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Description
The ability to sight-read is a vital skill to pianists. There are many long-term benefits, such as being able to learn more repertoire in less time. In the professional world, musicians with better sight-reading skills have greater opportunities for collaboration with other instrumentalists and vocalists. Good sight-readers may also have a better chance to be hired as a church musician, accompanist, or music teacher. In the United States, curricula have been designed to develop sight-reading in group or private piano lessons. These curricula are used to supplement standard piano method books that utilize note reading as the primary teaching approach. Alternatively, there are curricula from Japan that focus on aural techniques such as singing solfége to teach beginning piano students. The purpose of this study is to identify the sequential strategies used for sight-reading in the United States, to apply these reading strategies to an aural solfége-based curriculum through the development of original sight-reading exercises and procedures, and to provide teachers with a collection of customized sight-reading materials. This study was limited to the examination of three sight-reading curricula used in the United States, including Four-Star Sight-Reading and Ear Tests by Boris Berlin, Sight Reading by Lin Ling Ling, and Improve Your Sight-reading! by Paul Harris. These sightreading series were examined according to seven criteria including organizational framework, fingering, hand coordination, rhythm, key signatures, harmony, and aural development. Selected strategies from these curricula were applied to the development of original sight-reading exercises and procedures to accompany pieces in a solfége-based curriculum called Yamaha's Young Musician's Course (YMC). After five pieces were selected from each of the first three levels of YMC, three to four sight-reading exercises were designed for each piece. The teaching procedures for each exercise followed a sequence of rhythm, direction and interval, pitch, and play. Several techniques used in this process incorporated singing solfége prior to playing, combining aural techniques with sight-reading. In conclusion, there were three primary characteristics that were shared among the examined sight-reading curricula: the sight-reading exercises were short in length (four measures), focused on one concept, and progressed gradually in challenge. In designing the sight-reading exercises that correspond with the repertoire of YMC, these standards were maintained
