drdavidevans.co.uk
Research
Piano sight-reading
PhD Research
Introduction
My thesis, supervised by Eric Clarke who is now Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, was completed back in 2008, my examiners reporting that it represented ‘an extremely impressive piece of original research’. Personal circumstances meant that I was unable at the time to begin publishing the results and proceed further with the work. Having revisited the thesis recently, though, and also having explored the limited amount of more recent research in the field, I am struck by the importance of my findings and how pertinent they are to the further development of sight-reading study. So, one of the projects on my list is to explore ways of belatedly publicising the work and perhaps taking it forward empirically.
I can only give a very cursory overview here, but if you fancy some bedtime reading my PhD thesis is available for download: Preview, perception and motor skill in piano sight-reading. My sister, who is neither musician nor psychologist, proofread the tome for me prior to submission and said that she found it straightforward to read and understand, so if you’re interested in sight-reading please don’t be put off by its academic credentials - I think you’ll find it enlightening and fascinating.
Previous research
I had initially been interested in researching the development of sight-reading skill among beginning pianists, but as I grew familiar with the prior research literature it became clear that the understanding of even normal, skilled sight-reading was distinctly lacking, and that the priority for research therefore was to address this state of affairs. The general understanding that had developed from the limited research undertaken earlier in the 20th century was that the ability of skilled music readers was dependent upon their being able have greater preview of oncoming notation than less-skilled readers, that is, they were able to look further ahead in the score beyond the notes currently being performed and by this more effectively plan their subsequent movements. From the 1970s, with the work of Professor John Sloboda, such greater use of preview began to be interpreted within a musical-structuralist perspective, the extra preview perceived by skilled readers being deemed to be mediated by their greater sensitivity to higher-order musical structure in the score. In other words, skilled readers see more patterns in the music which enable them to both store more items in working memory and encode them more quickly. By the early 2000s when I began my research, this ‘patterning account’ of sight-reading skill was the generally accepted theory.
My own research plans
There was a significant problem though: the theory had never been definitively demonstrated by controlled experiment but was simply assumed to be true. For example, research had indeed shown that skilled sight-readers made use of musical structure, but nobody had bothered to confirm experimentally that less-skilled sight-readers weren’t. Entire chapters of music psychology textbooks were devoted to talking-up the piecemeal evidence, with gaps in domain-specific data covered over by recourse to, for example, more general psychological principles and equivalent research from other domains, like touch-typing and text reading. None of this came with a health warning for the unsuspecting i.e. that such analogies risked being fallacious, the processing of graphical music notation being potentially a very different affair to that of syllabic text.
So for my PhD, the task ahead was clear - research was needed that would enable a comprehensive, controlled testing of the validity of the patterning account using purely music-based empirical evidence. These research plans led to far more work than I ever could have imagined, one of the main reasons for this being that I had to teach myself computer programming so that I could design all the necessary experimental software. The centrepiece of this software was a programme that enabled me to control the amount of preview available to subjects i.e. how many notes they could see ahead beyond the note/chord they were currently playing.
My research findings
My experimental findings blew the patterning account completely out of the water, but there was actually so much more to the results than this. The project was the most detailed comparison of skilled and less skilled sight-readers (controlled for rehearsed performance ability) ever undertaken and provided many unexpected insights into their different ways of processing musical notation. For example, although, as expected, skilled readers were generally found to make use of larger amounts of preview than less-skilled readers, this was not always the case. Moreover, the observed differences were considerably less than had been previously assumed by the patterning account proponents. The evidence also indicated that the generally larger preview use of the skilled group was actually not the primary source of their ability (an explanation that had been considered a truism since the earliest days of sight-reading research) but rather an expression of it. Skilled readers, it seems, are simply more efficient at processing very short groups of notes than less-skilled readers, and it is this efficiency that mediates their ability to usefully look further ahead in the score. With regard to sensitivity to musical structure, the effect was actually quite small for skilled readers but considerably stronger for the less-skilled - completely the reverse of patterning account expectations. Although perhaps initially counterintuitive, this finding is actually straightforward to interpret in simple perceptuo-motor terms: because skilled readers have superior perceptuo-motor skills, they simply need less recourse to working memory efficiency aids like patterning. On the other hand, less-skilled readers need all the help that they can get from any source possible!
