Improve Your Sightreading and Ear Training Skills

Last month, we discussed the great divide between the talents of playing by ear and sight reading.

There are methods for those who wish to improve their skills in either area. Although there's no guarantee these skills will ever come naturally, with practice they can get easier.

Some suggestions for those who want to improve their sightreading include setting aside a specific period -- summer vacation or a winter holiday break -- to do nothing but sightread during regular practice sessions. Another idea is to set aside a portion of your regular practice session to sightreading.

• Start at the very bottom of the ladder, using a method book for young beginners. Work your way up through each level of the method, improving your skill as the music gets more difficult and complex. It's important to play VERY slowly and try to maintain rhythm and tempo. Don't correct mistakes as you go. If you totally blow it, you can try it one more time through, but don't practice it; then move on.

• One of the keys to good sightreading is being able to read chords quickly. This requires vertical reading, as opposed to horizontal melody reading. If possible, purchase a set of chord flashcards -- if not, make your own large flashcards on plain pieces of 8.5- by 11-inch paper. Make one set with a card for each inversion of each major chord, with one note on the bass clef and two on the treble clef. Make a more advanced set with three notes on each clef, for instance: G, C and E on the bass clef and G, C and E on the treble clef.

  Start by playing just the outer notes -- the lowest and highest -- of the chord on the first time through the cards. The second time through, play the inner notes only. On the third round, play the entire chord, being careful to think before you play and try to play it right the first -- and only -- time.

• Another technique involves having a partner cover the music with a card or piece of paper that is six inches wide and the depth of one staff of music. Have your partner cover the whole line except the first chord and uncover one beat at a time as you progress across the line. This forces the player to read a whole chord at a time without regard to what comes next.

• When reading vertically, read from the bottom up. Most people read the treble clef better and have better control with the right hand, so the left hand needs more time to process the bass clef notes and find the keys.

• Regardless of which material you use to gradually increase your skill, be sure to maintain a steady, SLOW beat. We're talking SLOW here, like a funeral dirge. To curb the nearly irrepressible urge to speed up, try using a metronome to force yourself to play slowly.

• A good series for graduated sight reading practice is Bartók's "Mikrokosmos," a six-volume set that starts at a very simple level and gradually moves to more complex material.

  On the upper end of the scale, the Bach Four-Part Chorales are excellent sightreading practice. Commonly used in college theory classes to teach students to analyze four-part harmony, the chorales are an excellent test of the ability to read chords at sight. Likewise, church hymnals are full of hymns in four-part harmony, with the added obstacle of treble and bass clef divided by lyrics. If you can play these in rhythm, up to speed (and keep up with the church choir) you've succeeded in becoming a good sightreader.

  If pop music is more your style, the original score (orchestral reduction for piano) of Broadway shows is your top-of-the-line final exam, but you can be content with the "Vocal Selections" level.

To build ear training skills, you'll probably need a partner or a tape recorder.

Start small by learning to recognize intervals. The best way to hear intervals or chords accurately is to be able to sing them. Don't worry -- you don't have to be the fourth tenor or Barbra Streisand to do these exercises; they may even help you get better at carrying a tune.

• Have your partner play seconds on the keyboard; you sing them back. After you feel comfortable recreating seconds, have your partner will play random intervals, both harmonically (sounded together) and melodically (sounded consecutively). As you listen, just say "yes" if each interval is a second or "no" if it isn't.

• At the same session, do the same procedure with thirds. After you are comfortable recognizing thirds, your partner will play random seconds and thirds all over the keyboard for you to identify.

If you have no partner adept enough at the keyboard to participate, try taping the keyboard exercises for playback during your practice sessions. Of course, the downside of this method (like taking the eye chart test too many times) is you may inadvertently memorize the order of recorded "random" intervals.

• When you feel comfortable differentiating betweens seconds and thirds, repeat the same procedure with fourths and fifths. Then review seconds and thirds.

• Next, try sixths and sevenths, reviewing all the previous intervals after becoming confident of sixths and sevenths.

• Then do the same process with sevenths and octaves.

The previous combinations aren't as difficult to distinguish as they may seem, with the exception of fourths vs. fifths. The next step is to learn to distinguish the intervals that are inversions of each other, a more difficult task.

Using the same procedure as above, have your partner play a second, such as C to the adjacent D. Then play the same D followed by the C a seventh higher. Although the seventh is much farther apart than the second, the intervals sound remarkably similar, particularly when played together.

Likewise, a third inverted is a sixth, and their proximity and harmonious sound make them more difficult to distinguish.

Possibly the most difficult to distinguish are fourths and fifths, because they are so close together and because of their similar open, empty sound. However, a perfect fourth is easily recognized as the first two notes of the phrase "Here Comes the Bride." An easy way to recognize a perfect fifth is to match it to the "Oh, we, oh" chant sung by the evil monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.

There are other tricks for recognizing intervals by relating them to well-known jingles. For instance, a major sixth is the first two notes of the three-note "NBC" audio logo that accompanies the TV network's peacock. A minor second is "ti do" of do re mi fa sol la ti do. To find an octave and major seventh, sing "Bali Hai." The "li" is an octave above the first note and the "hai" is a seventh above.

You may find it more effective to use sound bites from some of your favorite tunes to memorize the sounds of various intervals.

Just when you think you have intervals wrapped up, you discover there are two types of each interval: large and small, a.k.a. major and minor. A minor second is a half step, from one piano key to the next, regardless of color. A major second is the distance from one letter name to the next with one key between.

Start the whole procedure over again, distinguishing the difference between major and minor seconds. At the next session, it's major and minor thirds. Then major and minor sixths, followed by major and minor sevenths.

There is no minor fourth or minor fifth. Instead, the basic intervals are perfect fourths and perfect fifths, with augmented or diminished gradations. A diminished fourth (C to F-flat) is really a major third soundwise (C to E). An augmented fifth (C to G-sharp) is really a minor sixth (C to A-flat). The truly nasty interval for singing or hearing is the tritone -- the equivalent of an augmented fourth and a diminished fifth.

The next step is recognizing major and minor triads, using the same system.

After you've mastered intervals and triads (or at least tried really hard), try playing back simple melodies on the keyboard, starting with just a few notes and increasing the length of the tunes as you get better.

Eventually, you can try to recognize specific notes and chords and try to determine the key of a song or piece.

Ear training -- if you aren't a natural -- is a long process requiring frequent reinforcement, preferably at each practice session. College music libraries may offer ear training tapes, and there are computer programs designed for ear training, including Auralia, Practica Musica, MusicTime, Ear Power and EarMaster.

But don't forget the old standby -- sitting at the keyboard and plunking on the keys until you figure out the sounds you want to hear.

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