adjust those locations as needed. This is why the key of Gb is harder to read than G. A lot of mental gymnastics.
Knowing all this, one can be more aware of their reading process and also make up exercises to more quickly learn to play by intervals.
So there's that, and I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts about it.
Next.
There's a third way which I've been trying to integrate into my skill set. It's sort of an extension to the interval method. This is to know, in the key the piece is written in, for each note what is its position in the scale. Having a strong improv background, I usually choose my left hand positions based partly on the key. So this is a very interesting exercise for reading music. For one thing it greatly improves fi*****ng selection. Rather than just being in some random place due to the sequence of notes played, you can be in a place where the most notes are available under the best fingers. Another value to this is that it removes the need to know where the half-steps are on the staff because now all you need for instance is to know the interval is a 3rd, but you don't need to know if it's a minor 3rd because you already know that from what key you're in.
Well, if you made it this far I'd like your thoughts on that last part as well.
- Karl
