developing sight reading skill

[liszmaninopin]

How does one rather quickly develop one's sight reading skill, or is it even possible to do quickly?  Right now, I'm really not very good at it.  It is rather odd, but for some reason I can sight read Chopin's simpler preludes fairly easily, but most church-type music seems impossible for me to sight read.  Do different styles of music really have different rythms, techniques, etc.; or is it just some sort of a mental block that I have incredible difficulty sight-reading church music or baroque, but seem to catch on very well to romantic period music?

[dj]

hey i have the same problem! i think the difference is that romantic style music tends to follow a melody in the right hand with the left hand playing supporting chords (which tend to be easy to read) while chirch style (im assuming u mean hymns and whatnot) as well as baroque have more complex, many part harmonies therefore making it harder 2 read. i dunno if thats the official reason and i really don't even know if there is an official reason but that's just how i've analyzed it. who knows? maybe we have BOTH developed the same mental block? well good luck.

[cryptkeeper]

I'm a beginner and I got a question about sight reading.
How do you practice it? I'm learning on my own and I know no one that plays the piano.
The way I learn a piece right now is to read the notes first than play them and in time I'll know them from my head (sorry for the wrong expression).

Is it important not to look at the keys in the beginning of your training? I remember when I learned typing we weren't allowed to look at the keyboard. Is this the same about the piano.

And what are pedals used for? I know it's probably way to soon to use them but just want to know out of curiosity.

And my last question. I'm planning on taking piano lessons someday in the near future. Should I get a private teatcher or go to classes. My goal is to play moderate pieces well with sight reading. Just be an intermediate piano player.

[liszmaninopin]

That seems to make sense, dj.  Thanks

CryptKeeper:   Well, the way I have always practiced sight reading (and keep in mind, I'm not all that good at it, just okay)
is to simply do it on as many different pieces as possible as often as possible.  Part of my problem sight reading baroque and church hymns might also be that I almost always play romantic period music.  It is just my taste, I suppose.
Typing and piano are two different things.  When typing, generally one uses the same finger for each key each time, and the keys are almost right there, with only short reaches.  In some more difficult piano passages, one must jump from one end of the piano to the other, and one doesn't always use the same finger for the same key.  For example, in one piece I may hit middle "C" with my right thumb, and in another piece I may hit it repeadedly with my left index finger.
I generally use the pedal to soften and blend the tone of music, or, if I'm feeling lazy that day, to make it easier to do a legato.
As for the teacher, well, I would guess that you would get more personal attention with a private teacher.

[tomingram]

Ok there were a lot of questions asked by several people in this post!  To start off, I can understand why you are having trouble sight reading some songs, but other types you are ok with.  I used to have the same problem (sometimes, I still do on complex pieces).  As your overall sight reading improves, you won't have as hard of a time with different types of music.  You will be able to flow easier through many types of pieces.  It just takes practice, and some time of course.  The best way to get better with the harder pieces is simply to just practice them and practice them until it gets easier.  

To answer some of the other questions, "How do you practice sight-reading?"  To answer this question, you must first of all actually read the notes, like reading a book.  It's not a good idea to try and read them first, memorize them, and then play them.  However, as you are reading and playing at the same time, you should try to look ahead, to see what's coming up in the song, usually no more than a few notes ahead.  At first, take it very slow, and practice hands separate, which means only practice with the left hand, or right hand, but not both at the same time, and only practice going over 2-4 measures at a time until you can play those measures well (notes are played correct, and the timing is right).  When you have practiced with the left hand seperately, and then the right hand seperately (unless the song was only written for one hand), then you can try to put the two together to play a few measures of the song, but take it slow!  I can't stress enough playing hands seperate at first, and only taking a few measures at a time.  O ya, you can look at the keyboard as much as you want.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at the keyboard, every pianist, begginer or proffesional, looks at the keyboard.  It is quite different from typing on a computer, because you don't want to look at the keys on a computer keyboard.  If you have any more questions, I'd be glad to answer them!

