How well can you sight read?

[sabre2552]

I was wondering how well you all can sight read? Don't be shy; I am hoping for an unbiased look at the sight reading abilities of this forum. I also want to see how well the best sight readers here can read.

Could you also tell me these few things:

• How long have you played piano?
• What is an example of a well known piece that showcases your abilities that you have sight read with at least 75% accuracy close to tempo?
• What do you attribute to your sight reading abilities?

My dream is to be able to pick up nearly any piece of music and sight read it without too much trouble. I've only been playing for 2 years, though, and my goal seems very far off right now. But I really want to get there eventually, and seeing the abilities of more advanced people inspires me to reach for the stars!

[birba]

Mozart said that sight-reading meant:  playing the piece at sight, up to speed, with no mistakes, and the right interpretation.  But, of course, that was Mozart speaking.  Here, again, as with perfect pitch, I think it's over rated.  I remember at the conservatory I went to, I played two piano works with the top student of the school - but he couldn't sight read his way out of a box.  And he's now a big teacher at a big school.  I'm a good sight reader - but it's deceiving at times.  In fact, I have to memorize the piece to be sure that I'm not just reading the music.  I've had to sight read a lot of the Hindemith sonatas for orchestral auditions.  But I'll be damned if I can remember one note I played after it's over.  I guess it served it's purpose at the time.  But, I think if you're forced to ponder and read each note to get it right, you learn it quicker in the long run.

[sabre2552]

You're absolutely right about the fact that sight reading can be abused and give someone a false sense of memory when they are in fact just reading. I think that if the player is wise, though, being good at sight reading plus being attentive to detail can both come together to make learning pieces extremely enjoyable and quick. If a student has to spend a lot of time on each note, they're not able to really analyze the notes as a part of the whole, and are more concerned with actually playing the measure than with understanding it. It might be more ingrained in their memory that way, but it's muscle memory, which is the first to go during performance. I think if you're good at sight reading, you don't have to deal with the preliminary stage of learning notes and can progress immediately to understanding the context of notes and memorizing pieces at a deeper level.

Also, to just be able to pick up any sheet music and play it must be a thrilling and beautiful ability. In this case, learning the piece isn't the primary goal; just to be able to have instant gratification seems like such a fulfilling way to pass the evening.

I think you have a gem of an ability that I would kill for. 

[birba]

At any rate, it's an ability that can be acquired if you have the patience and constant regular excercise.  There was a teacher at the conservatory I went to who invented an ingenious method for sight reading.  She had flash cards she projected on the screen over the piano -  beginning with 1 note, 2 notes,  3 notes, triads, full chords,  then finally small phrases.  After weeks and weeks of this, she started with the written score, and her students had to read EVERY DAY for at least a half hour.  BEginning with just the melody, training the eye to read only one part.  Then, just the left hand. etc. etc. etc.  It worked.  But like I said, you have to have constant regualar every day practise for several months.  Because that's 75% of it, I think.  Experience.

[birba]

I'm not sure, but perfect pitch MIGHT help in sight-reading.

[gyzzzmo]

I'm not sure, but perfect pitch MIGHT help in sight-reading.

No idea how and why it would affect sight reading.

Btw, i heard that you could transform sigarettes into joints with 'perfect pitch'.

[birba]

Because when you're sight-reading and have perfect pitch, you imagine the sounds before they're played and it helps you to find the notes?  I don't know.  I'm probably just feeling in the dark.
As far as joints go, btw, with perfect pitch you get higher, faster.

[thalbergmad]

I have a photographic musical memory, but my sight reading used to be crap.

It was only when i started to regularly play pieces that had not been recorded that i was forced to learn this skill. I am envious of people who read music as easily as they read a book and i guess like all things it is a lot easier to learn when you are young.

My sight reading has improved 10 fold, but i still struggle with wierd time signatures and exotic keys.

Thal

[richard black]

I'm what you might call an 'extreme sight reader' - I play all sorts of stuff at sight, under pressure and without wishing to boast (because it's a freak ability, I don't really claim credit for it!) I often surprise myself. I make use of it playing for auditions and exams, but I've also sight-read the odd time in concerts and once in a live radio broadcast. I've always been very good at it, but it's clear to me that however good one's initial level, practice always helps.

