POV: Your a really tall person getting a piano lesson

@bambeliful

4 жыл бұрын

I was looking down at the screen, so I highly relate 😂😂

@enthusedtosing9655

3 жыл бұрын

Supervising a piano lesson

@Sloimer

Ай бұрын

Lol.

I think hands separate practice should be used primarily in the first few years of study up until around the intermediate level. Once a student is able to read adequately and play decently, it should be used less and less and eventually abolished altogether once one has reached the advanced-intermediate level.

I've found ear training, particularly sight singing (or even better, 'sight hearing'), to be a most valuable tool for taking my sight reading to the next level. Even though I'm not fast enough at sight hearing yet to consciously apply it in real time to complex music such as piano concertos, I've found that it has helped my ability to sight read complex music immeasurably. I'm hoping that at some point, I'll be able to hear complex music in my head as I sight read it.

I believe "cognitive overload" is a real issue, and the majority of people cannot learn both hands at once. What I have learned from all of these "sight reading" videos on YT is that you begin to recognize a group of notes as a "word" and your brain says "oh I know that word" .

@Zenghitar

4 жыл бұрын

I agree. But how do you go about recognizing chords as "words" especially when that chord is spread out over the staff?

@pierrecohenmusic

4 жыл бұрын

Zenghitar by reading new music every single day for years... just like when you learned to read as a child

@BUJU2007

4 жыл бұрын

@@Zenghitar there are books that show you common chords and cadences. Focus on learning on or two of them every week. You'll be able to recognize lots of them pretty quickly.

When I was about to finish my A.R.C.T. in piano performance, the only thing that was holding me back from receiving first class honors was my inability to sight read well. It was then I was tutored for sight playing by a very good teacher who advised me the best way to learn this aspect of musicianship was to practice reading from hymnals. Worked like magic! Now, confronted with constant blocks of notes in strict timing, my eyes were training themselves in the discipline of sight reading at a new level I had formally thought impossible for me. Of course, one usually does not play hymnals exactly as written, but instead improvises around them in singing accompaniment, yet to practice sight reading ability hymnals are indeed invaluable.

Gracias por tus consejos, tu metodologia es muy buena y la voy a poner en practica.

Just wanted to thank you for taking your time and sharing your musical abilitys and knowledge with us. I play guitar, but work on piano from time to time, have absolutely no way to work on or learn proper applied technique, your videos give a good visual perspective and help quite a lot with what I can observe. Thank you Cory, the efforts are much appreciated!

You and Tom brier are the greatest sight readers!

Thanks for this lesson... It's exactly what I was looking​ to better my sight reading study. Thank you!

These tutorial videos have been so important to my learning. I've always wondered why my teacher has asked me if I learn hands-together or hands-seperately as it just seemed strange to seperate them. Thanks Cory for your teachings through these videos and I cannot wait until the next lesson! :-)

Wow! Thank you! Love the video! Informative and a guide to the right direction for practice!

Thank you so much! I lived in Asia, as you know, English is not our daily language. But I tried to get your points and followed your instructions. I have started to practice the church hymn without pedal in the first step. I used my ears and my brain to the holy songs when I played slowly. I love it! Thank you again! May the Lord bless you and your family.

I always see sight reading like reading books out loud. The more you do it, the more fluent and easy it becomes :) I'd love to get to a point where i could sight read at your level :) I usually use church hymns to practice my sight reading since church hymn books usually have hundreds of pieces :)

@littlefishbigmountain

5 жыл бұрын

I like that analogy! They are both reading, after all, and I've heard highly proficient sight-readers claim that reading music has become like reading English (or whatever language) to them Also when you sight-read, everybody says to read ahead a bit of where you are, and the same thing is true of reading a story. Unless, of course, you want every line to sound flat or have an awkward cadence. Anybody who can read something for the first time with expression that makes it really pop as a story have to be reading a bit ahead to get enough context to know what the phrasing should sound like. It's not magic, it's totally logical! Again, great comment

Thank you for sharing this. Lots of new insights here.

Best sight reading video on KZread. Thank you

thank god I found your videos, all are very helpful! Thank you so much!!!

Thanks Cory! As always excellent advises and tutorials. Is an honor to learn from someone really dedicated to music teaching.

SO IMPRESSIVE ! I think what you do CORY unfortunetalty, most 99% of humans cannot do … you so gift

Thank you very much! Easily put for me to learn. I can't tank you enough! Please keep these videos coming.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, and for your advice.

