Sight-reading exercises with dynamics, slurs and staccato

What level 38 adds

Each piece starts with a dynamic, from p (soft) through mp and mf to f (loud), and often changes halfway through, soft to loud or loud to soft. In the right hand a bar may have a slur over its smoothest stretch, or staccato dots on its quarters and eighths, and now and then the first note of a bar has an accent. Bars with the same rhythm are marked the same way.

The notes are much like level 37’s: a melody in halves, quarters and eighths over left-hand triads two a bar, now in any key up to three sharps or flats, major or minor. Listen plays the marks, so you can hear them; Play it yourself checks the notes, not the marks.

What to watch for

• Two dynamics: one under the first note and, often, another halfway through, going the other way.
• Where the dot is: a staccato dot sits above or below the notehead and makes the note short. A dot beside the head makes it longer.
• Slurs and ties: a slur is a curve over different notes, played smoothly one into the next. A tie joins two notes of the same pitch into one.

How to practise it

• Read the notes first, then the marks: right notes in time come first, and the marks are what turn them into music.
• Make soft and loud clearly different, and let the change halfway through be heard.
• For staccato, let each key spring back up at once; under a slur, don’t lift between the notes.

Each exercise is new music, written for this level by the same generator the app uses, so you can’t have learned it by ear. Read it once before you play, keep a steady beat, and play on through mistakes. Play it yourself checks your notes from a MIDI keyboard, the mouse or your computer keys, and Print gives you the music alone, to read at the piano.