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Read Ahead - Level 4
Read Ahead is an exciting program that helps piano students to improve their sight-reading ability. This unique curriculum is based on an extensive collection of carefully ordered compositions with related exercises and quizzes that help students develop the mental and tactile skills necessary for fluent sight-reading. This section features Level 4... Read >>
ReadAhead Practising Sight reading
Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum
The Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum is derived from nearly twenty years of experience teaching the freshman sight-reading class for piano majors at the Peabody Conservatory. It consists of an extensive collection of annotated scores dealing with every aspect of sight-reading, together with detailed suggestions on how to practice. It covers everything... Read >>
Ken Johansen Practising Sight reading
Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum - Part 3
Playing by Ear
Although playing by ear might seem to be the opposite of sight-reading, we read with our ears as much as with our eyes. The inner ear helps us to navigate a new score, predict what is coming and improvise when the eyes haven’t had enough time to absorb everything. The... Read >>
Ken Johansen Practising Sight reading
Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum - Part 4
Rhythm
Rhythm is perhaps the most important element in sight-reading and is the subject of the fourth (next) part of our Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum. Using simple, effective practice methods and carefully-selected pieces with annotations and guidelines, we work on keeping a regular pulse while tackling challenges such as recognising underlying rhythmic... Read >>
Ken Johansen Practising Sight reading
Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum - Part 1
Eye Training
Sight-reading begins with sight. Before the inner ear can begin to imagine the sound of a score, before the mind can start to decode the patterns it detects, and before the body can translate these sounds and patterns into physical gestures that transform written notes into music, the eyes must... Read >>
Ken Johansen Practising Sight reading
Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum - Part 2
Flexibility
To give an interpretation of a piece we have never seen before requires flexibility and demands a willingness to accept wrong notes, technical stumbles, and botched details, in the greater interest of maintaining rhythmic cohesion, following the broad outlines of the score. The second part of our Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum... Read >>
Ken Johansen Practising Sight reading
Quarantine-Spots
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you have spots in your pieces that regularly break down you’re going to need to identify them and isolate these sections so you can do some quality, systematic practice on them. This process I call quarantining, and each extract... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools
Slow Practice
If you’re serious about playing the piano, there’s no getting away from slow practice. It is a cornerstone of our work from the beginner stages right through to the advanced level, and a practice tool also used by professional pianists and seasoned virtuosos all the time. In this section, ... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools
Teaching & Developing Sight-Reading Skills
Sight-reading an interesting piece of music is like meeting an interesting person. We enjoy the pleasure of a new encounter, sense perhaps a mutual affinity, and look forward to a deeper acquaintance. This series of articles provides exercises and music aimed at developing confidence in playing at sight and enhancing... Read >>
ReadAhead Practising Sight reading
Separate Practice
Learning a complex piece each hand alone before putting the hands together is a strategy favoured by the majority of piano teachers. While it is of course possible to practise a fugue hands separately, this misses the point. Rather than working hands separately, I advocate strands separately (playing each line... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools
The Practice Tools Lecture Series
Without an understanding how to approach practising the piano, day-to-day practice can often be unfocussed and unproductive. In this series of video lectures, I identify and explore various practice tools that will help pianists of any level get the most out of their time spent practising.... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools
An Overview of the Practice Tools
This series of articles serves as an introduction to Graham Fitch’s practice tools, including how to approach a new piece and the Three Ss.... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools
Mastering Polyrhythms
A polyrhythm (sometimes referred to as a cross rhythm) is the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are played together and can prove very challenging indeed! This series of articles will help you tackle them in various ratios, starting with the simplest: two-against-three (2:3) or three-against-two (3:2).... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising
Skeleton Practice
This series of articles will describe how to deconstruct a score and use skeleton practice by way of a number of examples. New articles and examples will be added on an ongoing basis therefore please do watch this space!... Read >>
Graham Fitch Practising Practice tools