Sight-Reading Robert Starer - Game With Names, Notes and Numbers

Game With Names, Notes and Numbers (1979)

These wonderful 12 pieces are perfect for beginner students to sight-read. They are very descriptive, game-like pieces that facilitate sight-reading and information processing.
Starer writes: "These pieces move from the easy to more complex. They are, like all games, quite serious. Each of them can be studied by itself."
All these pieces are carefully fingered, phrased (a rare quality for beginner pieces), pedaled and provide rich articulations as well as dynamic markings.

1- ABE, GABE, ADA, FAE and ED "is a game with names. All the notes in this piece (the letter-names of the notes) make up the five names in the title". (Starer)

2- In the Mirror "what each hand plays is a mirror image of the other". (Starer)

3- Echo Chamber "if the sustaining pedal is kept down as indicated, the resonating effect should come by itself". (Starer) Good way to work on ties.

4- Turn-me-Around "is a game for the eyes, a game for people who like puzzles. 'Madam I'm Adam' can be read backwards; this piece can be played upside down as well". (Starer)
This is one of my favorites. It has a great effect as a recital piece. The student is not required to play it by memory. I usually have them performing it twice where the second time around, they turn the score upside down. Very cool! The audience love it.
I also like how the hands are not locked on a particular hand-position and they only move a step at a time.

5- Countdown "as the numbers are called out, each bar has one beat less then the one before". (Starer) The first measure has nine beats, the second has eight, and the student plays all the way down to one beat. The phrasing is unique. The first measure has 3/3/2/1 note-phrase, the second has 2/2/2/2 note-phrase, then 3/2/2, 2/2/2/, 2/2/2/, 23/2/, 2/2/, 3, 2 1. There are 3 optional endings.

6- Evens and Odds "refers to the number of beats per measure in 3, 4, 5 and 6 times". (Starer) It has a cool pop-sounding rhythm. Students like it a lot.

7- Up and Down, Right and Left, Over and Across "asks you to find fingers on the same notes and to cross hands". (Starer) It is a reasonable way to sight-read repeated notes and it is also good for "interval reading".

8- Darkness and Light "is a game with sounds. It contrasts low with high, threatening sounds with pleasing sounds, dissonance with consonance". (Starer) It is a good opportunity to point out musical sequences to students.

9- Adding and Taking Away "notes are added to form 'clusters' and then taken away, one by one, to return to a single note". (Starer) This is done with both hands.

10- Walking With Two Fingers "is for people who enjoys walking with 2 fingers on table-tops or desks". (Starer) The fingers are always 2 and 3. I like it because it explores a wide range of the keyboard. The rhythm is fun and the two fingers chosen, play harmonic seconds as well as melodic seconds throughout the piece.

11- Sliding into the Keys "takes a tune, or a chord, to many different keys without what is called modulation." (Starer) It has rich dynamic markings. the 6/8 measure and the rhythm resembles. the "Pop-Time" form "At Home Alone".

12- Twelve Notes Twelve Times "presents 12 different ways of presenting all the 12 notes: in 4ths, 5ths, the chromatic and the whole-tone scale, and in chords". (Starer) The 12 ways are numbered in order to make it more clear to the students. Every thing on this piece is explored: dynamics, phrasing, imagination, pedal. In the middle of this piece, there is a cool sequence of "jazzy" chords.

Next, I will write about At Home Alone, Sketches in Colors I and II, Four Seasonal Pieces, and Seven Vignettes.
All these pieces and more can be found on the book Piano Solos-Robert Starer-Album for Piano (MCA Music Publishing.-Hal Leonard)