Pieces I've Been Sight Reading in Class Lately

The beginning of the school year is always the time when my teacher piles on the sheet music for us to play. Even on the very first day of school, he expects us to sight read several new pieces! But he has good reason for this-- the upcoming Ice Cream Social performance and our first concert are very close together with hardly a week to practice between the two. Also, we have a trip during Spring Break to New York City and we'll be performing at Avery Fisher Hall, so of course my teacher wants to start sight reading immediately for that!

The main focus right now, however, is the Ice Cream Social performance. Every year my high school holds an Ice Cream Social to raise money for the school. Of course, a huge ice cream buffet is set up outside so you can load up a sundae as extravagant and complex as you want. Also, there's a car show that includes several vintage cars that you can look at. The best part, though, are the music performances. My high school's bands, choirs, and orchestras play for everyone who comes (and yes, we have several of each since my high school is just that big). We literally have to pin our sheet music down to the music stands with clothespins since it gets that windy, and we also have to wear sunglasses so we can actually see our music, but it's all worth it in the end because it's such a fun experience.

Last year we played a Chuck Mangione piece (yes, the one I played in my private lesson) and Lord of the Dance. At the time I thought they were so hard, but when I played them the other day I thought, That was hard for me a year ago? Let's just say I improved dramatically.

Right now I'm not sure which pieces will be for which performances, but these are the pieces that we've been sight reading so far:

This one was so hard that we could barely play 5 seconds of it... It goes so fast! (Stick it out until 2:18 where it actually starts to get difficult.)

I love playing this. :) It's so easy! And beautiful.

This song is so fun to play! And again, it's easy. I know for sure that we're playing this for the Ice Cream Social.

Not too great of a representation of the piece, but you get the gist of it. It's fast but it has some beautiful slow, melodic parts.

I'm pretty sure there was another piece that we sight read, but I don't remember what it's called. We've been practicing these songs for a couple of weeks now and we're starting to get better at them! Well, most of us... Second violins, I'm talking about you! ;) I can't point fingers much, though-- I was a second violinist last year. But that doesn't mean I was horrible!