As I talked to my various musician friends and acquaintances about sight-reading this summer, I noticed that virtually all of them (including Russell) independently volunteered the view that the pianist Leo Marcus is the best sight reader they know. Leo was a friend of my mother’s and I’ve known him for as long as I remember, so I wrote to him to ask whether he’d be willing for me to interview him about sight-reading, and he very kindly agreed. What follows is a transcript of our discussion, edited for length and clarity.
LM: I have a lot of ideas about sight reading on the piano– piano solo and piano in the context of a chamber group. I'm not sure how much of that transfers to viola or a non-piano instrument. There are technical differences between playing the piano and playing the viola. The differences in sight-reading difficulty are, I think, pretty important– not that one is easier than the other, but the difficulties are different. So, there are some specific techniques on how to sight-read the piano that I know about, which I don't believe apply to the viola or any string instrument.
EHC: I mean, I've been trying to transfer ideas about how people become expert in chess to how one might practice sight-reading on the viola. I can't believe that sight reading on the piano isn't more similar to sight reading on the viola than that!
LM: With regard to sight-reading in the context of a chamber music group, the main difference is that the piano is usually playing off the score. With that comes an advantage and a responsibility.
The advantage is that if you learn to read the score while you're playing, you see what everybody else is doing.
EHC: Yep.
LM: And you really don't have to worry about counting. The disadvantage is that you have the responsibility to see what everybody else is doing, and to help the group as a whole. The responsibility is much more on the pianist than any other member of the group, to help the group as a whole, and not just worry about your own part. In a sense it’s a responsibility, but it also comes with a certain ease in the fact that you really don't have to play your part as written. You just have to play your part so that everybody else thinks that it's right.
So, is this a piece nobody knows? Everybody knows? Or somebody knows, but not the other people?
For all of those situations, what determines whether the play-through is good or not is different, right?
Some people that know the piece have expectations, and if it doesn't meet those expectations, then they're going to feel it's not very good. But if nobody knows it, then as long as you get through it, you've sort of succeeded, right?
There's another dynamic – the pianist has a responsibility that usually a string player doesn't have, unless you're the sole string player that knows the piece really well, and nobody else does: You can communicate to other people, not verbally necessarily, although that's not forbidden, usually with some other means of communication, like body movement, or eye-contact.
Anyway, that's my introduction. Okay, so now, ask away.
EHC: That's very interesting, and causes me to think in a bunch of new directions that I hadn't been explicitly thinking before, so thank you. One question is, what do you remember about the process whereby you learned to sight read?
LM: I'm still learning. I'm still learning.
EHC: Okay, well, the process whereby you're learning to sight read.
LM: Again, this responds mostly to the issue of the pianist in a chamber group. There are certain similarities to when you're playing a solo. There are some techniques that you need to practice. The first thing is: in both cases, never look at your hands. Never look at your hands.
How do you practice that? You practice scales and arpeggios and leaps in the piano. The leaps are some of the most difficult things to get right. Usually, they come in the left hand. That can be difficult, and the way you practice that is simply by repetition and correction. If your eyes are closed, how do you know that you're leaping correctly? You feel the distance. It's like a string instrument – you feel the distance you have to go to get the note.
EHC: Yeah.
LM: Usually, the pianist doesn't have that problem, but when you're playing blind like that, you have the same problem that a string player has. The difference is –not that it's harder or easier– the difference is that usually the leaps are longer, because the keyboard is bigger than the fingerboard. So you can have very large leaps very quickly, both going down and coming up, one at a time, two hands in the same leap, two hands with different leaps. You can practice all those different combinations with your eyes closed. And that's something I actually do.
Then, of course, besides the leaps, you have the regular technical things, like scales and arpeggios and all those kinds of things. You can also practice those with your eyes closed.
Now, in reality, when you're playing from a score, your eyes are not closed. Still, you should not look at your fingers. However, there is peripheral vision. If you get used to that, you can see where your hands are while you're looking straight ahead. And not only that, you can feel, because the keyboard is distributed, with 3 black keys, then 2 black, then three black. You can feel where your hands are. and that becomes subconscious. You can know if you're playing the right notes, just by feeling. Of course, you have to have to practice that also.
These are all things that you can actually practice. It's not ‘just keep playing’. You could definitely accelerate your learning rate by practicing these specific techniques.
The reason why jumps are more important than scales and arpeggios is that usually a jump is a significant musical event. The note you're jumping to has more significance than a random note and a scale, statistically speaking and architecturally speaking. It's a more significant note than some internal note in a scale, or an arpeggio, even. So what this implies is that if you're reading, don’t worry so much about the individual notes and scales and arpeggios, but rather, give more attention to any jump that's going to be coming up.
