Improve Your Sight-Reading (Intermediate)

13 Nov 2020 @ 15:00 GMT

Improving your sight-reading skills can open up a wealth of possibilities for enjoying your piano playing. However, sight-reading is rarely taught and can be a difficult skill to develop.

In this online workshop, Ken Johansen provides tried and tested tools for improving your sight-reading skills based on over twenty years experience in teaching the subject at the Peabody Conservatory. The workshop will show you how to practise sight-reading, covering the following topics:

• Keyboard geography - Developing a tactile sense of the keyboard that allows you to find intervals, chords, and changes of hand position without looking at your hands
• Economising eye motions – Finding patterns and relationships between the staves that allow you to skim over notes that you don’t need to look at
• Reading ahead - Finding opportunities in scores of various kinds to keep your eyes moving forward
• Simplification - Reducing and outlining challenging passages in order to maintain a stable pulse

The material will be useful for to pianists from an intermediate level upwards (e.g. ABRSM Grade 4 – 7) and teachers. If you’re not sure about whether the workshop will be suitable for you, you can try the following example:

Click here to download

You don’t need to be able to play all of the notes perfectly. You can also play the piece under tempo - what is important is maintaining a regular pulse. If you can achieve a degree of rhythmic continuity when playing it, then you are likely to be at a level where this workshop will be of benefit to you.

The workshop will be recorded and all participants will receive a link to download the video in addition to worksheets and exercises. Therefore, if you are unable to attend the session on the day, you will still be able to watch the video and access the resources at your convenience.

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