Jon Moody:-
So....if we go by the dictionary interpretation of "sight-reading"......which is the point that is being attempted to be hammered home by some in this thread
Please read the below quote, because it explains this - again.
All we're saying is that the term "sight reading" has a definition, and that your use of the term is not consistent with the definition. This forum is devoted to instruction so corrcting misuse of defined terminology is important. It's not a simple issue of semantics, it simply using the incorrect term, like Ms. Morrisette not knowing hat "ironic" means.
And let me be clear on this; I hope using the dry erase board is helping you improve your reading abilities to the point that you will be able to successfully start working on sight-reading. However, as mentioned - many times - knowing the correct definitions and terminology is about as important as reading sheet music is, because ALL of it helps you convey ideas better.
( the fact that it isn't sight reading because there was prior knowledge of the work involved)...then let's take a musician like McCartney or Beethoven..
They both have written scores of works........some that the public heard and others that were 'experimental'.
Now both these musicians would go back and play earlier works in private........some because they had forgotten parts and others to make corrections or to use parts from an earlier work in later works.
Please enlighten me on what they are doing when they set an earlier work in front of them and play it......
Obviously they aren't sight reading by your definition...because they had prior knowledge of the work...after all they wrote it in the first place.....
I actually posed this question to some of my peers at rehearsal tonight; we're doing a production of West Side Story. The pianist and I have played this show, two years ago. So the question that you're posing becomes "Is Jon Moody sight-reading the score to WSS at the first rehearsal, even though he's played the show previously?" I asked the pianist that, and she said:
"No, we're merely brushing up. After ten minutes with this score, all the muscle memory and experience from the original run comes back."
Asked our percussionist (went to school at Berklee, spent decades on the road) the same question, and his answer was:
"Not really. Technically, the only true sight-reading happens the first time you read a score down. Anything after that you're building on prior experiences."
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And in regard to McCartney and Mozart, two musicians that have written a number of pieces and then go back to it, it's the same as what I've been doing the past week (and this week) in working up pieces that I wrote for sets at NAMM. I'm not sight-reading anything; I'm going back and recalling previous works, most of which because so much time and effort was spent in composing them AND THEN putting them into a computer notation program, are already memorized. I just needed a couple of minutes to work them back under the fingers, which is precisely what Sir Paul and Mozart were doing.
