On this page I'm putting up exercises I made to develop my sight-reading and improvisation - the most important tools for any musician, but especially organists! It's surprising how much each helps the other. The main purpose of these pages is to get these two skills to a subconscious level, so that they will always be there when needed.
These files may look strange at first: there are no clefs, key signatures, or time signatures. It's up to the student to choose a clef and key signature (this is especially useful fo learning new clefs). The lines can be read normally, but a great brain-stretching exercise is to go backwards from the bottom; or try alternating directions up and down or side-to-side; diagonals and spirals work too. Once all that is mastered, try turning the page upside-down for further practice, and pick a different clef/key/hand. If you're really ambitious, try reading two or more lines at a time (with different combinations of clefs or keys, maybe), in opposite directions... The next step is to get one of the score-reading collections, like those of R.O. Morris or Berkowitz. After bashing through those, normal two- or three-clef music seems relatively easy!
Sight-Reading 1a (quarter notes)Just as the sight-reading exercises lead to score-reading texts, these improvisation exercises are a sort of primer for texts like Hancock, Overduin, or Johns. I found I got bogged down, trying to make sure every note was right, when I tried to work through these books, and so had to develop exercises to teach basic counterpoint to my fingers. Ideally, this will free the mind from micromanagement of note-to-note details!
Improvisation 1a (parallel tenths and sixths)
Improvisation 2a (automatic 2:1 counterpoint and a simple bicinium formula)
Improvisation 3a (automatic figuration patterns in eighths, triplets, and sixteenths)
Here is a little paper I wrote listing the teachers of the organ class at the Paris Conservatory, along with whatever information on their teaching methods I could dig up.