My family has the exact same ragtime book too! It was my mom's when she was young and we still have it today.

just found your channel and book via Josh Wright and just bought your book today. I'm 39, took a decade off of paino and looking forward to continue my training.

Your tips from another video has really helped me. Thanks!

I plan on doing a tutorial sometime on pedaling. It's the most difficult aspect of piano playing and is hard to explain using just one camera. Most of the time when pedal isn't marked in a score, it doesn't mean you shouldn't use pedal. In fact, I don't know any composer who marks pedal every time it's necessary. Pianists should rely on their ears and common sense more than what's not written in the music. Chopin's E-minor Prelude needs pedal, definitely.

Really great tips, look forward to more of your expert teachings.

Really great tips--thanks!

The best lesson on sight reading. Just got myself a hymnal. It makes real sense to start with vertical scores. Sight reading is so important and yet, most teachers don't invite or initiate their pupils to explain that it's a daily thing. Thanks so much for your tips. Sight reading has always been my "fear" so to speak but you managed to give it a brand new approach in 15 minutes. Brilliant! Thanks so much. Yoan xxx

Bach's 4-part chorals are excellent. I'm a beginner and work through a few every morning. Hands together.

This is a very informative helpful video. Bravo kind sir.

Thank you, Cory!

Thank you! These are great tips! I am always looking to learn how to sightread better.

Thanks for a really interesting and helpful lesson.

Wow thanks for all your very valuable info! Terrific video!

Thank you very much for making this video, Cory. It has helped me a lot

Thanks Pammi. The Schubert book in this video was an old edition by Liszt that I found somewhere in a sale. I would recommend any standard edition of the Schubert dances, preferably one with not many editorial markings.

I don't think there is a formula to box-in the art of playing the piano since we are all with different capabilities and learning abilities. However, Cory has given us the best advice I have found so far on this subject. Thank you, Cory!

Cory I enjoy your detailed tutorials. I am a piano teacher as well. I've learned a few things from you. Thanks

You are a really worthy person!!!

Thank you, very helpful! God bless

Thank you so much!

Very helpful. Thank you!

Excellent advice

"Horizontal" music is when the texture is made of a melody with an accompaniment. "Vertical" music is when there are mostly chords, like in hymns or chorales. The notes in the chords are stacked up vertically and one must read them all at once and not one at a time. With melodies that are horizontal the notes are read one at a time.

Thanks for the tips

I would say try to play all four voices at once but play only the simplest and least complex hymns. Great ones to start with are simple Christmas hymns like "Away in a Manger".

@seheyt

7 жыл бұрын

Depends a lot on which version you pick :) Some of the best choral versions aren't very easy to play at sight. Actually, I hate sight reading some of the most simple ones because they tend to run counter to my harmonic expectations (ruining all my voice leading muscle memory) but I digress

great sight-reading advice!

In spanish they are: Lectura Musical=Reading just Musical Sheets no matter if you read them or are new(just the purpose of doing such action) Lectura a primera vista=Sight Reading involves an ammount of levels related to how precise and fast you are with any sheet. This is just important to have at a high level when you are at a musical conservatory or going to enter one(the sight reading exam). If it is just practising and a hobby, you will be ok.

Thanks very much for this.

I love your point about practicing hands together, I always have this problem with sight reading, I start reading the right hand part and then I inevitably stop to look at the left hand part. It makes playing continuously very difficult.

Great stuff Cory...

Thanks Cory, very informative and good video! Really helps! another good tip I got from Josh Wright is never look at the keys. I think you once said, that youre not too fond of this method, but for me, it did quite the trick! Cheers pal! Youre an amazing Pianist and Teacher!

nice tips!

Good videos Cory and keep going with this as I am enjoying viewing them. Sight reading is important so is improvisation and plenty of theory, ear training, memorization etc. Great to use hymns for chord analysis and part writing. Best regards, Peter Tarsio

THANK YOU SIR

What you say about hands together is of course correct. It being a function of the brains way of working. The left and right hand movement being related one to the other in memory. But this is of course only relevant to learning the piece, not sight reading it. Most teachers recommend marking fingering but this again relates to reading or learning a piece as opposed to sight reading. My own experience is that it is not a good idea to sight read music you wish to learn, as great care must be taken to avoid errors or poor fingering from the outset. A good tip to help sight read is to look through the piece before playing it and imagine the actions and fingering you will use. Also, its essential to make a judgement on what tempo you think you will be able to proceed without goofing up.

Very cool story, I'm very into ragtime music as well, they're so fun to play. Very nice videos keep it up!

