Re: Sight reading


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Posted by JK on June 16, 2000 at 13:38:20:

In Reply to: Sight reading posted by Matt on June 15, 2000 at 11:40:07:

Good sight-reading is essential at all levels!

All of these players have made good remarks here. You are young and early in this, take your time and be patient. Be sure you are learning all the scales, chromatics and various interval and rhythmic patterns that become automatic. If that is too much, than at least, get the basic band keys and skills to perfection and speed. Often the fingers go before the head catches up.

Lip and tonal flexibility are critical in your sight-reading. The mind and fingers go, but the lip may not adjust and respond with enough facility for good reading. Flexibility and tone are daily concerns and there are many good books for this.

All of the sight-reading suggestions regarding lone reading are good, and you have to find sources for the music you need to sustain reading practice, but it does not provide the "pressure reading." It is too easy to find reasons to stop. So, never turn down invitations to sit in and read with another group or band. You need "pressure reading" to improve and gain confidence, you MUST READ, there is no going back and you will expand your knowledge of the literature. It is also very helpful to get together with a better player and read in unison, where you have to keep up. If you are accepted, volunteer to play with other bands. Check in your area for community and small town bands for opportunities to sit in on a rehearsal and/or concert. Seek them out! Many are willing to assist young players. Summer offers many opportunities for this. This is the most active time for such bands. Many small town bands are lucky to have one tuba. Never been anywhere where another tuba was not welcomed. I know guys who drive 50-60 miles to help out and read a concert with a small town band. Get together with other players and read duets, trios. The more "pressure reading" the better. It is not the same to read alone. The mistakes will fly by, but that will change.

As you get older and more experienced, reading will be the most enjoyable part of your playing. If you become good, it will help your esteem for yourself and with others, you will gain respect. I play with a community band that reahearses several weeks and sometimes months on certain tunes before they are programed. I look forward to summers, when I go back east to play with a small town band in concerts in the park. We run through about 15 tunes Monday evening and play a concert Wednesday and so it goes throughout the summer.

What you do with tuba later is another matter, good reading is essential at all levels, and fun! Remember, it is not the amount of time spent practicing sight-reading, but the number of opportunities you make for yourself to "pressure read," where you will develop a comfortable skill and in time, the higher the "pressure reading" levels, the higher the level of your final accomplishment.

The teaching, of one of the most accomplished, and working, and in demand, harpists I know of, consists only of placing a new stack of music in front of a student at each weekly lesson and then saying, "Now Read," and that is the lesson, week after week after week. She trains pros.

So, my nickel!


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