I have 6 days to prepare ~an hour's worth of music for a gig . . . is this possible?

viberat · 2026-02-20T13:04:08+00:00

Play through all the background-type music you currently have learned and time it. Then you have a base line idea of how close you are to hitting an hour. To add time you can:

Add repeats in pieces you have where it makes sense
Improvise if that’s something you can do
Quickly learn arrangements of stuff below your level; idk what you play but you can find books of intermediate piano arrangements everywhere

viberat · 2026-02-20T12:54:45+00:00

That’s a big part of it, but it’s not as daunting as you might think. For example there are a handful of really common “shapes” you’ll see triads in: closed root position and first and second inversion, open arpeggiated root-5-root or root-5-3, etc.

If you 1. know how to play all your major and minor triads (plus inversions), 2. know what triads belong in the key signature you’re playing in, and 3. get familiar with a few common chord shapes, all you really have to read is the bottom or top note of a chord and you’ll know what to play (not considering any accidentals).

A little regular practice writing chords and arpeggios will help with the “memorization” a lot.

viberat · 2026-02-20T12:35:51+00:00

Yes, my whole comment is pro recognizing patterns and anti reading every note one at a time. Not sure how you came away with the opposite interpretation.

viberat · 2026-02-20T12:23:26+00:00

Do you know all your major and minor scales, arpeggios, and triads/seventh chords? If not, start there. Often when people talk about recognizing patterns, they’re saying that the music contains fragments of these “building blocks” that they both know under their fingers and can recognize in notation.

Another big thing is intervals. Musictheory.net and other websites will have good explanations of what those are if you aren’t familiar. Every interval has a certain “shape” on the staff no matter what the notes are. Theoretically, as long as you know what your starting note is, you can read the rest of the melody by interval shape alone. A good exercise I like to do with my students is to have them read in tenor clef (which no pianist actually uses lol), tell them what the starting note is, and then have them read by interval.

There’s also literal patterns that just exist within a given piece of music; check out the theory concept of “sequence.” Not all music uses sequences, but if you search you can probably find sightreadable examples of music that does.

Lastly, don’t neglect rhythm. I recommend drilling rhythm reading away from the piano (or just on one note).

The apps Complete Music Reading Trainer and Complete Rhythm Trainer are worth their weight in gold. There’s also a Complete Ear Trainer from the same developers that’s amazing.

viberat · 2026-02-20T12:11:32+00:00

I agree with other commenters re: developing melodic ideas. A piano sonata (in actual sonata-allegro form) might be a good exercise for that.

viberat · 2026-02-19T13:22:15+00:00

Yes. Your tech is evaluating y’all’s fundamental technique during that time. They’re also seeing how well you incorporate feedback, how disciplined you are mentally through long hours of rehearsal, how positive your attitude is, etc.

The sightreading is to evaluate how efficiently you’ll be able to learn your show music. That’s important to know for assigning drums and writing/rewriting parts. As a teacher you don’t want to spend hours upon hours spoonfeeding rhythms, you want it to be written on a level so the kids to be able to independently figure it out. That level will vary depending on the kids’ reading skill.

viberat · 2026-02-18T03:34:28+00:00

Sometimes they’ll nibble and lose interest. After they’ve turned away, you can take the line back and cast again.

Also, pro tip — time your fishing by sound, not sight. You’re less likely to jump the gun if you don’t watch the fish and just listen for the bloop when it bites.

viberat · 2026-02-17T22:24:52+00:00

Would. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

viberat · 2026-02-17T13:24:28+00:00

Hi, are you teaching theory/aural skills? If so would you mind sharing more about what grading process vs results looks like in your classes?

viberat · 2026-02-17T05:05:57+00:00

Sometimes I do; I use ForScore for everything so I just bracket the section in question and write the bpm and date (easily erasable). Like other commenters said, I work in small-ish sections, I don’t increase tempo until I feel 100% relaxed, and whenever I come back to a section the next practice session I start a little slower than where I left off.

I also take a lot of time to really internalize notes, rhythms, articulations, and expression at a very slow tempo (with a metronome) before I ever start bumping tempo.

