Sight Reading Made Simple Appendix 4 - danielnistico.net

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Sight Reading Made Simple

Appendix of Book 4: Summary and Guide

The 2 Main topics were:

1) Carulli’s Method- Scales

- Intervals- Rhythms

2) Sing and Play Pieces- Sing One Part and Play the Others

- Melody and Chords Combined

Carulli’s Method: Sing and Play

Scales:

- Singing is a great way to internalize music.- Scales are good material for singing, as they move by step in a logical fashion.- If this exercise is new for you, break it down in these ways:

- Work on the sung part and guitar part individually until comfortable.

- Once comfortable with those, then try putting the parts together one bar at a time.

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Sing and Play, Carulli’s Method: Scales

Singing is the best way to internalize music; to hear the music in one’s mind and know it on a whole new level.

Singing and playing guitar develops your musicianship tremendously, as you really start to feel how the melody and harmony work together.

This can unlock another dimension of your sight reading, as you can start to quickly internalize music on a deep level when these skills are matured. Singing and playing helps get you beyond a surface or superficial connection with the music you’re reading. Singing and playing helps to solidify many of the aspects that have been covered in this entire course (reading notes, reading rhythms, form, harmony, etc.)

Scales are a great starting point for singing, as the music is moving smoothly by step in an organized and logical fashion. The chords in the example below are all in the first position - chunking might be a good way to learn them quickly! If you need, practice the parts separately before putting them together.

Scale moving by semibreves

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Intervals:

- Singing intervals is a great way to gain fluency and an internal relationship with them.- Carulli breaks it down so that you focus on one interval at a time.- A short exercise is provided for you to get a reference for the interval.

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Sing and Play, Carulli’s Method: Intervals

Intervals are the distance from one note to another and were covered in Books 1 and 3. Singing intervals is a great way to solidify, reinforce and connect with them. The method Carulli uses is nice and logical, focusing on specific intervals at one time.

Thirds

Rhythms:

- Carulli provides exercise that focus on different note values, time signatures and other aspects of rhythm (triplets and syncopations).

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Sing and Play, Carulli’s Method: Rhythms

The following exercises focus on specific kinds of rhythms.

Exercise for minims in 4/4 time

Reference: Remember that the top notes of most chords match the note you’re singing.

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Sing and Play Pieces

Sing One Part and Play the Others

- Most guitar pieces are made up of multiple parts.- You can really boost your reading and musicianship skills by singing one voice and playing

the others.- This is a great synthesis of reading, rhythm, intervals, etc.

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Sing and Play, Pieces: Sing One Part and Play the Others

Almost all guitar pieces are made up of different parts, or voices. Singing one part and playing the others is a fantastic way to really internalize music.

The practice of this skill gives you greater awareness of what’s happening in the music at all times and in all places.

Guitar 1

Full Score

Sor Etude 8, op. 6

Sing top voice

Guitar 2

Full Score

Guitar 3

Sing middle voice

Guitars 2 & 3

Full Score

Play others

Guitars 1 & 3

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Play others

Sing low voice

Guitars 1 & 2

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Play others

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Melody and Chords Combined

- This is a more abstract way of distilling the music to its skeletal structure.- By doing this, you are taking away the nuances and intricacies of the music, making them

more apparent when you play the normal version.

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Sing and Play, Pieces: Melody and Chords Combined

Just about every guitar piece can be turned into a song by you singing the melody and playing the chord structure.

Internalizing a melody and quickly grasping the chord structure is one of the most powerful ways to read and learn a piece. If you can sing and play when sight reading, then it shows you have a crystal clear understanding of the music from a melodic, rhythmic and harmonic standpoint.

This process reveals things like:- The tension and resolution points between melody and harmony- The harmonic rhythm (the speed or rate at which chords change)- Patterns or repetitions of phrases or progressions (sequences, IV-V-I’s, etc.)

Sor Etude 8, op. 6

Guitar 1

Full Score

Sing melody

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Play/strum chords

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7 Day Sight Read Supercharge

A daily guide for every topic

Day 1: Sing a scale

Sing and Play, Carulli's Method Day 1: Sing a scale Day 2: Sing intervals Day 3: Singing rhythms

Sing and Play, Pieces Day 4: Sing one part and play the others Day 5: Melody and Chords combined

Let's keep today's task nice and simple.

Sing a C major scale and focus on enhancing:- Your intonation: listen to each note to ensure it's in tune.- Your rhythm: make sure each note is sung for an equal duration- Your tone: try to get the most beautiful tone from your voice that you can. The main key to doing this is to

listen!

Why is singing a scale important? Scales are one of music's essential building blocks - pieces are constructed out of them.

That means many of the building blocks you find in pieces - scale fragments, intervals and melodic motion - can be practiced by singing scales.