Tom

[eddie92099]

practice hands separate, which means only practice with the left hand, or right hand, but not both at the same time

Aah so that's what seperately means  ,
Ed

p.s. You seem to have used the same signature as me  , I better change mine!

[amp]

Lizsa....Get a book of Bach Chorales, try what tomigram said, hands seperate. Then try them together. Turn on the metronome, do it for a small amount of time a couple times a day, EVERYDAY. And in no time you will notice a difference. After a while try hands together each time. Practice slow...when practicing sightreading, an aim is to get every note you play right. In real sightreading you play what ever you can RIGHT, but leaving out what you can't play on sight. But, when practicing you want to gain as many skills, and see as many different things, so that when you get out there you will be better at sightreading.

As far as looking at the keyboard, the only problem with that is you loose your place in the music. Try to feel around, the groups of black notes to figure out where you are.

[allchopin]

Often times in music (though not as much in romantic music and such) measures will repeat completely, or just phrases.  Use this time to recognize the repetition and skip ahead in your reading to store new notes into your "mental buffer" while you play what has already been cached.  

[djbrak]

I think sight-reading comes from practicing different pieces.  Try to master one piece at a time.  A teacher once told me that a good way to practice sight-reading is to take a very very very simple piece and play it by reading one measure ahead of what you're playing.

[erik-]

I have started reading a book on sight reading. Unfortunately it's in French. It's called the magic of sight reading ("La magie du déchiffrage" in French) by Pascal Le Corre. The book not only teaches you how to efficiently sight read, but it also tries to link the process with what happens in your brain.

- The book starts with teaching you how to become aware of your peripherical vision (you can actually see the keyboard without watching it). In the first exercices, you have to play the note using only your peripherical vision (the hand must be out of the keyboard before playing, it must not touch the  keyboard before hitting the key, and only the finger can hit the key).

- Then, there are exercices, where you will combine peripherical vision with touch.

- The book also shows you how your eyes must browse the score efficiently. The technique is not given as a recipee but you are explained how the brain, the eyes etc. work ...

- I havent read much of the book yet, but in later chapters, it explains that for sight reading, it's essential to master the rythm, which is controled by the right lobe in your brain, and therefore by your left hand etc.

I actually had sight reading lessons with the author of this book. He's very involved in cognitive science, and the book is also the result of his teaching experience.
Hope you can find similar books, or hopefully this one will be translated one day.

[bitus]

I think the main idea is to allways have your eyes on the next measure (s). This way you exercise your memory, your reflexes, etc. I think it's wrong to play it with a lot of pedal, because it alters the "idea" of the piece. See... if you don't try to concentrate and understand where the melody or the chord progression goes, it's impossible to develop your sight-reading skills.
Try to put a lot of accent on the interpretation, and not that much on acuracy... that is of course when you first play a peace. It's a very big mistake to use pedal just for making you more secure... very big mistake!! And all these amateurs that try to play piano by ear... this is exactly what they do... stay away from it!
If you think you have the talent and the skills to sight-read, try to sight-read orchestral score... You know that Bernstein (and i'm sure many others) could play an orchestral score at firs sight at piano... That took him a lot of practice... but he also was born with it, just as some people are born with the talent of playing by ear.
Bitus

[allchopin]

Is it "legal" to look through the piece first and play the hands separately, and THEN put hands together and still call it sightreading?  I usually just open a book and go (quite literally) and I seem to fail everytime.  Also, keeping up with a metronome (even on 30 ) is suicide- how is this supposed to build skill?  I am usually very fluttered and overwhelmed with notes and I get frustrated.
As for looking at the keys, I think I have officially decided taht that is a bad idea in general.  Time spent looking down is way too costly when one has two different clefs full of notes to examine.