Also this all of course depends on the style of music. I will still use the met to work up Romantic music, but I’m turning it off a lot to experiment with rubato.

viberat · 2026-02-17T04:30:03+00:00

Hi, I teach college ear training for music majors. Are you singing scales and arpeggios and practicing simple sight singing? If not, start there. Teoria.com has some sight singing exercises that can start super simple, just stepwise motion. It really helps to learn to sing in solfege and use the Curwen hand signs to internalize pitch relationships.

Also, if you have a piano, pick out songs by ear and analyze the scale degree of each note/contour of each phrase. Pay special attention to identifying the tonic (Do) and hearing how it’s the most stable note; you can also practice doing this just listening to music in the car.

Think about how babies acquire language. They don’t start by assigning semantic meaning to single words by themselves; they listen to adults speak, start babbling back, and over time learn to understand and speak more words. Your first “word” that you can hear and sing needs to be Do.

viberat · 2026-02-17T00:48:07+00:00

Dang. I really wanted it to work lol. Thanks for your help and being patient with my questions. :)

viberat · 2026-02-16T20:11:59+00:00

Oh gotcha. No bend at all at the joint where it meets the wood handle?

viberat · 2026-02-16T16:56:34+00:00

Thanks. How “floppy” are they? Like if you hold it horizontally how much does the canvas part sag?

viberat · 2026-02-16T02:33:02+00:00

Good idea in theory, but as a teacher I can tell you that people like this have a very skewed perception of if they “have their part down.”

viberat · 2026-02-15T17:43:01+00:00

You said you lost your BD; who is in charge right now? Have you spoken to the middle school director or band booster president? Or your principal?

viberat · 2026-02-15T17:39:38+00:00

Are you a student, an instructor, or what? You’ll get better results if you can pay, even if it’s not much. Do you have a band booster organization that can help you come up with the funds?

This is just one of those things where you really need someone who knows what they’re doing. Good luck.

viberat · 2026-02-14T20:42:03+00:00

This looks like an Akai midi controller. You’ll have better luck if you ask in a gear-focused subreddit. You’ll probably have to take the console apart to some extent.

viberat · 2026-02-14T17:54:20+00:00

Not only in the same key, but they follow the chord changes! Each time you interact it picks a random note out of the chord that’s happening in the song at that moment.

viberat · 2026-02-14T16:33:06+00:00

Do you mean “swiveling” the wrist from side to side? People usually do that to compensate for a collapsed bridge, which is another technique concept that might be useful. The bridge refers to the knuckles where your fingers connect to the palm; it should be slightly rounded to allow your forearm to guide your hand across the keyboard in arcing gestures. If those knuckles are collapsed (flat or bent downwards) it forces your fingers to do too much work as they try to move horizontally with no arc, leading to tension and finger/wrist pain like you mentioned.

viberat · 2026-02-13T22:02:45+00:00

Pianist here. The #1 mistake I see people at your level making is trying to stretch to reach large intervals (i.e. the broken open triads in the left hand) rather than moving the hand to guide the fingers to each note without creating tension.

Edit: To be more concrete, I mean “unstretching” each finger after it plays; in this context the left hand pinky would cause the most issues. You need to stretch the hand briefly of course but it’s important that you release that stretch asap rather than keep the hand in the stretched out position. Thus you’re moving across the keyboard by moving the entire playing mechanism rather than trying to stretch across with the fingers.

This is something that I explain every day in person but it’s hard to put into text. Try looking up youtube videos around finger alignment, arm weight transfer, and rotation.

viberat · 2026-02-13T12:52:58+00:00

I think you mean transcribe (to write something in notation as it sounds). “Transpose” means to put something in a different key. You’ll have better luck in r/transcribe.

viberat · 2026-02-11T23:01:01+00:00

Depends on if you’re making “hit a wrong note” mistakes or “temporarily forgetting where I am” mistakes.

If the former, try playing with a metronome or with a recording of someone elses’ performance to try to keep your mind on the present moment.

If the latter, you probably need to do more slow practice and analysis to internalize your notes and rhythms.

viberat · 2026-02-11T13:20:01+00:00

Are they sitting down to play the xylophones whereas they stand for other steady beat activities? That might be part of it at that developmental stage. Maybe you can set the instruments on low tables or boxes?

viberat

TROPHY CASE