Beginners and Intermediate Students

I teach my beginners and intermediate students "guide notes" first.
I start with middle C, high C, low C, G form G clef and F from F clef . Form there, we start reading short pieces with seconds only. They are not supposed to name the other notes (around ttheir guide notes) but just describe them as "second up, second down". After they master that, I inroduce the thirds , fourths and so on. The same thing applies to the guide notes. After they master the mid C, low C, High C, F and G, I add another set at a time: low G (from F clef) and high F (from G clef). Next, I add what my kids call high-high C and low-low C. we keep using the same strategy adding one interval at a time.
For rhythm, I make them tap both hands together from the beginning. If they can play hands together, they can tap them together too.
As they improve, we start "mapping" the pieces (always short). They have to draw lines for both hands that describe the movement and rhythm of their music. I let them use their imagination as far as their maps go. Each student is different. These maps are also great to memorize pieces.
I use a book which was suggested to me by an OMTA adjudicator called "Accelerando". They have a series of progressive technical exercises (always two lines long) with rich rhythms and key signatures. I realy recomend them. They sound very nice two. My students love them!

Duets

Duets are a wonderful way to practice sight-reading.
The first duets I use are Pozzoli (the Italian composer, not the Mexican soup) called "Sorrisi Infantili" and Diabelli "Melodious Pieces". They are all in 5 finger position. At this point, my students are also practcing 5 finger patterns in all keys.
Later, I add Kabalevsky's "Favorite piano duets for beginners" and Dello Joio's "Family Album".
There is an amazing selection of nice duets from the 20th century and contemporary composers.
The next step should be learning scales and modes and mapping those as well.

Observing myself

I always advice students to sight-read music a notch below their level. During my readings about this subject, I have bumped into this same advice several times. I however, realized that I am resisting or ignoring this important detail. Aside form the hymns, I have been trying to challenge myself with difficult pieces. Today, I spend a couple if hours sight reading lower level pieces. It was very rewarding and I had the chance to observe my reactions in a more efficient way.
Here are the results:
- I was able to look ahead (some) and use my "buffers" (this was very exciting)
- I could perceive notes and patterns from my parafoveal area (outside the fovea) as if I could GUESS the notes.
- I can read the bass clef much better then the treble
- I read polyphony easier then homophony
- When I play the hymns, I use my keyboard so I can turn the sound of and this works very well. On the other hand, without picking at the keyboard at all (although I rarely do it) things get very complicated. The visual sense is vital while the auditory sense is not a necessity while I sight-read.

"The effects of skill on the eye-hand span during musical sight-reading"

The article by S. Furneaux and M.F. Land (Sussex for Neuroscience, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK) is one of the very few papers written about sigh-reading dual-staved scores since the 1940s. Weaver (1943) and Van Nuy & Weaver (1943) have looked into sight-readers reading two staves. Sloboda (1974) and Truit at al (1997) both have looked into single-staved scores and sight-readers. Sloboda looked into *EHS of pianists without looking and measuring eye movement. His results are likely to be overestimated (we will discuss it later).
This paper is unique because it measures EHS in *note index, *time index as well as the*time delay aspect of sight-reading.
The results were:
"- professionals showed a 4 notes index versus the amateurs who showed a 2 notes index
- the time index varied with tempo therefore, the length of time that information is stored in the musicians *buffers is related to performance tempo rather than skills, but that professionals can fit more information into their buffers."
It is a fascinating article that shows the zig-zag movement of the pianist's eyes in very informative graphs (you should take a look at them). Ot was found that pianists do not read the two staves together. I realize that my theory of us pianists having to make choices as we sight-read is very likely since our eyes zig-zag and move not only horizontally, but vertically. I would like however, to find an article about these abilities to make choices where two pianists are analyzed while sight-reading the same score. What king of zig-zag is more effective?