I'm not a teacher.. but teaching myself a melody was rewarding and encouraging because I was able to reproduce some part of the music. hearing it makes me want to do more

Very helpful, thanks.

Thank you!

You talked about Church Hymnals and got me attentive... Thanks.

thank you!!

Ah ..., nice Sir Hall. VERY NICE!!!

thanks，it helps a lot

Good upload.

I think your advice on playing with both hands at the same time is very important since, as you said, a lot teachers advice playing each hand separately. I think playing each hand on it own is easier at first, but does not help advance in sight reading. While playing both hands at the same time can be taunting for new students who do not want to be serious piano players. Thank you so much for this revealing video, as well as the immense amount of videos you have uploaded of you playing, and of giving advice. I took a look at your channel and I wish these advice videos had their own sections. Keep up the good work!

@BachScholar

9 жыл бұрын

***** I may not have mentioned this, but I think beginners up to intermediate level around level 6 should play hands separately more. I always have my beginning students play separately. Also, I believe beginners should not be forced to sight read. Sight reading is overrated especially for the beginning levels. Once one becomes "advanced" though (after level 6), one should graduate to hands together more and gradually phase out hands separately. They should also be expected to sight read more and better due to their experience. Sorry if I didn't make this clear in my video. I guess what I was trying to say was that too many advanced students rely far too much on playing hands separately. I was not referring to beginners or even those who have played for only two or three years.

@AdnanAlsannaa

9 жыл бұрын

I see what you're saying. Thanks a lot for clarifying. For some reason, I got the impression that sight reading is a very important skill to have and to develop from early on. I see why it is overrated though, as in there are other skills that I think would should get more attention. Thanks again!

Thanks Cory, it's very important for me

Thanks very much. Reading vertically is toughest for me. Especially from upper to lower staff.

You and I are complete opposites as I'm probably THE slowest sight reader on the planet...and I started it about the time you were born! I've learned Liszt, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, etc. (of course, can't remember 90% of it any more!) in the absolute most pathetic, painstaking way...I have to count up from the bottom (Every Good Boy...) for every-single-solitary-note!! Yeah, about 6 months to learn Un Sospiro, I just never could catch on. Guess I'm a hopeless case by now, I'm probably slower than about 99.999%! You totally lost me with this horizontal vs vertical stuff, I have no idea what you're talking about. On another note - no pun intended...really - your video on the Bohemia Rag is just pure genius!!!! Blows my mind...best on KZread by a wide margin.

Thank you. Very helpful.

@seheyt

7 жыл бұрын

I bought all of the schubert works and all of the haydn sonatas etc. in mini-print, expressly for sightreading. (Now-adays my eye sight would probably bother me, but still I do sight read in darkish rooms (I like it dark) with the stand down (so the book is flat before me). I guess you get used to it)

Good stuff.

A lot of Welsh hymn books are sol-fa (which I think is 'vertical' music!). This is an inspiring video because I'm not brilliant at sight reading or reading music - as you say - it takes practice! Thanks for your videos!

thanks a lot. fingering is very good

This is exellent advise.I myself took lesson from Erwin Seeger a German who was placed in the top 10 at catnegie hall at one time. He taught one hands at a time, but I think the only reason he did was because I was learning music that was more advanced than I was technically ready for. Unfortunatly I used my ear to much as well and didn`t practice sight reading enough. You are lucky your experience and time was spent doing it right. Although, some with very good ears play very well.

Thanks for your videos. I've taken an interest in developing sight reading not only to learn new music, but to stave off(no pun intended) memory loss. I'm 51 and have noticed some short term memory loss and it can be a little scary. So I hope this kind of brain exercising helps.

I appreciate the point you touch on at 11:48. Make playing musical with phrasing and control. It helps me to listen to what I am playing as I play, and try to make it sound to me more musical. Then arms hands and fingers almost unconsciously combine to produce a beautiful musical sound. I'm not sure of the technical term for this process. Self listening? or Feedback loop? Whatever. It cures robotic mechanical playing. Also, it allows us to make music even on crummy instruments. TY again.

i wish i had enough money to buy your book, it seems really good and it's highly rated.

nice to hear something about you and your life...its the same thing with me. i come from scholl and learn joplins rags to :)

Of course there's hope! Just keep sight reading something new every day as well as reading pieces you can play already. Try focusing on chordal music like hymns and chorales. Good luck!

In order to improve my sight reading I read as rapidly as possible all of the prelude and fugues Book I and II from JS Bach, which will force you to learn most of the available chords, keys and modulations. Playing the hands together.

@TheSunshinedreamer1

7 жыл бұрын

DAVID BURKE, Hi, how does it work for you?

