Turning Fight Reading into Sight Reading Part 2

Turning Fight Reading into Sight Reading
Part II

(Please share your thoughts/questions on this hot topic with like-minded learners in the Facebook Group)

When we last left our sight reading adventure we were guided by the Bulletproof Musician’s question whether such skills could be taught. (Kageyama, 2024)

In a meta study (Mishra 2014a) we found that a few areas, such as ear training and improvisation, correlate with sight reading skill. “Musicians differ in their ability to sight-read, and hundreds of researchers have explored reasons why this might be the case, some ascribing the ability to innate talent, others investigating sight-reading as a skill to be trained.”

There is not, “yet a clear consensus in the literature about how exactly we can improve our sight-reading skills in the most effective way possible…” (Kageyama, 2024) we might, “read quartets or chamber music with friends…if you have an opportunity to accompany choirs or dance classes, go for it!… Seek out opportunities to learn how to improvise…And know that your ear training classes exist for a reason…” 

All very good advice. I’d follow it if I were you, he knows what he is talking about.

But nothing sight reading specific. It all includes some other cognitive load, and according to cognitive load theory, can place an extraneous load on our working memory causing confusion beyond what is manageable during learning. Unless we already have some of the other required skills our learning might be affected in significantly deleterious ways.

As Mishra (2014b) later wrote, “Despite the research interest in improving sightreading, few treatments have emerged as reliably effective…” 

Maybe this is why it is so hard to develop the on ramp for the learning process?

There’s more

I have found there is something to be said for teaching many classes of pre-college beginners, year after year, and developing them over the course of subsequent years. Educators in these situations have a birds eye view of what works from the beginning, sometimes by observing shortcomings that only become apparent later allowing for adjustments at the beginner level. I was able to test my sight reading experiments and take notes in real time, adjust exercises on the fly, sometimes before the next class that day, and see results. This went on for years.

Then I found the cognitive science and did a deep dive.

There seemed to be some things I had found to be important in teaching sight reading missing in the cited research. Such as separating rhythmic from melodic training, eye movements, and the misunderstanding around that age old saw – we must practice everything with expression (technical exercises? Cognitive load?).

The same researcher published a companion meta-analysis just two months later, and that is where things started to get interesting.

“…the body of research suggests treatments have a positive effect on sightreading and that this effect varies by treatment type. Training aural skills, eye movements (Controlled reading)…”

Wait, what in the heck is, “Controlled reading?” (Mishra 2014b)

It turns out CR is what I heard about years ago in a sight reading class at a famous conservatory. They would bracket a measure with notecards, then as the reader went to play that measure the cards were moved to show only the next one.

Wow, taking in entire measures at a time. Seems pretty obvious as a skill that would be valuable, but holy cognitive load Batman!

So there it was, one of the things I had been looking for – eye movements. While there are other important areas such as this, let’s pull on this thread and see what we get.

“The ability to read ahead in the music has been found to correlate with sightreading and eye–hand span [how far the eyes are ahead of the hands] has been studied by a number of researchers. Sloboda (1976) found that when notation was removed during sightreading, pianists continued playing to the next phrase boundary.” (ibid)

Ooh, no wonder it correlates with sight reading skill!

Then a bit that may address the difference between sight reading as a raw skill, and the of effect ancillary skills such as ear training, improvisation and other things.

“…Further, the eye–hand span [how far the eyes were ahead of what the hands were playing] varied with the sightreading abilities of the performer as well as the type of music performed (e.g., tonal vs. atonal).”

Sure, you can’t look as far ahead in unpredictable atonal music, but you can and do look ahead. I see this as evidence for the raw technique (visuo-motor) of sight reading. Even when nothing makes sense with your theory, ear training, or other knowledge you can still do it. When the music falls within patterns for which you have been trained, especially in more than one area, you can take in more, more quickly. 

Then this.

“…three of the Controlled Reading studies were removed from the analysis as the effect sizes for these studies were large.”

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and you can quote me on that.

In order to make sense of a lot of data, and get more realistic numbers, when considering a large body of disparate data removing really high and really low results gives more realistic estimates.