I also undertook experiments which attempted to isolate and measure the perceptual and motor components of sight-reading skill. Taken all together, my empirical work shows skilled sight-reading to be fundamentally just an ordinary, although admittedly complex, perceptuo-motor task susceptible to limited processing efficiencies with tonally coherent music, and indicative of well-developed underlying perceptual and motor skill components. An individual analysis of my less-skilled subjects suggests that while most were less capable in both perceptual and motor terms than skilled readers, for some the locus of skill-deficiency appeared to lie within just one of these modalities. There are also indications that for others the limiting factor was situated at the interfacing of the perceptual with the motor. Clearly these findings are only tentative and much more work needs to be done; but with a primary role for musical structure in explaining sight-reading skill now discredited - and in the latest edition of the Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology Professor Andreas Lehmann, previously a patterning account proponent, does admit this (although I don’t get any mention or credit!) - we are at least headed in the right direction now. It is perhaps telling that the the two pieces of research that Lehmann references as calling into question the account cannot, in fact, be credited with such an achievement, each having its own issues with experimental design and inadequate controls. I give up…
Rethinking the teaching of music reading at the piano
Psychological theories inevitably have pedagogical implications. The implication of the patterning account is that the limiting factor on sight-reading skill is the ability to read the higher-level structures present in the music, and so patterning account proponents would therefore advise the novice sight-reader to seek not to read note-by-note but primarily to learn to discern the structural, grammatical links between the notes (this never quite made logical sense to me). However, the pedagogical implications of my own research findings are that it is reading note-by-note that is the essential skill, and that this must be sufficiently developed to allow for further structure-related efficiency gains.
If simple perceptuo-motor skill is fundamental to learning to read music at the piano, it follows that we would want to utilise a pedagogical approach that makes this as easy as possible for the student. Most approaches to learning the piano involve identifying the notes according to their letter names, typically by some form of mnemonic. So, to transcribe a note from score to keyboard, a double translation process is involved whereby the student firstly names the note by reference to its position on the score and then finds the relevant key on the keyboard possessing that name (in the correct register). Although some beginners have no problems with this, in my experience the vast majority struggle because of the arbitrariness of the labels involved - the letters are merely names imposed upon the lines/spaces and keys, not having any intrinsically meaningful association with what they represent. The problem is compounded when the student is faced with decoding treble and bass clef notation simultaneously. Later on in their progress, as students start to need to understand the music they are learning to aid interpretation, the use of letter names in the reading process becomes essential. But right at the start of their musical journey what is needed more than anything is the encouragement of an approach to reading that helps them find the correct notes as easily as possible.
To help ease the learning process, some teachers turn to the use of alternative notation, for example the use of colours, but as helpful as this may be in the early stages, at some point the student must learn to engage with standard black and white musical scores, which may prove a problematic step. The approach that I have developed uses standard musical notation, but labels the lines and spaces in a logical manner that relates them directly to the keyboard, emphasising the graphical nature of the score and hence making the reading process rather like following a map. A particular advantage of the method is that the same labels are used for both treble and bass clef notes, meaning that the traditional problem of differing treble and bass encryption is avoided, and hands together reading can comfortably begin even at the very first lesson. Gradually over time the use of letter names can be superimposed onto the method.
I have spent many years developing and refining this approach with my students, and it is finally at a stage where its effectiveness has been fully demonstrated to my complete satisfaction - it works brilliantly and I could not teach beginners in any other way now. The approach is also useful for more advanced students who have problems with music reading. I am currently in the process of developing various teaching resources to enable other teachers to explore the use of this method.
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Piano technique
This short piece below provides some brief, personal background to my work in this area. In due course I will add articles that go into more detail about my understanding of piano technique and my approach to teaching it,.
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I really don’t think I was ever taught much about piano technique in my youth, and if the students that pass my way are anything to go by this would still seem to be a not uncommon state of affairs. The emphasis was on ends rather than means, and my ‘go to’ method for more challenging passages was simply trying harder rather than seeking a more streamlined way of doing things. Indeed, I didn’t understand enough about technique to even attempt anything more streamlined. The ‘trying harder’ method gained me a good distinction at Grade 8 but as I sought to progress further, things began to unravel.
In my mid-twenties I started having neck pain and tingling in my fingers. Over time things deteriorated further until I was eventually diagnosed with overuse injury and for a while had to stop playing completely because of the discomfort and pain. Various therapies helped to manage the condition, but for several years I was very limited in the amount of playing I could sustain. Teachers I had at the time, although great musicians, weren’t able to help me discover what it was specifically in my playing technique that was causing the problems and so I ended up coming to the conclusion that I simply wasn’t designed to be a pianist. I also read plenty of books on technique but found them frustratingly incomplete and unhelpful - outwardly, I seemed to be doing everything correctly. I was amused to read many years later in Piano Notes by the American pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen that ‘almost all books on learning to play the piano are absurd’. He didn’t seem to have a particularly high view of piano teachers either: ’most pianists, in fact, have to work to some extent in late adolescence to undo the effects of their early instruction’. I, personally, had to wait until I was a bit older to have the understanding to undertake this, and the catalyst was stumbling across Alexander Technique.
