I am high school clarinetist who is planning on becoming a performing musician. I am also homeschooled, which has kept me from falling into a rut with other high school clarinetists. I`m able to practice up to 6 hours a day sometimes. But, one thing that has been bad about it is that I haven`t been exposed to alot of different music. I am in the local youth orchestra and I take private lessons but neither require alot of sight-reading skills. To make it simple, I need to learn how to sight-read before all my college auditions. I have no idea how to improve that skill. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Sight reading for the most part is the ability to recognize patterns right away. If you are familiar with all of your scales and thirds, then for the most part you should be ok. Just because it was not written for clarinet does not mean that you are not allowed to play it! You can sight read anything you want.

It`s just a matter of playing different kind of music with different patterns in it then, suddenly, you will recognise these patterns. Also play things that isn`t scales. Scales are easy to predict, the first real pattern you learn probably, so try playing pieces jumping irregulary from one tone to the other in different patterns.

As a freshman I got a 68/70 points on the sightreading portion of my All Region Band audition, and I got the highest score for sightreading at my city`s youth orchestra. And I did that by always reading new stuff every day. Practicing the same thing over and over will not make you a better sightreader. I never practiced exercises or scales or anything. Heck, I`ve never even had a teacher. But I`d just pick up any music that was laying around, piano, clarinet, violin music, and just play through it. Don`t work on anything for too long. Also---when you`re playing slow music for sightreading, PAY VERY MUCH ATTENTION TO PHRASING. So that`s about it, just pick up some books with random music in it and just play through them. A lot. Anyway, good luck. -Jackie

oops

Thanks.

Im right where your at, gurl! Im also planning to be a major in music, but right now im only a Freshman so I should focus on my music; right?! Yeah, so Ive been auditioning for the past 4 years, and sightreading hasent been my favorite out of the auditions. Ive always had trouble, but first you need just to ramdomly find a hard piece youve never seen before. Study for it a good 30sec-1min. Always seems to improve for me. Always watch your accidentals, phrasing, and fast articulation. And, the reason why I havent been good at sightreading lately, is because I seem to freak out when it comes to it. If there`s a certain rhythem I cant get in the beginning of the piece, I seem to stare at it in confusement. DONT DO THAT. Go on and come back to it if you have time. Im just relating my problems to better help you. Good luck with performing, and hopefully ill see you in the spotlight some time. Lol. Ill be coming up behind you!
Good luck and best wishes,
hayley

always have great tone, thats the majority of the score. practice long-tones to help find that inner tone.

TY everyone. I disagree with the tone comment because rhythmn is infintely more important than tone (I do long tones/scales/tonguing excersizes for an hour everyday), but I have been sight reading alot of music lately and I think I`m starting to catch on...

The stuff people are saying about pattern recognition is the biggest factor in sight-reading. My sight-reading is virtually flawless (provided the music is within my limits), and this is because I`m not sitting there going "Ok, that`s a Bb...that`s a D... that`s an F... that`s another Bb- oh I get it! That`s an arppeggio!" (Not that I`m saying that that`s what you do, but a lot of people do.)

you can sight read anything you want, even if it isn`t clarinet music. My band conductor has a new peice for the band to sight-read at every practice, I used to hate him for it but now I am so happy he does it bacause I have gotten into a [u]lot[/u] of ensembles becuase of it.