In my experience, performing music from sight (reading
what's on the page), and performing music having memorized
it are two completely different animals.
I have been in musical situations when I could do one and
not the other, and they didn't seem to relate - in fact, in
one case, ease in memorization became less as my skill in
sightreading increased.
And I was simulateously poor in one sort of sightreading,
and excellent at another.
I'll explain: I learned my first instrument, piano, at age
9. And progressed really fast, as children of that age tend
to do who have some ability. But my memory was really
good. So I memorized the simple pieces I was playing at
the time right away, and played looking at my hands. And my
teacher at the time let me do this. So when I moved and
studied with a new teacher, my sightreading was horrendous.
Now I had the skill to decode the music at slow tempo, so I
could read some, but I had no facility. So to this day, my
piano sightreading, while it has improved, has never felt
fluent. And funny thing, as I improved my piano
sightreading, my ease in memorizing piano music diminished
markedly. What used to be easy and natural because work. I
think it's related.
When I learned my next instrument, the viola, my only
interest was playing in the orchestra or ensembles. I had
little interest in playing solo works. I played an hour a
day at school orchestra rehearsal. And a two-hour evening
or two a week in community orchestra rehearsal. And found I
could play my parts as well as I needed to with minimal
additional practice. So I sight-read - day-in, day-out.
Year after year. More and more difficult music. And after
10, 15, 20 years, I played pretty well and sight read
incredibly well. Playing in the orchestra all those years
gave me the great rhythmic sightreading skills. But I can't
play music on the viola without the paper in front of me. I
can't hear a melody and reproduce it on the instrument,
without consciously thinking about intervals.
As a singer, I started with choral music. Sight-read good
to start with (with my college theory training under my
belt, and rhythmic skills and interval recognition from
orchestra viola-playing also transferred over) and I only
got better. Now I'm an excellent choral sightreaders.
Melodies in solo music memorize themselves though memorizing
the words gets harder and harder the older I get), but in
choral music - I have to have the book in front of me
(though I do know the Hallelujah Chorus by now, after about
1000 repetitions!).
The original writer might want to check out that great book
"Soprano on Her Ear", which deals with many musical and
learning issued, with some great insights on sight-reading
and memorization and lots of other good stuff.
Also, next time, put the words on a card and trust yourself
on the notes and rhythms you've learned the way you know
works for you. They'll be so impressed that you learned it
so fast and can sing it without the music in front of you,
that they'll overlook a mistake or two.
Peggy
--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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