Have you ever started sight-reading a new piece of music and become flustered when you made a mistake? I sure have. After my initial piano lesson over 30 years ago, I remember my mom explaining to my piano teacher that when I made a mistake, I would start over at the beginning of the piece until I got it right. Nearly two decades later, I had another teacher who noted that I made a facial grimace every time I made a mistake. While aiming for accurate pitch is a worthwhile endeavor, placing unreasonable expectations for perfection at first sight is self-destructive and interferes with the musical flow needed for successful sight-reading.
Many factors cause pianists to fall in the trap of perfectionism. For starters, today nearly everyone is familiar with listening to many recordings where note errors are virtually non-existent. If these recordings are our primary exposure to music, it becomes very easy to develop a perception where even the smallest mistakes are unacceptable. However, many listeners may be unaware that these recordings have been edited to eradicate such pitch errors. Nevertheless recordings hold a huge unconscious influence over the audience to such an extent that competitions and music schools require almost total technical perfection.
So you may wonder what recordings and perfectionism have to do with learning to sight-read. The answer is that the influence of recordings affects our initial expectations so much that we often think that pianists should be able to sight-read everything perfectly the first time. The difficulty here is that the recordings exhibit a final performance that has been rehearsed for many months and sometimes years of practice beforehand. Sight-reading, in contrast, is the very first step in learning new music and involves no previous preparation whatsoever. If you compare your sight-reading efforts to what you hear on a recording, you will experience discouragement resulting from having unrealistic expectations. After all, no one records sight-reading so almost no models for sight-reading exist for the pianist.
Another difficulty with holding perfectionist expectations with sight-reading is the accumulation of tension. Not only will tension result in a less pleasant sound and possibly physical problems and injuries, but mental tension affects our overall mental attitude in a detrimental way. Negative comparisons, feelings of inferiority, and thoughts of sight-reading being difficult may lead some pianists to simply give up on sight-reading altogether.
Don't let this be you! Realize that your sight-reading does not have to be 100% accurate nor should it. Let go of expectations of perfectionism. Your sight-reading can still be very accurate with some mistakes. Don't let mistakes stop you from sight-reading or stop you in the middle of playing a piece. Keep going so that the heartbeat of music continues and aim for a general sense of fluency. A wrong note here or there will not kill the music, but stopping and hesitating definitely will! A wrong note is always better than a wrong rhythm or an unsteady tempo. Follow these guidelines and keep a good mental attitude and someday your perfectionism will vanish and your sight-reading will become more fluent as a result.
Stay tuned for more,
Robert
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