Piano Forum
Piano Board => Student's Corner => Topic started by: indespair on July 06, 2012, 10:36:42 AM
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Can somebody recommend a few books to get started on sight-reading?
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Progressive Sight Reading Exercises For Piano by Hannah Smith is a good place to start. It has 534 exercises and is 96 pages long. Mine is from Hal Leonard.
Also, Bastien has a series of 5 sight reading books from levels 1 to 5.
These should prove helpful, Joe.
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I use the Lin Ling Ling ones. They are generally pleasant pieces and Ive found that they help a lot! I buy then here. https://www.lovleysmusic.com/store_category.php?cat=41
I also buy sheet music by my favorite composers. Sightreading 8-measure sections of interesting pieces can make sight reading fun!
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if you're working sight reading, in addition to any 'sight reading books' you pick up, you should also be doing soem work out of a hymnal. the four part writing helps a ton. also, a very good sight reader friend of mine once told me the best thing she did was to get the beethoven sonatas vol 1 and every day read a randomn page out of it as sight reading practice.
remember the point of this 'practice' it usually to get bettter at reading repertoire, so it's kind of silly not to practice doing just that, sight reading standard rep.
just a couple thoughts. :)
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Why not just turn your normal pieces upside down? I sometimes do that.
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Why not just turn your normal pieces upside down? I sometimes do that.
Because one of the cues sightreaders use is the musical flow of a piece. A random, or unmusical piece is harder to read, and using your suggestion would hamper the development of the ability to use that cue.
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Generally for sight reading I just print stuff off IMSLP or just play new pieces from my music books. But, since you are looking for books specifically for learning to sight read, then you should try the Four Star series. There are 10 different books, each one getting progressively harder. My teacher has usually had me study them to prepare for the sight reading portion of Certificate of Merit.
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Four-Star-Sight-Reading-and-Ear-Tests-Book-1/4940473