As always with reading a full score at the piano, the chief difficulties are choices as to omissions and groupings, and transpositions. I had practice with both while sight-reading the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. I was familiar with the piece, which helped me to decide which parts to focus my attention on—I had a sense of where to look for the melody and accompaniment. The movement begins with a forte chord in the woodwinds, which meant I had to figure out my transpositions. The two clarinets were in A, so they transposed a minor third lower than written. The horns were in E, transposing a minor sixth lower than written, and the trumpets were in D, transposing a minor seventh lower than written. When actually sight-reading, I found myself playing more by ear and by filling out the harmonies implied by the non-transposing instruments. Of course, anytime there was a solo or a prominent part in the woodwinds, I had to read every note, but much of this movement features the strings, flute, and oboe.
I focused primarily on the strings and high woodwinds, taking care not to neglect the viola, which often has important inner lines that in the beginning of the piece constitute the only melody we hear. On the second page, the viola and cello have the melody in unison, and it was too tempting to read the cello line and ignore the alto clef except to make sure it was still in unison. The minor sections of this movement are all about the heartbreakingly beautiful melody above a slow, tragic, yet unwavering bass line. I heard a funeral procession, mourners clad in black walking slowly, reverently down a street in the rain.
As is quite typical, the first violins have the melody for much of the movement. Our tragic funeral procession transforms inexplicably into the parallel major key of A major, perhaps a ray of sunlight through the clouds, or a memory. The first violins now have an eighth-note triplet pattern, switching to the role of accompaniment along with the rest of the strings. The melody lies in the woodwinds, and I had to again focus on transpositions and harmonic reading.
The key of a minor threatens again, and the strings and woodwinds alternate with a series of insistent sixteenth note scales. The ending of the movement features the bass motif handed back and forth from winds and brass to strings, with high dynamic contrast.
Liebestraum (A Dream of Love), A-Flat Major, No. III, by Franz Liszt
This A-flat major nocturne by Franz Liszt had lots of challenges. I found the first page relatively easy to read, and I enjoyed the subtle rhythmic tension. I tried not to play the eighth notes as triplets, instead feeling the larger 6/4 time signature and bringing out the quarter notes and half notes in the left hand, which form the melody. The key changes to B major after a cadenza, though we really only stay in B major for a few measures; almost immediately, every note had one or two accidentals, and we somehow modulate to the key of a minor, and then back to A flat again. This is followed by another “cadenza” passage, with lots of chromatic thirds. The beginning of the piece returns with a slightly more elaborate left hand part that involved crossing the hands, which was fun but required some coordination.
“Nuages Gris”, by Franz Liszt
This short, technically simple piece paints a vivid picture of a dark, forbidding landscape that I think would be apparent even without the title “Grey Clouds”. Harmonically, it is based on augmented triads and tritons, with a simple but dissonant melody over a low, growling tremolo bass and, on the second page, slow quarter notes outlining augmented fourths. The right hand has half notes in octaves, moving gradually up by half steps.
Technically simple as it is, this piece requires great control and an intense but restrained emotion. I felt a great tension, dark but repressed emotion, depression and the distorted thoughts depression so often brings.
Valse brillante, Op. 34 No. 2, by Chopin
I have always enjoyed this piece; I have never formally studied it, but I’d sight-read it several times in the past. It begins with a rather dark A minor passage, intense over a pedal tone A in the left hand. The melody in the right hand becomes rhythmically complex and tricky to combine accurately with the left hand. I found it easiest just to play both parts and let them happen together naturally, rather than trying to place every note in the right hand. The A minor section becomes A major, then switches back to A minor again. The piece has the predictable texture of left hand accompaniment, right hand melody.
Scenes from Childhood (Kinderscenen), Op. 15, by Robert Schumann
These “Scenes from Childhood” were a welcome change from the darkness of Liszt and the tragedy of Beethoven. Lighthearted, innocent, and gorgeous, they were a ray of sunlight on a dark winter night in the practice room.
As different as they are, each of these short pieces has much balance and equality between the hands. The voices interweave with no clear definitions between right hand and left hand, and many of the pieces have a relatively close structure that does not venture into the extreme registers of the piano. Because of the great interaction of the hands, I had to pay close attention to all the layers and voices, taking care to bring out the inner voices as well as the melody. Harmonically, they were simple, with a very clear sense of their tonality and consonant though unpredictable harmonies. Stylistically are each unique, depicting a vivid scene, with a wonderful range of energy and emotion, and yet a coherency that reminds us that these are scenes from a single childhood, a single life, looked back upon with a little nostalgia.
From Patrick, December 3, 2007
I’ll bet you’re really excited to read my sight-reading journal. I’ll bet you’re dancing with anticipation to submerge yourself in its sea of musical genius. Well, my friend, dance no longer. Here it is.
