Sight-Reading - Why It's Important

I have often felt that there are two types of musicians -- those who are readers and those who are not.  This division becomes quite striking when teaching piano.  Most piano methods introduce music-making through the process of reading notes.  And traditional piano teachers using these methods tend to reward the readers.  "Readers" are the machine-like data processors who can quickly gobble up notes and convert them into action at the speed of light.  But sometimes, those sight-reading whiz kids are devoid of emotion.  These students dazzle us with their speed and execution, but oftentimes, they don't move us. 

In the other camp are the intuitive, right-brained, expressive types (me).  Such students fall naturally into playing by ear, which leads to improvisation and composition.  They play with a soulful depth that has moved me to tears at many recitals.  For this type of student, however, the task of decoding notes is much more difficult than figuring it out by ear.  I used to think that these students just couldn't read.  But, since overcoming my own reading handicap, I believe the sight-reading failure of many students is simply the result of laziness; that, and lack of music theory training.

Why bother reading when your ear and intuition can figure it out faster?   With a little trial and error and a good ear, one can bypass the data-processing step altogether.  Reading notes is just one more chore.  And it slows us down.  We're impatient.  We want instant gratification.  Reading at our performance level, on the other hand, means delayed gratification; not something we're very fond of in a culture of microwaved meals and instant messaging.

It has long been my goal as a piano teacher to save these artist-students -- the aural geniuses -- from falling through the cracks.  But I don't want to give them a false sense of ego.  Not everyone can expect to have the success Paul McCartney had without reading or writing music (Beatles veteran and composer Paul McCartney does not read or write music).  They are going to need more than a good ear to make a living in music, should they choose that route.  My experience, for example, has taught me that sight-reading skills greatly increase one's marketability as a musician. Without my sight-reading skills (something I have worked very hard on), I would miss out on a significant portion of my income that comes from accompanying, musical theatre, and church music.  If you can only play by ear, your options as a perfomer will be very limited!  Furthermore, you won't be able to write down those great ideas you have because you don't understand the visual language of notation.  This is why it's important to train students to read well.

So how do you keep the mini-Mozarts from melting into a puddle of tears over their reading challenges?  First, convince them of the value of sight-reading.  You remind them that Beethoven and Chopin did not just compose; they could read and write music as well.  In fact, they wrote their own music without the help of notation software or an orchestrator.  A healthy dose of reality doesn't hurt either.  So I always share the hard-knocks tales of several "by ear" players I taught who thought pretty highly of themselves until they unsuccessfully tried out for jazz band or choir accompanying at the local high school.  Little did they know that their director would expect them to read well.  Yes, even the jazz band director wants good readers!

See my next post to learn how I teach sight-reading.