It works like this, if there are 5 people sitting in a coffee shop and some make a bit below $50,000/yr and some make a bit above $50,000/yr the average of $50,000 is reasonably representative of them all.

If Jeff Bezos walks into the bar then the average salary of everyone goes through the roof, though the rest are disappointed their checks won’t change. By excluding the far outliers we get a more representative statistical result.

In Mishra’s work all but one of the controlled reading studies were excluded because the results were so strong!

It is important to keep in mind when we read, or hear about the science these types of nuances are important.

Just as I would say that the $50,000/yr is representative of the patrons of the coffee shop Jeff Bezos now owns, he is very relevant to me if I want to find someone to advise me about running a global behemoth of a business, I would think similarly about these outlier studies in controlled reading.

Now the trail is hot.

“While reading ahead in the music during sightreading is often advocated by music instructors, the development of this skill can be difficult especially for students who tend to pause or stop playing when errors occur. Metronomes may provide a propelling force,” 

We can do way better than that…

“but the use of computers to pace reading may be more effective.”

And even that – with equipment and resources we already have.

Where to next?

Now, has anyone studied eye movement as it relates to sight reading? The answer is yes. There is even an organization dedicated to it which has biannual conferences.

And there is a meta-study on the available literature! Not by the same author as the others,  but hasn’t she done enough for us already! Nice job Dr. Mishra, thanks for the help! (and thanks to the Bulletproof Musician for the introduction!).

“A Meta-analysis on the Effect of Expertise on Eye Movements during Music Reading” was published in 2022.

“The main purpose of the visual system is to gather information in order to guide comprehension, decision-making, and motor planning.”

This fits with a neurobiological process called latency. There is a lag from the time a motor decision is made in the brain to the time the action potential (nerve impulse) travels from the brain to our fingers. Sending that signal in advance in a real time skill like sight reading is significant, and the more information it contains the better.

It can also effect the speed at which we play things accurately. Here is an interesting article on that.

When we are reading text our eyes dart ahead, then stop to gather information, then dart ahead (and sometimes backward!).

Those ‘darts’ are called saccades and the time in between are called fixations.

Where no-one has gone before?

Maybe we could slow the tempo of the reading to allow the development of saccade control allowing for more ‘gaze time’ during the fixations?

Maybe not.

“In addition, we cannot conclude on the effect of tempo as a significant moderator of the number of fixations.”

And around we go.

The answer to training saccades and fixations does have to do with allowing for more processing time initially. I’ll tell you how it works.

We can use rhythm in a system of regressive note values by repurposing the Leitner system model, and strategically deploy them based on relative difficulties of, and within, the progressive exercises, coupled with the proper instruction on the eye movement process, and take it from there. Keep doing that ever changing process over and over. It is an upward spiral of sight reading.

I’ve done it with hundreds and hundreds of students year in and year out, and am formally suggesting to the research community they should investigate this.

There are other important areas of sight reading that have no specific pedagogy as well, but this blog is already long enough. A version of controlled reading may be the most important area of sight reading technique, and I’ll be teaching about it, and a couple of others, in the current iteration of my Lightbulb Masterclass™ Series, Sight Reading – How to get started.

Most people don’t know how to get started with sight reading whether it is the very beginning or the beginning of trying to level up.

So that’s the answer, huh, Mr. Smartypants!?

Well, my pants don’t feel any smarter.

Will there be research in the future that illuminates a different path? Maybe.

Will we discover an enhanced, refined, maybe better doorway? That would be great, wouldn’t it?

What I’ve learned from doing a deep dive on the science is when new information comes to light it improves what we are already doing. Very rarely are things disproven and we must do the opposite. It is usually an addition to what we have already discovered, keeping a lot of what we already do, or adding some adjustment or tweak.

And in the rare cases we have to give up a long standing practice then – whew! – “thank goodness I figured it out now, and not next year!” (growth mindset)

We hear in all endeavors that perfection is impossible. This is true in using the research to guide us. It is in the pursuit of perfection that we get the best answers available to us in a push toward continuous improvement.

The only mastery is the pursuit of mastery.