Of course, if you're reading it, you really don't know ahead of time, but you can see, right? You see ahead, you know: traffic is going to be difficult ahead.
There is a difference between the significance of different kinds of notes and the importance of getting them. In a violin, some notes are also more significant than others, obviously: A melody is more important than some random scale or some random arpeggiated complicated bunch of notes. It's more important to get exactly the right notes. Other notes are not as important. In that case you'd like to play in the right key, and the right dynamics. Dynamics is also very important– you don't want to play too loud, and piano especially has that problem.
What do string players always complain about the pianist? Too loud, and the tempo is rushed. Those are things that the pianist can practice, actually, just by keeping them in mind.
EHC: When you're sight reading, how many notes are you looking at at a time?
LM: So of course that depends. The question is not how many notes; it's more, rather, how many beats are you reading? If you're reading, if there's a ton of notes in a beat, then you really don't care. What you'd like to be able to is realize what the harmonic nature is, more or less, and play something that's in the right key and the right volume. You don't want to get excited and play a lot of notes faster just because you don't know what they are! That's sort of counterproductive.
EHC: So are you always conscious of the harmony and where the notes that you're playing fit into the harmony of the piece when you're playing?
LM: Always? I mean, that's the goal, right? It depends. Some things you can do moderately easily, others are more difficult, depending on the number of accidentals there are, or compound accidentals.
In those cases, if you're not too sure, just play it a little bit softer, and hopefully the other players will have something, so that will be sufficient. When you have a bunch of complicated chords in a row, usually on first reading the actual harmonic structure that is there is not that important if it goes by fast. The ear's not going to catch it anyway. More often than not, what you want is just sort of a harmonic lack of clarity there. If it looks complicated, play something that sounds complicated, you know? Again, if somebody really knows the piece, they might think you're a little bit crazy, but I think that you don't really have an alternative. The idea is to keep going. Keep going.
That's another thing that the pianist has the responsibility for. If a string player's totally lost and has no chance, and the pianist is not helping by either shouting out the beat or the rehearsal letter, then you just want to keep going.
EHC: Well, of course, in a lot of string pieces, there isn't a pianist at all, so in that case…somebody still has to make sure we keep on going!
LM: Yeah. Hopefully in the near future there will be apps that allow you to see more as you're playing – the relevant parts of the score will pop up, or something, above your part. In theory, you could play off the score if you had a good page-turner. But string players are not used to that currently, and I think it’s more of a burden to them than a help. But that would be the ideal goal, that if you're reading, you should know what everybody else is playing.
EHC: I have noticed that this year at the Chamber Music Conference: There are apps that allow you to turn pages with a foot pedal, and I saw for the first time a significant number of string players using those apps to play from scores, which I thought was really interesting.
LM: Oh, playing from scores, that's good. The foot pedal is very good, too, yeah. Of course, you have to turn more often then, unless you get a bigger tablet. It would be nice if your part was larger than the other parts, but that's just a technical detail.
EHC: When you are looking ahead at notes, in what sense do you hear them in your head before you've played them? Do you know what they're going to sound like, or are there aspects of the sound that you feel like you know, or is that not really important?
LM: Well, you're always looking ahead a little bit. It's hard to explain how that works, but once you've seen something, your fingers sort of do it based on that previous information. You can look ahead a little bit, and that gives you information on how to play that, depending on where it's going. Looking ahead a little bit will tell you that you're going to make a little rubato, or if there's a crescendo coming. It allows you to play much more musically if you know where it's going, even a little bit.
I'm not sure to what extent you can actually do that for the long-term goals, but something you see right ahead of you does impact how you play, let's say, a measure before, depending on the speed. If you see something a second or two before you actually get there, you can change what you're doing based on what you see is going to be happening.
EHC: How do you think about rhythm as you sight-read? Something that I noticed that I am particularly struggling with, is moving from one kind of note to another kind of note, and if they're sufficiently different from each other, I sort of lose the thread of the beat. I'm curious what kind of awareness you have of where you are in the bar, and what rhythms look like.
LM: Well, obviously, you can get cases where it's very difficult to do that. Ordinarily, before you start, you look at the piece, you just sort of scan. ‘Okay, I've got this piece. There are going to be triplet quarters coming up, you know, in a measure. I’d better think about that! I’d better count in 2 instead of in 4. I think doing a lot of that helps. There may be actual exercises for that, but I don't think I’ve run across specific exercises for changing rhythms while you're maintaining the tempo.