[erik-]

I think sight reading means playing unfamiliar music from score, so no it's not "legal" to play the hands separately first ... Unless I don't use the same definition as the rest of the world.
In the sight reading lessons I had, usually the teacher had another student come in the course, very often another pianist, violonist or a flutist, and I had to play with him/her a piece I had never seen before. And the teacher insisted that I didn't know the piece.
At the exam, usually I was given 5 or 10 minutes before getting on the piano and playing the score. During those 5 minutes, you are supposed to analyse the structure of the piece etc. to better sight read it afterwards. My teacher insisted that in those 5 minutes, I did not try to memorize the score, that's not the purpose.

[bachopoven]

The sight reading test you mentioned is a good one, Erik.

But since you brought up the fact that ANALYSIS is a big part of reading a score, what do you look for in those 5-10 minutes. I am thinking the key, tempo, accidentals, etc.

These generally are not, however, my biggest problem. It's the INTERVALS I struggle with. I have a hard time recognizing seconds, thirds, etc. So I usually end up reading the piece note by note, instead of the intervals as I needed for effective reading.

What do you suggest, besides practicing harder, to be able to recognize intervals faster?

[justjosh]

. Watch this tutorial by Cory Hall otherwise known as the Bachscholar.

Subscribe to his channel because he has many helpful tutorials and performance demonstrations.

He has seven points that I think are helpful:

Sight reading and reading are not the same thing. Sight reading is the first time you play it through. After that you are just reading

To develop your sight reading skills learn new pieces every day. He suggests ragtime music to be good for developing your sight reading

Focus on chordal or vertical music. Also my suggestion is brushing up on your basic theory so that you recognize groups of notes such as chords or you recognize intervals faster. I would even say practicing technical exercises such as scales chords and arpeggios will also help you to recognize a scale chord or arpeggio pattern written in the music.

Good music to practice sight reading with are church hymns, Bach Chorals, and Schubert dances.

Play hands together during this sight reading and reading stage. Later on you may need to work out a difficult part hands separately if you are learning the piece, but not if you are sight reading the piece.

Don't worry about fingering when practicing sight reading.

Think about voicing and musicality when you are playing at all times.

Sight read with no pedal first. Then add the pedal at a later stage of learning the piece.






 

[faulty_damper]

This is the most important aspect that is never acknowledged: in order to sightread quickly, you must already possess the note vocabulary that is on the music.  Otherwise, you'll be spelling words instead of reciting them and you'll get to the end of a phrase not knowing what the sentence was about.  Thus, you must learn (memorize) as much vocabulary as possible in order to become fluent in sightreading.  Alberti bass, arpeggios, chords, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths, 8vs, motives, scales, etc. are all vocabulary that you should be able to play without thinking.

As for the BachScholar video, he makes numerous errors with reference to vocabulary on sightreading. He states that fingering doesn't matter but in actuality, it doesn't matter if you already possess the vocabulary.  He states playing hands together but that also requires you already have the vocabulary to do so.  (Playing hands separate is a way to learn that vocabulary.)  Then he asserts that you should play musically at all times but that assumes you already have the vocabulary that allows you to do so.  There are other errors as well all based around the assumption that you already possess the vocabulary.

This video is NOT helpful for a beginning student, but rather, someone who ALREADY knows how to sightread decently.

[hmbeffort1985]

I am self-taught, and it really helps to learn each hand separately, and to really master that hand and feel comfortable with it before you begin learning the other one, especially if it has a different swing or feel to it than the other hand (can we say "Linus and Lucy" anyone?). Sight-reading can be hard, but with practice you eventually become confident in yourself. Keep at it!

[guarib]

There is a little and free program that help me a lot: https://www.jalmus.net

[louispodesta]

How does one rather quickly develop one's sight reading skill, or is it even possible to do quickly?  Right now, I'm really not very good at it.  It is rather odd, but for some reason I can sight read Chopin's simpler preludes fairly easily, but most church-type music seems impossible for me to sight read.  Do different styles of music really have different rythms, techniques, etc.; or is it just some sort of a mental block that I have incredible difficulty sight-reading church music or baroque, but seem to catch on very well to romantic period music?

