Vocalist.org archive


From:  Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Date:  Fri Jun 23, 2000  2:16 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] sight singing and piano skills




Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
>
> How long does it take for an adult to get to a point,
> pianistically speaking, where you can sit down and
> bash through a new role at first glance?

It depends how much time you spend playing the piano. For an instrument like
piano,
there's no substitute for absolute time spent on the instrument. Which is
different from
voice, I think, because hours on end is not the way to improve one's singing.

> Am I too late? Is there hope for me yet? Is it even
> necessary? I'm trying to figure out how much of my
> time to allocate to piano lessons, to sight singing
> classes, or just give that time to language lessons
> instead.

No, it's not too late. And I don't think lessons are necessarily what is
needed - what's
needed is sitting at the piano and playing lots of music with good rhythm and
not being
too concerned about playing ALL the right notes. The only way to improve
sight-reading is
sight-reading. Also, working on scales, arpeggios, and chords, looking at the
notes they
go with, can be helpful to program patterns into your hands and into your eyes.
If you
were to study piano for the purpose of improving sightreading, I'd be very up
front with
the teacher as to your goal, and a good teacher can work with you accordingly.
For
example, my accompanist, who's one of the best piano teachers I've ever known,
will do
things like play piano duets with her students as a great way to improve
sightreading and
rhythm.

Personally, I think that being able to read and reproduce accurate rhythms is a
higher
priority than intervals, because I think rhythm is harder to do and causes more
problems
when the musician can't get it right, even with practice.

Peggy

--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...

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