Hey,
I've been working pretty hard on my new year's resolution (to read standard notation better than I do now), and i've been
,
,
. and even
, and it's only been 7 or 8 days, (i've actually been working on this for about 3 weeks, but I digress.)
I'm just wondering about reading the notation. I remember taking piano lessons, and hearing the instructor say "look at the note, and say the note ALOUD, as you also play it" (which is coming from deep within my sub-conscious, because the last I took lessons was when i was <10 years old!), but i find that I often drift out of speaking/singing the notes, and that I can play at a higher speed, but often I'm playing from memory, and not from the paper. So, I sort of have to be honest with myself, about the speed I'm comfortable playing at, and capable of playing at, and it is possible to speed up based on memorization. But it's difficult for me to be objective about myself in this regard. How do I maintain that honesty, that objectivity?
Also, I'm having trouble with Cradle Song (by Brahms). Mel Bay does a stripped down version, but it's packed with three note chords, and I'm not able to process the chords very comfortably. I started playing the top note of the chords, and plan on adding the second/third note. Is this a good strategy? Do i need to be able to read all the notes simultaneously? Or should I be able to rely on recognizing the shape of the chordal tones as the appear on the staff?