This week I focused on music from my own personal library. I began with Bach’s Invention No. 4 in D Minor. This was an interesting piece. The right hand consisted of mainly stepwise motion in scale form. I had trouble maintaining the pulse when the main theme transferred to the left hand. I corrected this by slowing down my tempo and working out the constant rhythm. Most of the left hand’s accompanying patterns were outlines of chords. This was a fun way to begin, as usual.
I worked on my second piece a while ago, but not enough to make it easy. I played Debussy’s “Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum” at a much slower tempo than marked so I could be as accurate as possible. As with the previous piece, I made sure to connect the left and right hands to create a single, united phrase. I paid attention to the ascending chord patterns for greater accuracy. Although it looked complicated, this piece was not that bad, especially when I realized the chords’ structures.
Next, I revisited one of my later pieces: Aaron Copland’s “The Cat and the Mouse.” This humorous piece is basically the sonic equivalent of a feline chasing a rodent. Some of the rhythms provided me with some trouble, but nothing that extreme. Many of the complicated-looking sections were simply repeated rhythms and notes (played an octave down). I enjoyed the right-left hand alternating patterns of the “still faster” section. I tried to tell the comical story through my interpretation.
My fourth song was Mozart’s Sonata in A Major, a piece I played for eighth grade solo/ensemble. I tried to make each variation thematically echo the initial exposition. Variation V was (just like old times) the most challenging section. The odd ascending rhythms complicated the reading. Once I let my own interpretation take over, I let it soar. Variation VI was much easier, thanks to my newfound confidence with scales. In closing, this song was a whole lot easier than when I played it five years ago.
Seeing as we will have to provide a left hand accompaniment for our final, I chose a fun, popular song for my final piece: Billy Joel’s jazzy “New York State of Mind.” I not only played the melody, but I harmonized with the chords written in the book. I even took some liberty in improvising during the solo section. Some of the chords at the end gave me a bit of trouble, but it did help to work on my improving of my quick sight-reading skills. It was a great, relaxing way to end my sight-reading session.
THE END
From Bob, December 3, 2007
Moment Musical no. 3 (Schubert)
This piece has a repeated bass-chord figure in the left hand throughout. While this was easy to read, it meant having to look at the keyboard more often because the left hand jumps around so much. I tried to look at the keyboard only when necessary, usually keeping my left hand close to the keys and feeling the next chord or note before playing it. One thing that really tripped me up was the right hand of measure 9, which has some legato thirds and then splits into two voices. I had to stop for a second and work out the fingering.
Moment Musical no. 5 (Schubert)
This piece is kind of strange in some ways. There are some parts with a lot of accidentals, where the piece seems to wander through various keys. These parts didn't make much musical sense to me, but things would probably be different if I listened to a recording. The A section, on the other hand, makes perfect sense, and was fun to sight read. I tried to keep both hands really close to the keys because with all the jumping around, it's easy to lose your place on the keyboard.
Love's Greeting (Elgar)
The most interesting part about playing this was working to keep the melody distinct from the accompaniment, especially when they overlapped in register (or even used the same notes – for example, there are parts where the right hand has a chord that belongs to the accompaniment, but whose top note is the same as the next note, which is part of the melody). I did this by listening to the melody at all times, as if it were being played by another instrument.
Etude-Tableau, Op. 33, no. 2 (Rachmaninoff)
This is a fascinating piece, and like the rest of Rachmaninoff's etudes, it's difficult to sight read. The right hand melody frequently finds its way into the range of notes covered by the left hand accompaniment pattern, so that one hand is playing on top of the other. I found it easiest to keep one wrist high, and then sneak under it with the other hand. The going was kind of slow overall because of the composer's frequent use of accidentals and strange chords (not to mention an unusual accompaniment pattern – it was about a page before I was comfortable with the way the melody meshed with the rhythm of the accompaniment).
Concerto in the Italian Style (III) (Bach)
This is a long piece, so I went through about half of it. When sight reading Bach, it's hard to get away with giving one hand a lot more attention than the other. Both hands play important (and contrapuntal) melodies, and there is rarely ever a simple accompaniment pattern. Fortunately, this piece has a lot of scales, and most of them are F major scales. In some ways, reading a scale is like reading a chord: if possible, it's better to recognize it by its most prominent features than by analyzing its individual notes.
