The Importance Of Teaching Sight Reading

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May 2016, about 40,110 people reported that they are musicians or singers (2017). Almost every one of these musicians can tell you they have encountered something called sight reading in their careers. Sight reading is when a musician or singer is given limited or no time to study a piece or etude and then is expected to play it right after with minimal errors. Sight reading is considered to be one of the most important skills to have in a music career. In a study, Mr. Freeburne asked public school teachers and college teachers in 19 states to rank keyboard skills. The choices were accompanying, improvising accompaniments, keyboard harmony, sight reading and transposition. Overall, the teachers …show more content…

Consequently, people made apps to help musicians learn to sight read music. There are also more traditional classrooms based techniques such as learning to identify the key signature used, read the first note, and then to skip a whole step, half step, or multiple steps. How does the app’s way of teaching sight reading compare to this classroom based approach of teaching sight reading? By researching this in a real classroom, we can determine the best approach for teaching middle school percussionists how to sight read …show more content…

During the experiment, the students will take three tests. The first test will be given before any teaching (“Week Zero”) and then each week after. The “first hour” groups (6-1 and 7-1) will start off by learning in a classroom setting, and the second hour groups will start by using the app. Then after a week, they will test and switch. The three sight reading tests will be given with a blinded judge (behind a wall or curtain). The tests will consist of an etude at a tempo between 100 and 120 bpm, crafted with only whole notes for sixth graders and only quarter notes for seventh graders. We are only testing for pitch identification in sight reading. Also, each grade will test on key signatures that are common (as in have been taught and played in context multiple times) to them but not C major. The students will not test with C major because it is one of the first and easiest scales for percussionists. Each week the etudes will be different. The results will NOT be compared between each class, but rather between each approach. Student scores represent the percentage of correct notes out of the total notes. If a note is repeated twice in a row, and the student correctly plays the pitches, it will count as two correct notes. One will then calculate the difference between the weeks and for that technique. For example, a student scores a 15% on

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