A lot of the music we play, we tend to hear it first. We know how it sounds. We know what we’re shooting for when we got to actually play the piece before us in black and white dots sprinkled along the page. And then there are the other times. In auditions. evaluations, competitions, etc., there’d usually be a section on sight-reading. This bear of a task involves basically sitting down cold to a piece of unfamiliar music and playing it straight off. No clue how it’s supposed to sound. Basically, we’re challenged to fake it. Not only fake it, but fake it well. There are several reasons for this exercise, at least as far as I can tell and being somewhat removed from the situation these many years: Sight reading weeds out those who play primarily by ear, those who just follow along, and those whose sheet music skills are a bit lacking. There is, after all, faking it until you make it and out-and-out fraud. Sight reading shows observational skills: did you see that crescendo in the 12th measure? What about the key change or the coda? Missed that repeat in the second section? When we don’t pay [...]