From Hallie, December 3, 2007
It has been an extremely rough week for me in the fact that I have been diagnosed with bilateral wrist flexor tendonitis and cannot play the piano at the level I am used to performing at. So I took it very easy when it came to sight reading this week for the sake of my tendons and muscles. To begin, I pulled out my old childhood Christmas song book and sight read through all the songs (Silent Night, What Child is This, etc.) to simply warm up my hands and arm muscles. Much like the book I sight read last week, this one contained simple key signatures and rhythms that were perfect for my stiff hands to muddle through. I did not run into any difficulties, save some places where octaves came in and I could not reach them due to physical restrictions. Other than that, I had a jolly old time singing along with my somewhat lethargic renditions of favorite carols.
Next, I pulled out Czerny’s Etude book and ran through different exercises designed for beginning students, but that I found extremely beneficial in my case. Although the pieces were easy, it was nice to play through etudes that worked first right hand alone, then left hand, and then put the both together. I worked mostly on technique such as triplets, arpeggios, chord progressions and different rhythmical alterations that Czerny is known for teaching. Again, this was simply for my benefit and exercising muscles that I have not been able to use for extended lengths of time.
Afterwards, I whipped out the packet we received this week and attempted to run through the crazy Herma piece at the end of the packet, the one with all the leaps and ridiculous rhythms and musical notations. I found that working on this piece alone was as disastrous as it had been when we had been playing it together in class. The enormous leaps remained enormous and the rhythms continued to be unattainable and simply exhausting. However, I realized this piece reminded me of pointillism, or the use of tiny dots in a painting that are only colorful dots when looked at from close up, but from afar turn into a picture. Then I also realized that when I backed up and reviewed the music from afar, it remained confusing and I bleakly put it away in hopes to someday return and understand what the heck is going on in the jumble of notes.
I also attempted to sight read some choral music this week. Before I had to turn in all of my music for University Chorus, I decided to run through the piano parts for all the music we had received. This was a useful exercise in the fact that I was able to play the pieces relatively well because I had become accustomed to their sounds long ago in the beginning of the semester. The only piece I had trouble with was the piano rendition of The Lamb because of the excessive dissonances that create a sense of hesitance and uncertainty in the piece while sung. It was harder for my fingers to cross over through the voices as easily as the voice can switch parts, but I managed to get through this piece, and all my other choir music, slowly that is.
Finally, I was ambitious enough to attempt to play through the score of Verdi’s Aida. I had to fold over the piano score so I wouldn’t cheat. I found it easiest to scan through the piece before leaping in and playing through it first. In my attempt to keep the melody flowing, I played the bass line and soprano line at all times, and then tried to hit the chords inbetween when I was able to. The amount of music found in an orchestral score is still extremely intimidating to me, even though we’ve been working on them all semester. Hopefully I can continue to sight read through scores and reductions and some day be able sit down and sight read a score with ease. But until that day, I shall continue to muddle through by playing the soprano and bass lines for sure and then adding chords where at all possible.
From Kelvin, December 3, 2007
Itching for a break from reading longer and longer selections, I was so happy to see Franz Liszt’s “Nuages Gris,” which only spans two pages. In such a slow tempo, and with such straightforward rhythm, the only challenge that remains is to read sharps, flats, and naturals quickly and consecutively. The opening figure immediately introduces the tritone, which destabilizes the tonic center, thus preventing me from structuring my reading around a certain key; instead, I had to read note for note. One of the simplest mistakes I made was failing to lift off the left hand tremolo in ms. 8, which happened because I effectively ignored the left hand once the tremolo entered in ms. 5. I paid another time for failing to read the left hand carefully when, in ms. 10, the B-flat tremolo changes to A. However, from then on, the left hand is relatively simple and must be played at a subdued dynamic level. The right hand chords take a moment to read since there are all manner of accidentals present, and it’s easy to forget about the key signature. But it soon becomes clear that the chords are augmented triads, and this realization makes it unnecessary to read every note. Overall, it’s a short, slow exercise for accuracy that would work well to maintain a level of reading skill, but not advance to a higher level.
Then, to break away from the selections provided for us, I chose to read through a four-movement sonata by Telemann for which I am playing the accompaniment for a euphonium player. Right away, the key signature of four flats made me slightly anxious, and with good reason. Being a Baroque piece, the most common cadential progression in minor was i - V – i, and so naturals abound everywhere. Coupled with chromatic passages, the naturals add to the difficulty of the reading since it’s already tricky to keep track of the key signature. However, the movements fall rather easily under the fingers, with the exception of the second movement. This particular section is hard primarily because the tempo is fast and the left hand jumps around to hit different bass notes, making sight-reading a rocky business. The progressions come easily enough, but in ms. 41 for instance, the left hand bounces from C down to E, then up to F, then down to B-flat, then assumes a rotating octave pattern. While this would be easy enough on its own, the right hand complicates matters by jumping around as well. There is very little stepwise motion in ms. 41-46, and so reading the constant leaping while playing accurately constitutes the greater part of the difficulty of this piece.
