Sight Reading in the Key of C

How exercise you get better at sight-reading pieces with many sharps or flats in the central signature? Is at that place a trick to remembering the key signatures? Read this three-part article to discover out how to principal all the keys and so that yous'll be able to sight-read in ANY key.

Sight-reading piano pieces with 1 or two sharps or flats in the key signature is doable but what about when yous have five, vi or 7 sharps or flats to deal with!? What are you meant to practice then? How can you maybe recollect ALL the sharps and flats!?

This is what I'grand going to teach you in this three-office article.

In How to Sight-Read in Any Primal Part I, I'thou going to show you lot exactly HOW to identify the primal of a slice, including some tricks to help you name any primal apace.

In How to Sight-Read in Any Key Part Two, I'll be showing you how to employ what nosotros learned in Part I to construct major and minor scales, arpeggios and chords.

And in How to Sight-Read in Whatever Key Office III, I'll give you specific exercises that you tin can practice in all keys so that you lot can primary them. In this fashion, when yous exercise come across a piece of music with any number of sharps or flats, you can only think: "Okay, I know what to do here. Permit's do information technology!" as opposed to running a mile the other fashion!

It is my hope that by the cease of this three-function article, you'll experience more confident in sight-reading music in Whatsoever primal.

Permit's begin!

PART 1: How to place the key signatures

The first thing you need to be able to do is to figure out the key signature. There are 2 ways you can get most this:

One way is to look at what the sharps or flats are in the cardinal signature and to try to recall them equally you play the piece. If yous have three sharps in the key signature, like in the example below, yous could look at each 1 and work out that the get-go one is F, the second is C and the third is G. And then as y'all're sight-reading, y'all'd have to constantly remind yourself to play F-sharp, C-sharp and Thousand-sharp.

If y'all've tried this earlier, you've probably realised that this method is non ideal considering you'll tend to forget these sharps or flats halfway through the piece. And trying to think these three sharps volition load your brain with extra data that y'all can do without!

Some other way is to learn all the major and minor keys with a really handy tool chosen the "Circle of fifths". This tool is powerful because it gives you at a glance all the major and minor keys. It allows y'all to:

• Work out the number of sharps or flats of any key
• Work out any fundamental based on the number of sharps or flats
• Work out the relative pocket-sized or major of any fundamental
• Work out the social club of sharps or flats

The Circle of fifths (or the Clock of fifths)

Hither's what it looks like:

It's a circle around which all the major keys are found. Interestingly, it looks a bit like a clock, where the keys are arranged like the numbers of the clock. If you take any two adjacent keys, such as C and M (or 12 o'clock and ane o'clock if you think of a clock), yous'll see that there are v notes apart (or v minutes apart like on a clock!), that is, a fifth apart. Hence "the circle of fifths" (or the Clock of fifths, if you lot prefer!).

Due north.B.: The interval between each key is a PERFECT fifth, which means it is made upwards of iii and a one-half tones. For example, C to D is a tone (T), D to E is a tone, E to F is a semitone (Due south, or halftone) and F to Yard is a tone:

The keys with sharps

At the meridian of the circle is C major, with no sharps or flats. If you count Up 5 notes (C, D, E, F, M) from C you go Thousand major with 1 abrupt, which is to the Correct of C.

Now if you count up a fifth from G, you get D major, with two sharps. Every bit y'all can see, the number of sharps increases each time yous go upwards a fifth, or each time y'all motion clockwise to the next primal effectually the circle. Y'all can repeat this process until yous attain the key of C-sharp major with 7 sharps – which incidentally, is the same as D-flat with 5 flats, which is why they overlap in the diagram.

The keys with flats

If you lot count Down a 5th from C and movement anticlockwise, you go F major with ane flat. If you count another fifth down from F you get B-flat (and not B considering B to F is non a perfect fifth) with two flats, and so on.

In short, count Upwardly 5 notes for the sharps but count DOWN 5 notes for the flats.

What well-nigh the small keys?

The pocket-size keys are included inside the circumvolve and are each paired with a major cardinal. Each of these pairs shares the same key signature. These are called the relative keys. For example, G major and Eastward small-scale are relative keys and both take i sharp in the key signature. Then we would say that K major is the relative major key of E minor, and E small-scale is the relative small-scale key of G major.