It also builds up your inner ear skills and your ability to internalize music!

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The next levelOnce you're really comfortable singing this C major scale, then try practicing and adding the guitar part to it.

Following this exercise in Book 4 are more scale studies you can practice, where the scales move at different rates - minims, crotchets, quavers, etc.

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Day 2: Sing intervals

Music is sometimes compared to physics, with ideas like motion and gravity that are inherent to music.

One of the ways music does this is through intervals. An interval is the distance or space from one note to another and each interval has a distinct degree of motion, movement and gravity from one note to another.

Singing intervals is the best way to feel this motion, which is very easily overlooked when playing them on guitar.

Getting inside of intervals can open up new realms of expression and nuance in your playing, plus gets you intimately more fluent with reading and identifying them.

Have a listen to this Chopin Nocturne, which uses many beautiful and expressive intervals.

https://youtu.be/xel8mSCyuvM





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Carulli goes through intervals nice and methodically, so that you can get to know and sing the most important ones.

Once again, I recommend singing the intervals on their own first and then playing the guitar part when you're comfortable.

Remember that the top note of the guitar part often contains the note you're singing, so you can use it to help give you a reference!

Below is a summary or extract of the intervals that Carulli provides, so you can have a quick go at each if you'd prefer.

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Task:

Try singing each interval and feel the space and expression that it contains.

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Day 3: Singing rhythms

I struggled with reading rhythm for a long time, until I started approaching it differently and in the manner outlined here.

Reading rhythms can be one of the most challenging aspects of sight reading.

You could distill sight reading into two elements: pitch and rhythm. That was really the overarching goal of Week 1 - to give you processes for practicing how your read those elements.

Week 4 is so much about reinforcing and internalizing what you learnt in Week 1 and today is especially so.

By singing with a focus on rhythm, you can start to internalize and understand rhythms like never before. You'll start to see rhythms like words and gradually build up your rhythm vocabulary.

After a certain point, you will read rhythms instantaneously, without any need for subdividing. But it will take focused and consistent practice to get there!



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Once again, Carulli takes us through a thorough and methodical program that now covers rhythms.

You could summarize the materials into 4 main categories:

1) Note values (minims, crotchets, quavers, etc.) 2) Time signatures (4/4, 2/4, 6/8, etc.) 3) Dotted rhythms 4) Irregular rhythms (syncopations and triplets)

It's highly recommended that you practice the vocal part on its own in strict time and use the time words you learned in Week 1.

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1) Note values (minims, crotchets, quavers, etc.)

2) Time signatures (4/4, 2/4, 6/8, etc.)

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3) Dotted rhythms

4) Irregular rhythms (syncopations and triplets)

Task:

Sing the vocal parts using time words.

Extra task: try using this process for the pieces you're reading or playing. Take the melody and sing it in strict time using

time words.

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Day 4: Sing one part and play the others

A piece of music is like a finely threaded tapestry, where all the individual strands come together to form a whole.

Learning to untangle these threads and put them back together again is a great way to really get to know a piece. That's what we'll focus on today by isolating the different layers that are contained in a piece of music.



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Now we can take the approach that Carulli used of singing + playing and apply it to pieces.

A piece is usually made up of different layers or voices (SATB - Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass for example).

By isolating each voice and singing it, you form a much stronger connection and awareness of it.

Then by playing the remaining voices, you really see how the part you're singing fits in with the others. Very often, there are conversations happening between different voices and practicing this process makes you much more aware of them.

This helps your sight reading tremendously, because you start to gain a deeper awareness of the whole fabric of a piece. Singing parts helps you better internalize the music also.

Task simplified: Sing the melody and play the other voices.

You can either choose a piece you're reading, or practice the example below.

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Day 5: Melody and Chords Combined

This is the final day and topic of the sight reading made simple course!

Congratulations on getting to this point - even if you've just skimmed through these guides, you've probably picked up on a lot of tools that will supercharge your sight reading.

The topic for today is one of my favorites, because it transforms a guitar piece into a song. There's just something about hearing a guitar piece as a song that just opens up new sounds, expressions and meanings.

Take this arrangement of Choros 1 by Villa Lobos for example:

https://youtu.be/z6BUK_bpgj4





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The process of singing a melody and playing chords teaches you a lot about a piece of music.

It helps your mind to pinpoint and distill the most essential structure of a piece of music. This is because many patterns are revealed - repetitions of harmonies, rhythms, phrases and melodic motives for example.

Note: Pieces that contain more chords are usually easier to use this process for.

I've used this process for many pieces and found it incredibly useful for understanding the harmony and melodic shape of a piece.

Task: Sing the melody and play/strum the chords.

You can either choose a piece you're reading, or practice the example below.

Just start small - 1 bar at a time is fantastic!

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Sight Reading Made Simple Appendix 4 - danielnistico.net