I undertook a course of Alexander Technique lessons and finally began to understand the source of my problems. Although outwardly I seemed to be doing all the correct movements, hidden away inwardly things were a mess. For the first time, to my shame, I began to learn about the importance of coordination in bodily movement, fluency involving just the right balance of tension and relaxation. I also gained the essential understanding that for true ease, movements need to be coordinated in a top-down manner. For example, a movement of the hand involves a complex web of structural connections beginning in the torso, and misuse and unnecessary tension further up the movement hierarchy may not only effect the control and efficiency of the end hand movement but also lead to strain and injury. Armed with this new understanding I began a process of movement reeducation that impacted not just my piano technique but also how I used my body in everyday life.
So, approaching technique from this top-down perspective, I basically taught myself to play the piano again, my guiding principles being firstly whether movements were comfortable and pain-free, and secondly whether they produced a musically effective result. Having had to completely rework in fine detail my own playing as an adult has given me crucially important insights into the actual teaching of technique (I was my own guinea pig). Through a continual process of refinement with young and old, beginners and advanced students, I’ve broken technical development down into relatively simple, logical pedagogical steps that prioritise understanding and self-discovery (you need to prove technique from your own experience), that are efficient in the way that new skills are introduced at an appropriate time (building organically upon earlier foundations) and that ultimately deliver results in terms of beautiful, imaginative playing.
The authors of most contemporary books on piano technique would doubtless agree with what I have said about arms, hands and fingers needing to be coordinated in a functional, top-down manner. The problem is how to achieve this in practice. It is my contention that most technical approaches only serve to undermine the very coordination that they seek to create. Let me justify what might appear an arrogantly dismissive claim. Up to the middle of the 19th century the principal piano playing method was finger technique, which as its name suggests focused on playing with finger power from the knuckles, the rest of the hand and the arm remaining still and providing no weight to aid the fingers - a recipe for tension if ever there was one. No one would recommend this as a sensible ultimate technical goal nowadays, but nevertheless most technical approaches, including, for example, the Russian school that aims to develop the kind of top-down co-ordination I have been advocating, start beginners off in this very manner. The problem here is that the correct use of the fingers requires the intimate support of the hand and arm to prevent unwanted tension from building up, particularly in the forearm. But if students have no prior understanding of how this arm support works and feels, controlling the tension becomes a challenge, and the issue risks becoming habitual. Later, as the student is introduced to the concept of arm weight, the aforementioned and by now probably habitual forearm tension will typically result in a stiffness and lack of flexibility in the use of the arm as a whole, leading to excessive pressure as the notes are depressed. As a consequence, students end up not being able to use either their fingers or their arms in a natural, organically coordinated manner. Of course a small minority of students may quickly get the knack but these cannot exactly be claimed as a success story for the method itself. For most students, it seems to me, there is only one logical way out of this unfortunately common impasse - to start again, this time learning to play the fingers from the arm, not the knuckle (a surprisingly sensitive way of playing as long as you’re not attempting to perform too quickly) and developing flexibility, ease and delicacy in the use of the shoulder, arm, elbow and wrist. At an appropriate time finger movement can be added to the mix, and the arm movements required to support the finger power explored out of an already well-developed appreciation of how the arm itself functions.
The proof of the pudding in all of this has been the success stories of my students. I’ll close by mentioning just one, Dr Shaun McGee, a semi-retired hospital consultant. Shaun started lessons with me four years ago having previously achieved a very creditable result for his Grade 6.,though his technique was somewhat stiff and very much dependant on finger technique as discussed earlier. There was a lot of tension to be dealt with and some unhelpful technical habits were deeply ingrained. However, with patient hard work and following the approach described above Shaun managed to turn his playing completely around, and discover a whole new ease, sense of freedom and expression in his playing. He speaks of finally being able to play what he was imagining in his head. Earlier this year (2021) he took his Grade 8 and scored a 93% distinction grade - a stunning result for anyone, but for someone who was an adult late starter, quite extraordinary. He scored full marks for one of his pieces, an Improvisation by Poulenc. Here’s what the examiner wrote: This was a superb performance with a delicate touch on the piano. A sensitive opening with an effective dynamic contrast and a secure accompaniment on the left hand. Well-articulated phrases and good use of the pedal projecting the melody. A very emotional performance with a great level of musicality. Congratulations.
If this approach to learning the piano resonates with you and you are interested in having lessons with me, do make contact via the website contact form. As well as my teaching in the Southampton area, I am also available to the wider world via Skype or Zoom, or whatever is your preferred video conferencing platform.