Sight Reading

The following is an excerpt from an article I am writing about the importance of learing to read music by sight.

I learned the importance of developing excellent sight reading skills very early in my musical education. When I was a sophomore in high school, I auditioned for a position in the Oakland Youth Symphony. In addition to performing a prepared solo and being able to play any of the twelve major and twelve melodic minor scales on command, I was expected to read at sight a piece of music with which I was completely unfamiliar. This was to be my first real test of my sight-reading skills and I was terrified. (And, as I recall, I was all the more nervous knowing that the sole judge of my audition was the Symphony’s director, Irv Monroe – principle flutist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra).

The page put before me was the opening theme of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, consisting of a syncopated rhythmic figure in 6/8 time. Is it in six or in two? How fast? And how does that rhythm go, anyway? I thought I performed terribly and was prepared to be humiliated by rejection. I was surprised to learn that not only was I accepted but I was awarded the position of principle clarinet, a chair usually reserved for a senior.

Figure 1 – Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5, Clarinet I

My tutors had often touted the importance of reading by sight and they often had me sight-read a portion of the next week’s lesson. It was this first nerve-racking experience that convinced me they were right and provided the motivation for me to develop and hone the skill. The payoff was the confidence to play anything put before me, whether as an unaccompanied soloist or as a member of a large ensemble.