Becoming a Great Sight-Reader -- or Not!: Learn from my Quest for Piano Sight-Reading Nirvana - Softcover

Macy, Al

Softcover

ISBN 10: 149546654X ISBN 13: 9781495466540

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Want to Improve Your Piano Sight-Reading? Don't play another note until you've read this book!

"I would recommend this for anyone interested in improving their ability to sight-read." -- Bruce Lombardi, Amazon Customer

Author Al Macy practiced sight-reading every day for six years and carefully documented his journey. He determined what works and what doesn't. By following along with his quest, you can avoid the mistakes he made and take advantage of the tricks he found most useful.

Here are some of the questions this book will answer for you (you'll be surprised by some of the answers!):

• Should you hire a teacher?
• How long should you practice each day?
• Will you inevitably improve if you just do a lot of reading?
• How can you find enough practice music?
• Which are more important, notes or intervals?
• Is it okay to look down at your hands?
• How far ahead should you try to look?
• Can practicing with your eyes closed help?
• How can you get better at leaving things out when you are having trouble?
• What can you do about the fact that the notes on the bass clef are in different places than on the treble clef?
• How does understanding the harmonic structure of a piece help you play it?
• Does it help to sight-sing a piece before playing?
• How should you analyze the tune before starting?

Macy also presents his very own soon-to-be-patented (not really) method for forcing you to attend to intervals instead of notes. If you find yourself so fixated on the note names that you can't work with the intervals instead, this trick might solve your problem.

And with Al's wacky, conversational writing style, you'll enjoy every minute of the book. You can curl up in a comfortable chair and read the whole thing or sit at the piano to try out the tips and tricks.

If you want to take your sight-reading to a whole new level and want tips that will help, or if you're just curious about what the future may hold for you, scroll up and grab your copy today!

About this title

From the Author

Years ago, someone told me, "Just do some sight-reading for fifteen minutes every day, and you'll be surprised at how fast you progress."

Well, I did that, and it didn't really work. I got good at playing jazz and reading jazz charts, but I never got good at sight-reading.

When I retired, I had lots of time and plenty of motivation. I decided I was going to crack this thing, and I started sight-reading two hours every day. I found that even with this rigorous schedule, progress was slow. I've since figured out that there were a number of things that I was doing wrong that were holding me back. The main problem was that I was reinforcing my bad habits instead of learning the right way to sight-read.

Here's an example of something I "reveal" in the book. In all of those hundreds of hours of practicing, I was trying to play every note that was written. I knew that "a good sight-reader knows what to leave out," but darn it, I wanted to learn how to read, I didn't want to learn how to "fake it." That attitude was a mistake, and it held me back. I was not learning how to leave out some of the notes when I got into trouble.

"Big deal," you might say, "how hard is it to not play notes?" Well, it turns out that it is harder than you think, and it's a skill that requires practice. If you practice leaving things out, then you'll know how to do it when you run into problems.

Here's an exercise that I describe on page 90 of the book: Play a hymn, but leave out the middle two voices. Play the next hymn, but only play the top two notes of each chord. Next, leave out the alto and bass. Play a hymn and in the middle, suddenly leave out the top and bottom. Get the idea?

That exercise helps with a skill that I hadn't learned early on. I made a mistake by not learning that skill, and it held me back.

I wrote this book so that you can avoid making some of the same the mistakes I made.

About the Author

As a young kid, Al Macy played piano by ear, but never took formal lessons. He had some records with Bach piano pieces on them, played them at 16 RPM (on a record player, playing a 33 RPM record at 16 RPM makes the music slow, and brings it down about an octave), and learned parts of them by ear. Eventually his mom took pity on him and bought him the sheet music, and he would laboriously figure out a measure or two, and memorize the piece that way. The main point is that he went out of his way to avoid learning to read music.

At age nine he took up trombone, and studied it seriously until the final year of high school.

As required by the 1960s law that stated that every teenager has to play rock and roll guitar, he also took lessons in guitar, and played in a rock band. He even performed in a Simon and Garfunkel type duo, at "The Chicken Coop," once a week, getting paid $2.50 plus one piece of fried chicken.

In 1987 (age 34), his interest in jazz was rekindled, and he took formal piano lessons for a year or two, worked hard, and learned a lot. But the sight-reading just wasn't happening.

In 1992 (age 38) he picked up the trombone again, and got serious about jazz trombone. His sight-reading was better on trombone than piano, and he played with a number of small and large bands.

In 2005, he switched back to piano as his main instrument. This time he concentrated on jazz, and didn't work much on sight-reading. That is, his playing consisted of playing the chord changes, with improvisation in the right hand. That worked well, and he lead a jazz quartet, and played with many musicians around town.

But he was still unhappy with his inability to sight-read well. He was now retired, and in 2007, he started sight-reading two hours per day, the project that resulting in his book, Becoming a Great Sight-Reader--or Not!

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 149546654X
• ISBN 13: 9781495466540
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 118