EHC: So, you're talking looking over things in advance at the beginning of a piece. One of the things I'm interested in right now is trying to improve the strategy with which I'm looking at a piece for the 15 seconds before I start. I'm wondering what you see when you look at a piece before you start playing, what you think is important to notice.
LM: So, first of all, you can judge appropriate tempo by looking ahead and seeing what is there.
You look at it and start to feel your part in the meter that's there, see what the inherent rhythm is, which gives an idea of the tempo. Should I be subdividing? Should I count? You can look ahead and see.
Now, I've found it's usually easier to read at approximately the correct tempo, because the goal, as we said, is not to play every note correctly, but it's to get a good impression of the way the piece should sound. And if you play slow and correctly, it's a false approximation of what it should sound like. If you play it approximately the right tempo, but with leaving out some notes, usually it's better. That tempo's choice then affects all the other compromises you're going to make about which complicated passages you're going to approximate. If you have a bunch of arpeggios, but it's in a certain key, you can not play the whole arpeggio, just play the chord.
EHC: So at any given moment, do you know what key the thing that you're playing is?
LM: Well, it'd be a good idea, yeah, because then you don't have to worry so much about playing individual notes, you can play things in the right key, and whether it's the right note or not is less important. And then you have an idea by looking at a couple of bars about what kind of texture you're aiming for, what that texture feels like, and so you could approximate that texture even if you're not playing exactly the notes.
Of course, if you just scan the first couple of measures, you don't know what's going to happen later on.
But at least start correctly. And then you can adapt if there are slower sections or faster sections as you get there. But if you have a basic tempo and rhythmic concept before you begin, that that could get you a long way.
Now, of course, many times, you're sort of stuck as a group, and you have to stop and start, and stop and talk about the tempo. Because sometimes, you can be playing correctly, but it's hard for somebody that's not familiar with that to understand what that tempo is, even if you're playing it exactly right. If they don't know what it is, it could be misinterpreted. So, at that point, you might have to just say, okay, here's the beat. There's nothing wrong with counting out loud in that case. There are certain things that the pianist is allowed, and actually should do as a responsible ensemble manager that are above just playing. Namely, talking. Getting people’s attention, either through eye contact or singing.
For instance, oftentimes I've found that one of the main problems that string players have is that they have a number of measures of rest, and then it’s hard for them to come in at the right place. So when you see that somebody has a long number of measures of rest, get their attention, and give them the cue for their entry. That often saves the group from having to stop.
It’s sort of the pianist’s duty to corral everybody. These are the tools that he or she has available. And I'm prepared to use them. It's nothing personal, this is just, you know, part of my toolbox that I do. I'm happy to do it, I'm happy not to do it.
EHC: I'm struck in listening how to how you talk about this. It reminds me of my mother, I think.
LM: Really?
EHC: It sounds like your approach to the music involves something that's tailored to the particular other people with whom you are playing. It's personal to the situation rather than just being about playing the music in front of you. Rather, you play the music in a context which involves understanding something about the other musicians and what their strengths are, and what kinds of help they are going to need. There are string players who are definitely thinking about these kinds of things too, even (or especially) if there is not a pianist present. They hear everything that other people are playing, even though they don't have the score, and they're paying attention to what they need to do in order to help people.
I'm also interested at the moment in the idea that sight reading, like other skills, benefits from building up mental representations that allow you to understand what's important. You've mentioned a few of them that you're thinking about: You're thinking about the key a lot. You're thinking about the sort of texture that is based upon looking at the rhythm, dynamics, and articulation ideas. Are there other things that help you to know what is important to play?
LM: You have to sort of… on the fly, realize what is significant. What's the melody, or what is a thematic piece, as opposed to second-order thing which is subordinate to something else. So you could be the main thing, or you could be subordinate.
EHC: Right.
LM: And there are various degrees of subordination, depending on how relevant the particular thing you're playing is to the general effect. If you're aware of that, you can usually make an effort, at least, to bring that out. If you're playing with a violin, for example, and you have a little thing which is contributing to the effect, but it's not the main thing, you want to make sure that the main thing is heard by everybody.
And if you have a complicated accompaniment, and you have other things to do, and you feel that it's too hard to get every note right, at least get the harmonic structure right. Sometimes the rhythmic structure is more important than the harmonic structure, depending on how simple the harmonic structure is. You have this trade-off between the harmony and the rhythm, essentially. If you're playing something that's an accompaniment, it might almost be more important to get the rhythm right, than the exact harmony, when you have to make a choice.
EHC: I think my last questions have to do with state of mind while sight reading. I wonder whether you have any thoughts about the discipline involved in trying to keep your mind on the task at hand, and how to avoid zoning out, and then getting frustrated as a result of being not properly focused.
