sight reading I need help

[Anton]

Could someone please help me to improve my sight reading.
I am a late beginner and started piano at the age of 14
I am now 19 and  first year studying Bmus . I have a problem to learn the nots of my piecses. on the 7 the of june is my piano exams and i am not going to finish in time. So me and my teacher decided that next semester i would play easier pieses. Apart from that I also have to play in ensembls aswell.
What can i do to improve on my sight reading skills and how can i learn my pieses faster.
I have a great teacher ( Nina Shcumann) but we cant work on my pieses cause I dont know the notes.

[belvoce]

I am a late beginner who also has had trouble with sight reading. To improve, I sight read a song a day from a hymnal that has all four vocal parts.

[JK]

I'm lucky enough to be a quite able sightreader so I'm not sure whether this advice will be usful or not. When I sight read I find that the best thing to do is not to try and read every single induvidual note on its own, rather try and read groups of notes, for example you may see one group as being a Cmajor arppegio or an Emajor scale. If you can do this then you will be able to sight read a lot faster. But really the way to improve sight reading is simply practice, it's one of those things where the more you do the better you get, even if at first you don't see much improvement. Always try to keep going and don't stop, even if you miss out notes, you could even count out loud as you are playing so as to make sure that you don't stop.

Good luck.

[goalevan]

I'm currently 19, a late starter, and having the same problems picking up sight reading. I was able to sight read simple pieces, but had trouble stepping up the level and sight reading slightly more advanced pieces - but still fairly easy pieces.
I'm currently going through Howard Richman's Super Sight Reading Secrets book as was recommended to me on this forum, and closely following his exercises. I'm already noticing a big improvement not only in note recognition and looking ahead but touch sensitization and familiarity with the keyboard. I really recommend you give this book a try, it's pretty cheap - about $8-$10. Hope this helps.

[newsgroupeuan]

I'm lucky enough to be a quite able sightreader so I'm not sure whether this advice will be useful or not either.

I tend to read ahead by a bar or two.  Never stop.  play everything even though it may have mistakes.  Exaggerateing dynamics slightly helps me,  because it helps me feel confident.

It's all a matter of confidence.

[Alp635]

Dear Anton,

I used to be a pathetic sightreader who had a very good ear, but have improved to the level of an adequate sightreader that can accompany instrumentalists and singers reading off the page.  Here are some secrets that I had to discover the hard way.  Hopefully this will help:

1.  The key to sightreading is to do it a lot.  Make situations for yourself where you have to read music and you CAN NOT STOP.  Ask your teacher if you could sight read some duets with her and play them up to tempo.  Tell her not to stop playing.  Learn to see rhythm.
IT IS ALL ABOUT RHYTHM.  Keep countign and even if you play the wrong note, DON't play the wrong rhythm.  Just keep going, if you miss every single note in the bar.  As long as you catch a right note every now and then.  A good sightreader is able to fake the notes...not actually play them but play maybe 75 percent while covering up mistakes 25 % of the time.  Rhythmic mistakes are really bad so do everything you can to keep the rhythm correct even if that means missing every single note.  THat way, your eyes will move and not stay stuck on each individual note.

2.  I depended on looking down at my hands all the time, hindering my reading.  Learn a really simple piece...I mean really simple one paged piece and decide not to look at your hands no matter how tempting.  just search and look for your notes using your tactile sensation.  DO this for one month with the same piece or a few easy pieces and you will be more comfortable looking at the printed page and not looking at your hands.  THis will help you improve yourr technique and comfort at the piano as well.  

THe combination of keeping the rhythm, playing the shapes or contours of the notes rather than identifying and naming each individual note, doing a lot of duet stuff with your teacher or find a voice studio to accompany, and working on not looking at your hands.  
I learned how to sight read by accompanying voice studios.  The music is easy enough and you don't have choice of stopping.  Just find a singer and play Italian arias with them.  And no matter how badly you play, just get to the end without stopping and always stay with the singer.  THis changed me from a scared pathetic sightreader to an adequte one and believe me, I never thought I would ever be able to sightread.

-A

[faulty_damper]

JK has the ability to read music.  When you read a book, you do not stop at each word and look at each letter in the word.  You just see the entire word and read it off.  This is exactly what reading music is like.  This is the final product of learning how to read, either music or books.

JK can read music because he has a lot of experience in reading it.  He has seen many of the "words" before and can immediate play it.

However, if JK comes across a new "word" he would innevitably have to stop to take a good look at the structure of the word - the letters it is comprised - and then form that "word" on the keyboard.

This last part is the stage you are at.  Everything is new to you and you do not have the practice in "saying" that "word".

If you remember preschool when you learned how to read, that should provide you with the direction in which to learn how to read music.  I'm sure you never learned the words "psychology", "inigmatic", "controversial", etc. in preschool but rather "dog", "cat", "open", "sit", etc.

[monk]

There has already been good advice here.

What I would like to point out is:

I used to moan: "I can't play odd meters!" "I can't play stride piano!" (I'm a jazz pianist.)

That was until in my 30s. Then I decided to simply PRACTICE these things EVERY day. Today I CAN play odd meters and stride piano, and it's fun.

So, although there are ways to make your practice more effective, the main cause for your problems is simply that you are not sightreading ENOUGH.

Best Wishes,
Monk