Great video, thanks. I am beginner sight reader and have been using Mikrokosmos by Bartok for a few months. I have just purchased a book of Bach Chorales and it's painfully slow to sight read and play the pieces.

Although I'm not a good piano player, I have to say, you are absolutely right :) I always learn the piece with two hands from the beginning because both hands are then "connected" and it's easier to speed up afterwards :) For me, it's difficult to connect both hands after I learned every hand seperately.

I agree with you on all points. I am a good sightreader, mostly from always learning new pieces, I prefer to sightread hands-together, etc. One thing I would recommend is that, if you can, avoid listening to the piece before you sightread it. This way, it becomes a lot easier to play at a comfortable tempo.

The argument against "playing hands separately" would make sense if reading and memorization were the same. But they're not. If a piece of music is too advanced for a student to read, then the student can either put it aside until s/he's ready for it or s/he can get value from it right now by reducing the cognitive load of the piece; and a good way to do that is to play just the bass staff and then play just the treble staff. This equates to playing left hand and then right hand separately. You make two (or more, if you want to pick out individual voices) passes at the piece. You thin it out. It's the same idea as playing each voice in a chorale one by one before playing them polyphonically. *Memorizing* a speech is not an analogy for *reading* music. Reading a speech is. And in fact it *would* be logical, and useful in principle (if the reading matter were too hard to read as-is) to have have a student first practice picking out the vowels in the speech and then later go through again reading the consonants (or some subset of the consonants; whichever glyphs had been learned so far). Similarly, your nouns and verbs analogy doesn't ring true to me because you're appealing to comprehension and not to reading (this video is about reading, right?). Reading is not comprehension. Being able to read words or music is not a predictor of whether the reader is understanding what is being read. Even at the level of parsing a group of notes into a chord, that's no more a demonstration of understanding than reading "cat" instead of "c-a-t". You still need to know what that word means just as you still need to know how that chord functions in the music (and you need to know what "functioning" even means, which no amount of reading training will tell you: that's comprehension and is a separate pursuit). Conflating reading and comprehension won't help anyone. IMHO, fingering is crucial to get right from day 1 because it helps you keep track of where your fingers are without looking at the keyboard. I agree that there's no need to write it in yourself, but most sight reading books and software these days have it written in already (although they should only write it when it's not obvious, and they don't, but that has to be tolerated). "Play most melodies legato", etc. Well, that quote is conflating reading and performance. Most folks are just struggling to develop the neurons that will allow them to read quickly, and the guidance in this video is pitched at too high a level for 95+% of people. Let people get good at reading quickly before adding the extra cognitive load of performing nicely. Kids learn to read the written word before we bug them with super-crisp pronunciation, projecting the voice, speaking in a nicer accent, or even a comical accent. In terms of reading music, you want to encourage folks to be reading the simplest pieces for their level, they should be giving themselves very high volumes of stuff to read, always be trying to read stuff they haven't seen before, and not looking at the keyboard but playing by feel instead. Look at Shawn Cheek's guidance on reading score, I would urge folks to hear his guidance, it's more useful and practical and logical than this video. I'd also suggest that nobody cares about the distinction between reading and sight reading. Nobody expects nor aspires to be able to perform a piece perfectly and at the correct speed at first sight. Being able to read competently has a couple of main purposes: one is to build a beautiful and crisp internal mental model of the keyboard as a physical instrument and the notes and intervals and chords laid over that construct; the other is in order to be able to input new pieces into the brain with a high-bandwidth transfer rate for purposes of analysis, performance, or just pleasure.

@BachScholar

8 жыл бұрын

+Steven Charles White Verbose and convoluted.

@BachScholar

8 жыл бұрын

+Steven Charles White Of course "nobody cares about the distinction between reading and sight-reading" because the two two terms aren't understood correctly. Time and time again I hear people say "sight-reading" when in fact they really mean "reading".

@rogerg4916

8 жыл бұрын

I've always thought that the term "sight-reading" is a misnomer. Wouldn't "sight-playing" be more accurate?

