Siegmund
Well-known member
Some of you will remember the "8 week sightreading challenge" last fall (which came at a bad time for me to take part in it.)
I became acutely aware this past spring that I only had exercise books and 'hard' pieces, not much in the way of easy-to-medium music that might be good for daily sight reading. Well, I went to the opposite extreme, and now have 8 new books to use as sightreading material, 5 actual accordion-repertoire books and 3 fiddle tune books (melody + chord symbols only.) I currently rate 3 of the 8 as too hard for me to have any hope of getting through them without frustration, but I can now sightread a new short piece of music every day for some years to come.
Earlier this month I parked David DiGiuseppe's "100 Tunes for Piano Accordion" on my music stand,opened it to the first page, and said I'd try one new number every time I sat down at my instrument. I'm up to song #13 now, aim to get all the way to the back of the book before the year is out, and have started a list of which ones I want to go back to and properly learn later.
It also gives me a good feel for what patterns/leaps I know and which I need to learn still. I've been choosing arpeggios and batterns to drill based on what tripped up sightreading on a previous day.
So: anybody else want to join me?
Pick any book of songs you've got handy, and try one a day. Tell us what you picked, and peek into this thread every now and again and tell us how it's going.
I became acutely aware this past spring that I only had exercise books and 'hard' pieces, not much in the way of easy-to-medium music that might be good for daily sight reading. Well, I went to the opposite extreme, and now have 8 new books to use as sightreading material, 5 actual accordion-repertoire books and 3 fiddle tune books (melody + chord symbols only.) I currently rate 3 of the 8 as too hard for me to have any hope of getting through them without frustration, but I can now sightread a new short piece of music every day for some years to come.
Earlier this month I parked David DiGiuseppe's "100 Tunes for Piano Accordion" on my music stand,opened it to the first page, and said I'd try one new number every time I sat down at my instrument. I'm up to song #13 now, aim to get all the way to the back of the book before the year is out, and have started a list of which ones I want to go back to and properly learn later.
It also gives me a good feel for what patterns/leaps I know and which I need to learn still. I've been choosing arpeggios and batterns to drill based on what tripped up sightreading on a previous day.
So: anybody else want to join me?
Pick any book of songs you've got handy, and try one a day. Tell us what you picked, and peek into this thread every now and again and tell us how it's going.