Sight Reading Tips

I was wondering what had happened to the wonderful teacher I had for the 3 years that I studied fortepiano while in college.

A fortepiano is a piano, but in this case it was a piano that had been built in 1811 by Broadwood of London. Pianos have changed and developed quite a bit since its invention in 1700. The piano as we know it today came into its glory in the middle of the 19th century. So this 6-foot grand piano that I played, a twin to the one that Broadwood sent to the deaf Beethoven, has some significant differences in both construction and sound. For one, there is no iron frame (Steinway's patented cross-strung frame for their grand pianos was a major invention and greatly increased the piano's sound volume) and in fact no metal frame whatsoever. The next significant difference is that the hammers are covered with leather. Felt-covered hammers were introduced in 1826. Leather is harder than felt, so the timbre of sound from this fortepiano is not as lush as a modern piano, and the sound decayed very quickly. Whenever I played the fortepiano I finally understood why piano players regularly broke strings and how delicate the instrument was. And Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata on a period instrument...ahh..that's a topic for another post.

But that was a long digression, but into one of my favorite topics (the history of the piano is absolutely fascinating, at least in my opinion!). I Googled my former teacher's name and one of the first things that came up was a link to some videos she's recorded recently. I've linked to one on sight reading tips, because listening to it reminded me of the lessons I had with her and it was so nice to see her!