Does sightreading skill help to to increase theoretical knowledge?

[bassinplace]

I played viola in an orchestra in high school and college. I majored in electrical engineering. I minored in music studies. I’m not sure how sight reading and music theory connect. Sight reading is like reading an automotive repair manual and fixing your car. Understanding music theory is like being able to design said car.

Well, using that analogy, if you built a car from reading a manual, it would give you some insight on how to design one, no? It would just be a question of how much or how little insight was gleaned.

 

[SteveCS]

I sight read music (well) for 10 years before my first theory class. I really knew nothing about theory until that class, so sight reading alone did not give me any theoretical knowledge. But once I started learning theory, being a good sight reader made it relatively “easy” to learn.

So, in basic terms, might you say you were learning the names and descriptions for things that you already knew? I think that was perhaps the case for me. When I was sight-singing as a child I knew how perfect, imperfect and plagal cadences, picardy thirds, modulations and certain modes sounded and in some cases how they looked on paper (we often used 4-part scores so I could see the other parts alongside mine), but had no idea what they were called. So a good proportion, but by no means all, of the theory work later was a bit like putting names to faces.

In that sense I still stand by my view that sight-reading, along with the prerequisite reading, does lead to greater insight into theory, as you can 'hear' what you are seeing without having to 'play' it.

On the other hand, maybe it's the singing at sight thing. It's more than possible, and I guess I can never know, that sight-reading on an instrument doesn't automatically develop the ear in the same way.

Edit: There is a third option, which is that the whole process happened so long ago that I really don't have a clue what the causes and effects really were and I'm just trying to rationalise a nebulous process for the sake of having something to say here...

YMMV

 

[dune]

I would say that sight reading in and of itself does not increase one's knowledge of theory. It's certainly possible to sight read "mechanically": thinking about nothing more than the execution - only connecting the dots to the fretboard. Combining it with active listening - processing what the ear is hearing and how the notes being sight read apply within that context might provide varying degrees of increase.

 

[Newby6string]

Helps you practice, study, and learn it all faster.... since you can sight read what's on the paper quickly and easily to understand the examples in theory textbooks, rather than having to have someone teach you by ear or to have enough knowledge to slowly work out what each note means in written form but not to be fast enough at it to be particularly productive.

So imho, it helps with the execution of anything theoretical to be able to sight read. Sight reading skill is a great benefit.

However, there's absolutely no REQUIREMENT for it to do what you're doing.

To put a background on my perspective: I have been able to sight read since before I could read and write the alphabet, due to how I was brought up by a music teacher. However through my career I've taught myself new instruments along the way, ones that I couldn't sight read on accurately at all. One of those, surprisingly enough, is guitar. Because I can read treble and bass clef just fine, it ought to be fine, right? And I can sight read on bass without thinking about it. But because bass and guitar are essentially played exactly the same way with same tuning, just an octave apart (ignoring the extra 2 strings for now), it completely threw me off so much that I couldn't sight read on guitar for many years of playing professionally, and I'm still slower reading on guitar than on bass by a looooong way.

My point being - I have experience both as a really good sight reader (sight reading new music classical, jazz, rock, funk, on different instruments)... and as someone playing professionally on instruments I play well but couldn't sight read on at all. In all of those situations I have had plenty of new theory learning situations, whether it was learning/mastering modes, learning increasingly obscure jazz chords and transtitions, or learning "new music" in the classical field where your previous theory knowledge gets taken to a crazy new level of mathematical complexity.

And I can definitely tell you that translating the theory into the instrument without sight reading was much harder for me to get into my head.

 

[Newby6string]

I agree with you here. When I first purchased my instrument, the salesperson stressed this point realizing that I was really serious about wanting to play bass guitar. "If you are going to pay this much money for a bass guitar, do yourself a favor and learn to read the music for this instrument as you learn to play instrument. It will yield great returns in the long run." In the first two years, I really did not grasp the meaning as learning to read music and play was a struggle. However, in my now 7th year with the instrument, the theory, the subtle nuances, the techniques, etc. make more sense to me and sight reading helps to gel the theory together. Oh, what a time saver it is to be able to read a bass line with no guess work than it is to try and work it out by ear!

 

[SoonerBill]

Well, using that analogy, if you built a car from reading a manual, it would give you some insight on how to design one, no? It would just be a question of how much or how little insight was gleaned.

I would estimate that 90% of the people I’ve ever known, if they built a car from a manual, (sight reading) would still have no idea about the physics and engineering that make the parts of the car work (theory).

 

[SLO Surfer]

So, in basic terms, might you say you were learning the names and descriptions for things that you already knew?

nope. I didn’t even know what an interval was, or how scales were made up of intervals. I just knew how to read notes on a page and play them on my instruments.

When I was sight-singing

This is different. I only was introduced to sight singing during college in conjunction with my first theory classes. This changed everything.

On the other hand, maybe it's the singing at sight thing. It's more than possible, and I guess I can never know, that sight-reading on an instrument doesn't automatically develop the ear in the same way.

yes. For me. After learning theory and sight singing, I could then read music and know how it’s supposed to sound. I also immediately got better at playing upright bass (in tune) once I got decent at sight singing.

 

[mambo4]

I'm amazed at those who can simply play the notation with no idea what they are playing, theory-wise.

I wonder, How many of us learned theory first, and reading after? and what is there response to the OP's question?
Theory is the filter I parse notation through. When I look at notation, I simply can't not see intervals, arpeggios, key centers and where "Do" is. It often takes me longer to explicitly identify the notes. Perhaps my experience is unusual.

 

[JimmyM]

I'm amazed at those who can simply play the notation with no idea what they are playing, theory-wise.

I wonder, How many of us learned theory first, and reading after? and what is there response to the OP's question?
Theory is the filter I parse notation through. When I look at notation, I simply can't not see intervals, arpeggios, key centers and where "Do" is. It often takes me longer to explicitly identify the notes. Perhaps my experience is unusual.

No, that's about par for the course with most people. But you can certainly whittle down the time it takes to see all that stuff the more you read.

 

[JimmyM]

I would estimate that 90% of the people I’ve ever known, if they built a car from a manual, (sight reading) would still have no idea about the physics and engineering that make the parts of the car work (theory).

If you build a second car from a manual, you would start to glean some additional insight, though. And the more you do it, the more insight you would glean from it until you eventually learned the insight.

BUT...

You would have to be interested in learning the physics and do some reading about it during your non-building time. Same with theory and reading.

 

[Tottery]

I didn't learn anything about music theory by reading music, but once I started to learn about it I could use sheet music for exercises. For example, counting intervals and such.