@stevencharleswhite7045

8 жыл бұрын

Great question, Roger! I daresay all musicians have wondered the same thing at one time or another. Here's my understanding of the term. The Italian language features prominently in musical terminology. Reading a piece of music nearly always implies playing it, too. Reading a piece of music "a prima vista" ("at first sight") is the idea of reading a score that you haven't seen before, so you haven't had chance to get familiar with it, nor to memorize nor begin to internalize it. Let's say you read a piece of music 50 times in your life. You only get the opportunity to read it "at first sight" once, so we actually read "at first sight" statistically very infrequently. Why is why I cast doubt on its relevance. Few people can competently read at first sight these days. When you see someone "reading music" the chances are they're playing it mostly from memory, and using the score as a prompt/reminder. Now, back to the terms. Over time, the expression "reading at first sight" corrupted into the confusing and lazy term "sight-reading", and that corruption is the source of this confusion of terms. A newcomer to music sees "sight-reading" and assumes that the word "sight" is merely referring to the fact that you have to use your sight in order to read. Like you did, folks think that it's a pretty silly and redundant term for "reading music". But they use the term, and they use it incorrectly. So the mistake has spread and become endemic of confusing "sight-reading" with just plain old "reading" (meaning "reading whether or not it's the first time you've seen the score"). At this point in history I feel like it's too late to correct this widespread mistake and so I would say that it's best to avoid using the term "sight-reading" if you want to be understood. If you're talking about reading music regardless of how many times you've seen the score in the past, then I'd suggest any of the terms "reading score", "reading music", or "reading written music". If you're talking about the very first time you see a score (which as I say seems like largely an irrelevant, special case, to me, so I'm not sure why we need a term for it) then I would suggest reviving the original expression and just appending the words "at first sight" to either of those previous three terms. Since in the vast majority of cases you're playing the score at the same time as you're reading it, I think that the term "reading" already implies "playing", so I wouldn't worry about introducing the word "playing" here.

@rogerg4916

8 жыл бұрын

I think what bothers me is using the term "reading'' to require the simultaneous playing of the music. It's like saying you're not reading print unless you're also typing the words into a QWERTY keyboard. So is there another term for going through the score away from the piano but understanding fully how everything applies to the keyboard?

I think it's probably a case of preference. Nice video, thanks :)

Excellent!!! Thank you. ;-)

I've practice Bach Inventions hands seperately then put them together and I've practiced Invention without doing hands seperately and I don't know if it mattered that much. Hand independence issue showed their ugly head regardless if I had done hands seperately or not. If something is really difficult then there are passages where I have to break them down. But generally I agree with Mr. Cory. Once I did put hands together it was like I started over anyway,

It's the "Augener Edition (No. 8393B), Schubert Dances, Book II, edited by Liszt". It looks old and maybe out of print but maybe I'm wrong. I found it at a garage sale somewhere.

Thanks for the video Cory... I'm trying to be a better sight reader and I've heard from others that when you are actually practicing sight reading, things like going slow, not looking at your hands, not stopping, and picking music that isn't too hard for you are all hugely important.... Do you agree?

Thanks for the tutorial! It's always helpful since I can't afford a piano teacher right now. Thank you.

Hi. I found you when looking for video of Clementi's p. 36. No.3. Thanks for the lesson! I sight read hymns all the time. I will try your suggestion to play without pedal first. I'm so addicted to it. I dsiagree about the two hands togeather. This week I was about to throw Bach Invention No 1 in the garbage, but my teacher said don't give up-- use metronome and hands separate for a few weeks. I'm going to try that. Found old copy of Joplin. Never played rags. Will give it a try! Thanks!

So good teaching thank you. Would u please show what you mean by vertical

Thank you, Cory for this video. This is the first time that I have seen any of your videos, and I will continue to view your presentations. I am so frustrated with trying to learn how to play the piano. Music classes didn't work for me; but I still would like to pursue my childhood dream. Could you give me any ideas that would help get me past this bump (wall)? I use an electronic keyboard, and confess that I do not practice regularly. Thanks, again.

I would kill for the Thick book of Joplin right about now. Im addicted to sight reading and getting better every day. I read Hymnals, Modern pieces, Mozart, Bach Beethoven, Im running out of stuff to read

Great audio

I find knowing theory and counterpoint (and their applications such as ear-training and sight-singing) helps immensely in sight-reading, just because you know what you're playing and can somewhat expect where things are gonna go. This is especially true for horizontal music. Liszt could probably sight-read Bach fugues lol

that's rather a tutorial how to learn new pieces... well... that's what I need! thanks!

I love you.

for "vertical" music, may i suggest anything rachmaninov =) btw, great video. i guess the key to learning to sightread well is to play new sheet music daily. on the contrary, playing the same thing (or the same collection of things) over and over and over again... until it's prefect... does absolutely nothing for enhancing sightreading skills.

Will you make a video on ear training? That would help me a lot because I want to learn how to play by ear

Thanks for the tutorial! It's always helpful since I can't afford a piano teacher right now.