*EHS = eye hand span
*note index = number of notes between hand and eye
*time index = time between fixation and performance
*time delay = how long the information is stored before the actual performance
*buffer = a temporary memory area used when transferring data between devices and programs operating at different speeds

"Chunking Behavior"

I have yet to read more about "chunking". It is still too early on my quest. So far, I have just bumped into "encourage chunking behavior" without further explanations besides finding the definition of it.
For "chunks", I use a lot of Czerny, Clementi ,Kabalevsky, Tansman, Pishna, Berens and Heller with my early intermediate students (to complement their sonatinas Clementi, Diabelli, etc). For advanced intermediate students, I work on Sacarlatti, Haydn, Diabelli, Burgmuller.
I, on the other hand, have been avoiding working on my "chunks". Today, however, I found an excellent Czerny (a Chinese edition) which is perfect for more advanced musicians. It explores "chunkings" to exhaustion and it has wonderful fingering. You also have to work very hard on the geography of the keyboard (they go through several key signatures).
It is useless for me to go through studies that I use with my students because I know them too well.
I will start working on them daily and post here my results.

The book ( you probably know it already), is called Schule des virtuosen Op.365

I am currently reading another research about sight-reading which studies pianists reading two staves. It is called: The effects of skill on eye-hand span during sight-reading music (Royal Society) by S. Furneaux and M. S. Land.
I will post the conclusions later on.

Surprising research results are GOOD news for me!

I have read an article called "The Perceptual Span and the Eye-Hand Span in Sight-Reading Music" by Frances E. Truitt, Charles Clifton, Jr., Alesander Pollatsek, and Keith Rayner - Journal of Visual Cognition, 1997, 4(2), 143-161. Department of Psychology - University of Massachussets, Amherst, USA.
The conclusions which do not differ too much from another experimental studies give me a lot of hope. Maybe all I need is more practice.
The researchers, concluded that "pianists do not need to see more than the whole measure that they are fixating in order to perform normally and the eye-hand span is a little more than one beat". They say, and it is true, these results are " at odds with the belief about sight-reading among musicians which is that their eyes need to be well ahead of their hands".
The authors state that the center of fixation is only one note ahead of the hands and that "the maximal region that musicians obtain information from is about 3-4 beats ahead of the note being played". Sight-readers, they say, rarely extract information ahead of the measure being played.
The authors also say that musicians are "seduced by the illusion that detail can be extracted from a wider region of the parafovea and periphery than is actually possible". While sight-reading, the eyes STAY VERY CLOSE TO THE NOTE that is being played.

The developmental optometrist I am in contact with has sent me this article. I am going to meet with her to get acquainted with the machines they use for measuring eye movements so I understand it better. She also wants to see some of my piano scores since I have told her that although this research was done with pianists, they have used only ONE line music which differs a lot from the pianists reality.

I would like to thank Sara and Lisa for the nice comments. Can you give suggestions that I can try during my practice?

Two month review

I have seen another blog about sight-reading on the internet. The blogger has practiced two hours of sight-reading a day for a whole year and did not seem happy with the results. I am under the impression that she is not an advanced musician. She is probably young and based on the repertoire she was playing, she is very likely an intermediate piano player. I had the feeling she was only focusing on the "same old rules".
I am however, very happy with my results after only two months of practice.
This week, I will dedicate myself to review the new things I have found out during these months which are helping me a great deal.
These things are:
- warming up with all arpeggios and modes (for wise fingering choices).
- making sure I read accidentals ahead of (or instead) of the notes.
- reading high chord down/up and low chords up/down
- dividing chords with more then 3 notes in two sections (a triad and then, the remaining of it)
- playing a wide variety of styles.
- keeping track of common tones.

Surprising research results

A reader has just asked me about the optometrist.
I have been reading a scientific article she sent me and the results are very surprising.
I will share details about it after I read it a second time.
The optometrist has invited me to meet at her office so I can see the instruments they use to measure eye movements. She also sent me a list with several other articles. As I read them, I will post what I find here.