What does it mean to "sight read" a song?

Compass · 09-30-2007, 11:53 PM

I've seen this in song comments on VJ Army, and never knew what it meant. Thanks in advance.

Akkaraju · 10-01-2007, 01:09 AM

I think it means to play the song out based semi/mostly on the notechart rather than the music. Kind of like playing the song for the first time and not knowing what it sounds like.

*Ang* · 10-01-2007, 01:39 AM

Pretty much. It's not just a bemani term -- in my choir classes in high school, we had days when we would work on our sight-reading, which basically meant the instructor would hand us music we'd never looked at before and we had to attempt to perform it. It's the same in bemani, basically attempting to play something you've never done before.

Compass · 10-01-2007, 01:53 AM

So when people put "sight-read" in the description fields for songs on VJ Army, they're saying it's the first time they played it?

I don't really see that as the same thing as reading sheet music, since you can hear the song as you're playing it, and get a feel for it fairly quickly. Unless they're playing with the sound turned off... which, I don't know why they'd do that.

☼Pepe☼ · 10-01-2007, 07:14 AM

I don't think sight-reading is limited to playing songs you don't know...

Sometimes, I am forced to sight read because I get the notes off-timing even if I follow the beat of the song..

((90% of the time, it's a Slake song))

kannazuki · 10-01-2007, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compass

I don't really see that as the same thing as reading sheet music, since you can hear the song as you're playing it, and get a feel for it fairly quickly. Unless they're playing with the sound turned off... which, I don't know why they'd do that.

I just recently got my TV fixed but before, there were times in which the sound would just completely die on me. When I first got DistorteD CS, this happened a lot for some strange reason and I remember this happened the first time with the Winning Eleven 9 theme. Playing that without sound is pretty interesting. :p You get to appreciate the sound of the keys going clack.

Lvng · 10-01-2007, 03:52 PM

Sight reading generally refers to playing a song for the first time, in which case, you may as well be playing with the sound off. It does not, I don't think, count for if you play on random (unless it's your first time playing the song, and you happen to have on Random).

What Pepe said is something I've never personally heard for sight read, and I think there's another term for when the notes just don't [obviously] follow the song.

On a different note, sometimes I find my timing is better when the sound is off.

Compass · 10-01-2007, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glaexeaus

Sight reading generally refers to playing a song for the first time, in which case, you may as well be playing with the sound off.

I don't agree with this at all. Doing well in IIDX has little if anything to do with memorization.

nilmind · 10-01-2007, 07:44 PM

Exactly.

To everyone who said that sight reading is when you read something for the first time, that's much more true when it comes to reading real music. But what happens is that unlike Bemani, playing real music over and over again makes one tend to memorize the song. The fact of the matter is that in music games, we're just all trained to sight read so well while memorizing pretty much never happens (except for memorizing rhythms and where harder sections are, which is really what makes playing a song again a bit easier; we sure as hell don't memorize the notes though). Therefore, we're pretty much sight reading notes all the time, so the term "sight reading" is actually misused a lot in these games.

However, although technically incorrect, I believe that when people say "sight reading" in these games, they DO mean reading the song for the first time, so that's the real genuine answer.

Lvng · 10-01-2007, 08:01 PM

[quote=Glaexeaus;305119]Sight reading generally refers to playing a song for the first time,QUOTE]

Which is what I said. Sorry for being a bit vague.

Even though on technicalities it's not sight reading, having played a song once or a few times before helps with unexpected things, like knowing when a song stops (Kachoufusetsu, Alfarshear) or slow downs (era, Faxx) or when it bursts out at you randomly (loads of IIDX songs fit here).

Just expanding on what nilmind said I guess.

Also, sight reading normally makes something more of an accomplishment, so using it for whenever you clear a song you haven't downright emmorized kinda throws out the purpose of saying you sight read it...