MEMORISING FOR SIGHT READING - Music and Youth, 1925 :-)

SIGHT READING is half memory, and to become a good sight reader you have to practise memorising at the same time. Here is a simple exercise to start with. Do not take it to the piano at once. Sit down with it away from the piano and notice the following things: -

1. The time is 3/4
2. The key is D minor. How do you know? The first bar tells you pretty plainly if you know your scales, and the last bar tells you still more plainly. If that isn't enough the two C sharps tell the same tale.
3. Bar 1 (Right Hand). The first four notes occupy only 1 beat. Count your first bar or use the Time Names.
4. Bars 1 - 3 (Right Hand). Each has the same "time pattern," and each begins with the first five notes of a different scale. Find these scales.
5. Bars 1 - 3 (Left Hand). The left hand only enters to play the chord of the scale which the Right Hand is playing - e.g in the first bar, the Right Hand plays the scale of D minor. The Left Hand plays the chord of that key.
6. Hum over to yourself the tune of the piece.
7. Look carefully at bars 4 - 6 and find out what chords these are - e.g bar 4, beat 3 is the chord of D minor, first inversion.

Now go to the piano and put the exercise on the music stand - upside down!

Play it, seeing how far you can get from your previous study of it. Notice where you break down, and pick yourself up if you can, making a good try to get through with one hand, even if you forget the other - to the end. 

Now look at your copy and see exactly where you have gone wrong. Did you hum the tune wrongly? Did you leave out that first chord in bar 4? Did you remember that the second chord in bar 5 was the second inversion of the key chord (D minor), and that the next was the chord of the dominant of that key? I won't even suggest that any of you forgot the C sharp in that chord, because I warned you of that, didn't I?