Once your students have achieved a certain level of playing and sight reading, why not help put their sight reading to the test? Encourage them to accompany!
I love accompanying and feel that it is a really important skill for a pianist to have. We will definitely talk more in-depth about accompanying one of these weeks. As a young pianist, opportunities to accompany began to present themselves to me. As I used my piano abilities to accompany others, that was when my sight reading really started to improve a lot.
Encourage your students to:
- accompany vocalists and other instrumentalists
- accompany choirs
- accompany for vocal master classes
- accompany religious congregations
- play in ensembles at school
Sure, as an accompanist you often get the music ahead of time and have time to prepare. But as you accompany more and more, there will definitely be times when the music gets placed in front of you right before you need to play it. This is why encouraging your students to accompany will definitely help them to become better sight readers and better overall musicians.
Labels: accompanying and ensemble performance, Jenny Boster, sight reading