A student's sight-reading ability directly affects the speed and quality of their learning, especially for those at the beginning and intermediate levels. Sight-reading on keyboard percussion instruments is typically very challenging for percussionists because percussion instruments are the only kind of instruments that the player doesn't physically touch when they play them. The player is removed from contact with the instrument through the use of mallets. This document will cover the topics of body movements, kinesthetic sense, music pattern recognition, sight-reading strategies in different levels, and music resources for instructors. Students who develop better sight-reading skills will learn new music faster, improve accuracy on the instrument, and increase their level of self-confidence.

Since its early development in the 16th century, chamber music has had an extensive evolution. In recent years as composers have become more experimental concerning instrumentation in chamber music settings, many have began to combine wind instruments with percussion, thus creating a new genre. Even more specific genres have evolved from these happenings in chamber music, such as the duo of a solo wind instrument paired with a mallet percussion instrument. The horn, an important and diverse figure amongst the chamber music literature, has been no exception to this development. There has been an increase in popularity of music for horn and mallet percussion to be performed and recorded, but there has not been an extensive amount of scholarship on the topic. This study will focus exclusively on three works for horn and mallet percussion: HornVibes (1984) by Verne Reynolds, Sonata for Horn and Marimba (1986) by Charles Taylor, and The Call of Boromir (1996) by Daniel McCarthy. These works were selected based on their availability through professional recordings and publishing companies. Coincidentally, the three chosen works for this study were composed for Leslie and Christopher Norton. The purpose of this paper is to provide a performance guide for horn players who are considering these three works for a performance. It contains an introduction that displays the need for the study, a review of the role of the horn in chamber music, an explanation of the events leading up to the study, and methods used to conduct the study. For each individual work, there is a chapter containing a brief biography of the composer, an analysis, and performance preparation suggestions. Musical examples and tables are used in each chapter to aid in explanation. The goal of this performance guide is to provide an introduction to a newer genre of chamber music, and to provide horn players with insight and recommendations in order to properly prepare and perform works for this unique ensemble.

An important resource in many areas of music is the availability of standardized graded databases of literature for solo instruments. These databases provide a progression of technical abilities that help musicians follow a proper path in developing new skills. Currently in the area of percussion, there are no graded databases for solo vibraphone literature. While there are several sources that contain subjective graded music lists, none of these sources have a standardized approach in defining each of their difficulty levels, and this creates contradicting information for particular pieces. The goal of this research is to present the first standardized and systematic approach to grading the difficulty levels of vibraphone literature. Influenced by pianist Jane Magrath's reference guide of piano teaching literature and percussionist Julia Gaines' research project on marimba repertoire, this research is modeled on Gaines' objective analysis document used to grade marimba literature with ten different levels of difficulty. With the exception of dampening and pedaling, all of the technical aspects required for playing the vibraphone remain the same as the marimba. Because musical considerations are subjective in nature, only the quantifiable technical considerations are used for grading each work in an objective manner. The technical difficulty of original unaccompanied four-mallet solo vibraphone literature is assessed through the analysis of stroke speed, interval size, wrist turns, manual changes, independence, dampening, and pedaling. Each piece's grade will be classified based on the highest level of technical difficulty found in the music. The selection of vibraphone literature for this research comes from pieces found on prescribed state music lists and university handbook recommendation lists. Annotations are included to describe the pieces that are particularly mislabeled, and a discussion regarding the performance challenges that each piece presents are offered. Three annotations from each of the ten difficulty levels contain a justification based on the results recorded in the analysis document. With an extensive graded database containing over one hundred seventy vibraphone pieces listed in the appendix, this resource will assist percussion students and educators in selecting appropriate vibraphone literature to study and perform within a proper progression from one work to another.