LM: The frame of mind is something more psychological, which varies on the population of the group you're playing with. Some groups are easy to have a nice frame of mind, easy, free-going, and allow you to do that. Others require more tight control, more of those kinds of hints, or helps, or nudges. And those can be more stressful, simply because you have more to do in quantity because you don't have to worry only about your own part. If you don't worry about the other parts, then the thing is going to continually break down.
If you realize that that's the situation, then perhaps you have to be even calmer than you were, just playing in a group that doesn't need any help. You also realize that if you're going to have to help them more, they're going to expect less from you in terms of what you're doing. You can play less and help more, and still make the group effect better than if you just concentrated more on yourself.
Of course, that's tricky if you don't know the people, but you might find out very soon. And of course, you can't solve all the problems in terms of how people are playing. I don't have that great people skills, per se. I know what the goal is, but sometimes I don't know the best way to phrase it, and sometimes people will say, if you're being too solicitous, that's counterproductive. So that's a tricky question, exactly how you deal with individual personalities, which does affect your own frame of mind when you play.
If I’m playing with people I don't know anything about, at that point, I usually try to say, ‘Here's the way I'm going to try to handle things. I might shout a measure number out, or sing a part. This is not personal, this is in line with what I think is the best way to achieve this goal of a reasonable understanding of what the piece should sound like. Does anybody have any objection to that?’ If they do, then I don't do it, and we just stop every so often. The pianist shouldn't be trying to prove anything such as I can play louder than you, faster than you. More notes than you. That's not the goal. That's a different game. I don't like to play that game anymore. So the idea is to work together to get as good an idea as possible of what you think the piece should sound like, and enjoy the piece for what it is.
EHC: Do you talk to yourself in words when you are playing? For example, ‘There's a tricky passage up ahead,’ or ‘Oh, that didn't go very well.’
LM: No, never. That's a waste of energy.
EHC: Psychologically, some people have suggested that there are two mental systems. There's the intuitive system that's that's faster, and there's a sort of logical facility, which is slower and more conscious and deliberate and, for example, relating to words. When you are playing, do you feel like it's entirely your intuitive system that's playing, or is the conscious mind involved as well?
LM: One example of the latter is that in most classical pieces, something that you played may come back later in the same movement, maybe in a different key. Usually if it's a significant piece of harmony or melodic twist, it likely is going to come back later. So based on your first acquaintance with it, you get some familiarity with it. You may have played it wrong, in the wrong key, or the wrong rhythm, and you make a mental note of that, so next time you can do it better when it comes back. That I do consciously. I think ‘That harmony wasn't right, and so next time we'll be more careful when I get to a similar thing, to look at the left hand a little more closely and be able to correct.’ That's the ideal situation.
EHC: So you’re conscious of when things didn’t go perfectly, and what didn’t go perfectly, and what aspect of it would need more focus in order to be better next time, so that you will be ready for a similar section coming up, and be ready to pay attention to it in the future.
LM: That is the goal, yes. I mean, it's not always successful, but that's the idea, to try to do that.
EHC: Do you think, then, that as you play, your conscious mind is thinking about the structure of the piece, so that you know when to expect the part that was tricky last time to come back?
LM: That's a sort of a next-level kind of awareness. Because not only does it tell you that this particular passage is coming, but it might say, oh, so here's a crescendo that's going to be building to that thing.
Oftentimes you can't really tell whether you've reached the end of a crescendo, or how significant that crescendo will end up being. But if you've been through it already, then maybe you know because that's just the way the piece is built. That kind of thing allows you to get more of a spatial and a structural idea of how to play things.
EHC: Neat! What questions should I have asked you that I didn't ask you?
LM: Here's a question you didn't ask: How do you share the ensemble management with other string players who think that they have something to contribute also?
That shouldn't be a competition. Everybody should be able to contribute to that. Because even though you see the whole score, you're not focusing so closely on the individual parts, and it could be that somebody sees something that they think in their part is important. And there's a ritard coming up, and you as the pianist may not notice that or feel it. So they can take a role in trying to take possession of that particular moment, take control of the ritard, if they want, by exaggerating their body movements or their head movements or even by saying something to indicate that they want to play a leadership role at a particular moment.
I think that would be very useful to the group, actually. Because then you get more of this interaction. And even though you're seeing the whole thing, you may not be seeing each individual part as well as each individual player seeing his or her part. They may see ‘Here's something I want to emote on! Give me a chance here! Hold this note a little bit longer! Watch me!’ I think the role of the other players is also important in managing the group.