Perfect pitch certainly helps, as someone suggested, because one can more easily hear every note before putting a chord down, enabling one to do a 'sanity check' a few milliseconds ahead of actually playing. All the extreme sight readers I've met in my life (offhand I can think of 5 or 6) have perfect pitch.

But there's no correlation, interestingly, between artistic attainment and sight reading ability. For instance, few would deny that Radu Lupu and Martha Argerich are two of the finest pianists around, but while the latter sight reads extremely fluently, the former is painfully slow. And one of the best sight readers of my generation, a guy I know quite well, doesn't perform professionally at all because he's really boring as a player (and knows he is). He's very busy, though, mostly as a repetiteur in contemporary opera because he can play the wierdest stuff, off a full orchestral score if need be.

[tds]

I'm what you might call an 'extreme sight reader' - I play all sorts of stuff at sight, under pressure and without wishing to boast (because it's a freak ability, I don't really claim credit for it!) I often surprise myself. I make use of it playing for auditions and exams, but I've also sight-read the odd time in concerts and once in a live radio broadcast. I've always been very good at it, but it's clear to me that however good one's initial level, practice always helps.

Perfect pitch certainly helps, as someone suggested, because one can more easily hear every note before putting a chord down, enabling one to do a 'sanity check' a few milliseconds ahead of actually playing. All the extreme sight readers I've met in my life (offhand I can think of 5 or 6) have perfect pitch.

But there's no correlation, interestingly, between artistic attainment and sight reading ability. For instance, few would deny that Radu Lupu and Martha Argerich are two of the finest pianists around, but while the latter sight reads extremely fluently, the former is painfully slow. And one of the best sight readers of my generation, a guy I know quite well, doesn't perform professionally at all because he's really boring as a player (and knows he is). He's very busy, though, mostly as a repetiteur in contemporary opera because he can play the wierdest stuff, off a full orchestral score if need be.

thanks for sharing, richard

[nanabush]

I've been very fascinated with Rachmaninoff's stuff for most of high school, and looked at nearly all of his pieces (played some fun bits, learned a few all the way through), and I've studied a handful of his etudes and preludes.  Because of that, a lot of pieces that have octaves and chords are A LOT easier to sight than anything by Bach, Haydn, Beethoven.  At a competition this year, the sight reading piece was by Haydn, and I mixed up some sections that are actually quite easy.  If I was given a passage by Rachmaninoff to sight read (nothing stupid like the hardest passage from his 3rd concerto) then I'd feel WAY more comfortable and at ease during the minute I have to look through it.

I'd say it's the habit of repetition of certain passages that will make more of those passages easier to read in the future (I don't sight read a lot of contrapuntal stuff so Bach fugues take me a while to get through).  Also, Liszt's Vallee d'Obermann was a piece I did this year and the majority of the octaves I learned in a couple of minutes.  That technique doesn't phase me like a really tricky scale run in a Chopin etude, but I'm sure other people would take the latter in a heart beat.  It's a really subjective thing I'd say; I think it depends on your strengths and what type of stuff you HAVE sight read before.

[gyzzzmo]

Who doesnt have perfect pitch and sight-read rach concerts these days? 

[richard black]

nanabush makes a good point about the difficulties of sight-reading different composers. Personally I find Rachmaninov one of the harder ones - Bach's a real bete noire, and Handel can be surprisingly tricky sometimes. Of course it's all about pattern recognition and I guess certain sorts of patterns just work better for certain people.

[clauge11]

I've onley been playing for little under a year and I can't sight read for my life. When I'm learning anew piece I feel like I'm reling on mustle memory a lot more than actual reading.
This is not good. I don't want to play like this, althow my teacher sais not to worry about it at this point since I'm still learning new things every other day.
How can I overcome this and become a better sight reader?

[arvhaax93]

I'm 17 and have been playing piano for about 7 years.  I sight read at proper tempo and at least 75% accuracy a few Chopin Preludes (some of the easier ones)
I sight read decently Op 28 No 4 in E Minor, Op 28 no 6 in B minor, and Op 28 no 20 in C minor.