The simple method to work out the relative minor of a major central is by counting Downward 3 semitones from the major key. For case, for C major you would count downwardly 3 semitones from C, which would give yous A as the diagram illustrates. So the relative pocket-size of C major is A minor.

Then to work out a relative major, you would count Upward 3 semitones.

Social club of the sharps and flats

The Circle of fifths can also tell you the society of the sharps and flats.

Allow's say you want to know the 4 sharps of Due east major. To know the sharps and the order of the sharps, starting time with F, then move clockwise to C, G and D, just like the club of the keys! The lodge of all the sharps is F, C, G, D, A, Eastward, and B.

To know the social club of the flats, y'all need to start with B-flat and go anti-clockwise around the Circumvolve of fifths. For example, B-apartment major, which we know has two flats in the key signature, has B-apartment and E-apartment, The club of all the flats is B, E, A, D, G, C and F.

How to know if the key is major or minor

Now you know that any key signature tin either vest to a major or a minor key. So how do you know if the fundamental is major or small-scale and why do yous need to know?

You might think that only knowing the sharps or flats of the piece is plenty but knowing whether the fundamental is major or minor tin can assistance you know what to look in the piece and thus make the sight-reading process a little easier. Yous'll know what chords to expect, what arpeggios to expect and what accidentals to expect (if whatever).

And then it is important that you make up one's mind whether the key is major or minor. Luckily, in that location are several tricks to help you.

In 95% of cases, you lot tin simply look at:

• the offset chord
• the last chord, or;
• the accidentals that are typically found in a small scale (read Part Two to larn more than about small scales)

I say 95% of cases here considering occasionally – in modern pieces especially – the starting time and/or terminal chord won't be in the key of the piece.

In this side by side example, the key signature has 2 flats so the piece will either be in B-flat major or Chiliad minor. If we await at the starting time chord (in the red rectangle), nosotros can come across that the bass annotation is a Thou and is played with a B-flat, both of which are plant in a G small-scale chord (G, B-flat, D), therefore the key hither is G small-scale.

At the end of this same slice, there are further clues that tell united states that this piece is indeed in Chiliad small-scale. We have F-abrupt and E natural on repeated occasions (in the beginning four blood-red rectangles), which are both plant in the G melodic small scale (refer to Part Two for more information on melodic pocket-size scales). And in case that'south not enough evidence, the last chord is a G minor chord (terminal rectangle).

And in this final example, looking at the key signature, nosotros know that the key volition either be G major or East small. The starting time chord indicates that this piece is in Grand major (G, B and D).

Tricks to speedily place the key signature

As well using the Circle of fifths, y'all can use the following tricks to quickly place a key signature.

For major keys with SHARPS: take the last precipitous of the key signature and get up one semitone.

For example, if you have three sharps in the fundamental signature (F, C and Thou), this means that the final sharp is G-sharp. Go upwards one semitone from G-abrupt and y'all get A. And then, the central with three sharps is A major. Like shooting fish in a barrel!

Now, this trick won't work with C major for obvious reasons, so you just have to remember that C major has no sharps or flats.

For major keys with FLATS: count up a fifth from the last flat, i.eastward. move clockwise around the Circumvolve of fifths to the next key.

For case, if yous have two flats in the key signature (B and E), then E-flat is the terminal one. Count upwards a fifth and you get B-flat. Or if you use the Circumvolve of fifths, move clockwise around the circle to the next key which is B-apartment.

Final words

Alright, guys, that'southward it for this calendar week! I hope it'southward been useful and not too confusing! Like always, if you accept any questions, but add together them in the comments below and I'll reply as shortly as I tin can.

>> Desire to check how much you've understood? Download these gratis Circle of fifths worksheets and have a go at filling out the diagrams.

Next week in Part Two, nosotros'll employ what we've learned here to larn more than about major and small scales, chords and arpeggios. Don't skip this step because this will course the basis of the exercises I'll be giving you in Function 3!

READ More >> The Best Sight-Reading Books for Piano (Review & Ownership Guide)

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Source: https://www.pianosightreading.com.au/sight-read-in-any-key-1/

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