When I was young, I could memorize any new piece for my next lesson, so I never learned how to properly sight read.  When I was in music school, the very best accompanist in the U.S. could not teach me how to read.

So, at the age of 50, I made up my mind that I could do it, and I did.  Mind you, I am not a great sight reader, but I improved well enough to read through 44 piano concertos in 5 years.

Therefore, you need to realize that the physical skill of basic sight reading is exactly the same as learning how to type.  It is familiarity with the keyboard, so you can get around without looking down.

The first book you get is "You Can Sight Read Vol.I," by Lorina Havill who taught it at Juilliard for years.  It has exercises where you play single notes, double notes, triads, and then seventh chords up and down the piano in octave sections.  You start out as slow as you can in order to obtain accuracy.  Even though it doesn't seem possible at first, if you practice this every day for just a few minutes, you eventually get to where you can feel your way around.

Next, there is a ten book series entitled "Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests, Daily Exercises For Piano Students," by Boris Berlin.  These are very short paperback books that contain very short pieces at various levels of sight reading.  They have a mixture of all genres, including church hymnal scores.  Also, they have sight singing drills and rhythmic practice sections, which are essential to sight reading. 

I recommend that you get volumes 7-10.  They are very inexpensive.

Set the metronome at the lowest possible setting where you can read without stopping, and then read for about 20 minutes a day, and no more.  If you go more than that, it will turn into drudgery and you will hate it.  A great idea is start every practice session by practicing your sight reading.

After you have read through to volume 10 at a slow and steady speed, then you go back to volume number seven, slightly increase the tempo, and then read through to volume 10.  This is the text they have used at the Royal College of Music forever because it works!

In about a year or two, your sight reading will have improved by about 300%.  A good basic yardstick is being able to sight read through Mozart or Haydn piano sonatas at a moderate tempo.  From there, you can decide on whether you want to study accompanying and increase your ability accordingly.

So, practice the first book to develop your ability to get around the keyboard without looking down, and then the Four Star series to practice actual reading.

Good luck to you, and remember, if I could do it, anybody can do it.

[awesom_o]

When I was young, I could memorize any new piece for my next lesson, so I never learned how to properly sight read. 

Why would you want to be able to sightread if you could memorize ANY piece of music in that short an amount of time?

Why did you bother working on your reading skill if it took you FIVE YEARS to read through 44 concertos?

According to what you wrote, and based on the average weekly piano lesson that most students receive, couldn't you have MEMORIZED all 44 of those concertos in a single year??

Wouldn't it be better to memorize 44 concertos in one year than to read through 44 concertos in 5 years?

[louispodesta]

Why would you want to be able to sightread if you could memorize ANY piece of music in that short an amount of time?

Why did you bother working on your reading skill if it took you FIVE YEARS to read through 44 concertos?

According to what you wrote, and based on the average weekly piano lesson that most students receive, couldn't you have MEMORIZED all 44 of those concertos in a single year??

Wouldn't it be better to memorize 44 concertos in one year than to read through 44 concertos in 5 years?

When you are young, your pieces are very rarely longer than two pages.  If all you are going to play are Debussy Preludes or Brahms Intermezzi, which I initially did, then not being able to read is no big deal.

However, if you want to learn and memorize the rest of the repertoire then you have to be able to process large chunks of information at a time.

As it happens, I am currently memorizing a small section of those concertos, which includes the Debussy Fantasy, the Mozart A Major & C Minor Concertos, the Prokofiev I, the Schumann, the Rachmaninoff 2nd.  The Schumann and the Mozart A Major are done, and I am now adding the rest.

I read through and memorize entire sections of a work, and then I put it aside and move on to another piece.  This is something I could have never done before when I couldn't read.  Also, it takes the drudgery out of it, and I get a better feel for the shape of the piece.

For the record, Alicia de Larrocha used to practice from 8:00 AM to 5:00PM, with a one hour break for lunch.  She never repeated a work in that entire time, and the lady couldn't read worth a darn.

Me, I would rather have a life outside of the piano.

[j_menz]

Set the metronome at the lowest possible setting  

Part of good sightreading is to be able to read the rhythm off the page. 

To that end, I'd recommend ditching the metronome asap.

[louispodesta]

Part of good sightreading is to be able to read the rhythm off the page. 

To that end, I'd recommend ditching the metronome asap.

I rarely use the metronome, and for good reason.  Rhythm is a physical pulse, and you and I know that.

However, when teaching this concept of reading without looking down, stopping, or slowing down, to someone who has not progressed that far, the metronome is a good place to start.

And, for the record, when I taught myself how to read, I never used the metronome in the sight-reading exercises because I had disciplined myself not to stop or slow down.  Most beginning sight readers are not in that category, but the good news is that after awhile they will not need the metronome any more.

And, we are talking about beginning sight reading, yes?

[j_menz]

And, we are talking about beginning sight reading, yes?

Indeed we are. But my suggestion is that it is best to start developing that inner pulse early. Too many people seem to develop a dependence on the metronome to replace that rather than using it as a tool to  develop it.

In the early stages, there will be errors, of course, but they can be addressed as such, rather like wrong notes are.

[ajspiano]

Might as well have a bash at this:

There are a few critical skills to develop here that are often left out of any instruction on sightreading, people are very often told to just sight read more music and that's it.

First of the rank is what we might call "keyboard orientation" which is essentially the ability to find your way around the keyboard using just peripheral vision or feel. You can develop it much faster by playing exercises or familiar pieces blind folded. A common starting point might be to confidently locate sets of 2 black keys quickly without looking, hands together. Subsequent exercises can include scales and arpeggios, broken chords, triads and their inversions - all with eyes closed. This all improves your ability in general but here we are just trying to make sure you can look at the page while playing.

Next we can start looking at how to better understand reading music, how to read whole strings of notes in a flash rather than having to name every note and then find it at the keyboard. We start this process by introducing interval based reading (which most people half do anyway). This means to consider the gaps between the notes and the direction of movement rather than their names to determine what comes next. This allows us to do things like process whole bars in a flash provided we have a thorough understanding of scales/keys. Developing this skill starts by reading very simple music, that is constructed using only 2nds, and is played with both hands in unison.

Within the unison/2nds context one can add increasingly complex rhythms. First pieces are crotchets and minums only. Subsequent works will introduce repeated notes semibreves, quavers, dotted notes etc all one at a time. Further along we look at alternative motion. Works with notes primary in contrary motion rather than similar, and combinations of the two types of motion, then oblique motion, accidentals, non unison rhythms.

We can then add in 3rds to the spectrum, which is as simple as noting that where the notation moves from line to line, or space to space in a given direction we can skip a key at the piano.

There is beginner repertoire out there that was specifically written to introduce concepts gradually in this manner (though not necessarily in this order). Check out every last bit of "first term at the piano" kind of repertoire. Bartok and Czerny probably have the most commonly known sets but there are others.

Other exercises include things like playing rhythms only - such as reading through pieces like the inventions by just tapping the respective right and left hand rhythms on your knees.

Coping with more dense structures can of course also be approached with something more than just practice. Think about what your brain has to see, interpret and convert to the instrument and practice each little challenge in isolation. You really have to target the idea of reading, and how to get better at reading - not just playing. None of us is reading this thread here one letter at a time. Find the words in your notation.

........

and j-menz is right - for there is no music without pulse, and no one wants to hear music played with a metronome in the background. Its a valid practice tool but lets not rely on it.

[j_menz]

and j-menz is right - for there is no music without pulse, and no one wants to hear music played with a metronome in the background. Its a valid practice tool but lets not rely on it.

I actually go a little further. Part of sightreading is sightreading the rhythm off the page. In other words, you should be reading more than the notes, but the feel as well.

Remember, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

[awesom_o]

I actually go a little further. Part of sightreading is sightreading the rhythm off the page. In other words, you should be reading more than the notes, but the feel as well.

Remember, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah!


+1