[drazh]

hi
i have been sight reading for >1.5 year.the best way i think is practice . but after hard practice you will find some good idea .one is look behind not ahead because the back is the place of your fingers so you will not be confused on fingering
thanks

[theodore]

Hello Sabre2552:

I've found out through many sources :pianists as well as other instrumantalists, that sight reading begins with finding ones personal level of getting through a piece with a minumum of mistakes.
Czerny published a volume specifically for sight reading called :

One Hundred and Ten Easy and Progressive Exercises for the Piano - opus 453 (publ. by Schirmer).

These exercises are very short and gradually get more difficult as you get to the 110th one.

In other more advanced pieces, try playing, at a good speed, only the first note or chord within each measure ( 1st time:glance at your hands - 2nd time: no peeking).  With waltzes practice left hand jumps: look at left hand and 2nd time no peeking at left hand.

These are some of the hints I've gotten through the years. Hope this helps... Ted

[qoogla_55]

I have a knack for sightreading bach toccatas. I just learn all the notes the moment I sightread it. Not meant to boast but my teacher did hinted to me once that I am better than him in accuracy. But if anyone ask me to sightread prokofiev, I probably sweat more on that but still manageable. I score pretty high for spatial intelligience and somehow wonder whether there is a correlation between spatial ability and sightreading. And yes, perfect pitch helps as along the way, I may accidentally hit a wrong note and I can self-correct at that very instance. To me, certain keys may pose more challenge than the others. Like those with more than 4 flats and sharps.

[birba]

What, exactly, is spatial intelligence?

[qoogla_55]

Its something like the ability to see 2D or 3D objects in different angles and so forth and how you view them in different orientation.

[prettypianoplaying]

I started playing piano at age 7 and have played for 16 years total. I also have an ARCT. I am obsessed with learning new music and have been since I was 12. I think I read music a lot faster than I can read words in a book I started learning both at the same age anyway.

[go12_3]

Gosh!  I'm trying to get better in sightreading inspite of playing piano for
many years       I sightread for 5 to 10 minutes each time I practice piano.
However, there is improvement....as I try to read ahead  the notes and
think, "ah, this is the same passage that I've played earlier"  while sightreading
an unfamiliar piece. 

[slow_concert_pianist]

My professor tells me I am "most outstanding sight reader he has ever seen". But I do pay him

[lostinidlewonder]

I can sight read most works at tempo (especially slower works no matter how dense the writing), I hate key signatures with heaps of sharps but I don't mind flats. My sight reading skills are not at the highest level since I can only read ahead one bar hardly any more. Works which I know the sound of are much easier to read than those I have no idea what they sound like. If I don't know what a piece sounds like the level of my reading goes down very fast! Generally you can get the general sound of a piece even if you have not heard it but sometimes they are really obscure and strange so it's difficult to get that listening feeling to guide your reading.

 My piano teacher during my high school years was a professional accompanist and a musical prodigy when she was a child, she taught herself harmonica and could play it backwards and could play all of the Bach WTC before she was a teenager. Her sight reading skills where extraordinary to me and I have never seen such reading in person since then. She could read literally half a page in front of what she was playing, I was so freaked out by this ability I even composed a difficult piece of music out by hand and ask her to play it and she did so just as easily. It makes me think you have to have a real talent for the highest level of sight reading, I don't have the brain for it, I simply cannot read ahead and play something which I have read far in the past, it makes me go crazy.

[april]

Although I have always sight-read pretty decently, I know that you can get better at it by doing some every day (as someone said). Also reading ahead a couple of measures helps - so you know where you are going.
I know a teacher that sight reads through his entire library every year (and he has or has access to almost all of the repetoire available). Of course, having done that for so many years - it might not be just sight reading any more. I started doing this last year with my small library - and found it did help increase my skills.
Even though I have this skill - and perfect pitch, I can't play by ear or improvise easily. I had an instructor once say that most musicians could do one or the other - but only a few could do both well. Those are the people I envy!

[chris_goslow]

I have always loved sight-reading.  Or to be more accurate, I always had a passion for learning to sight-read.  When I was younger, I wasn't really as good as I wanted to be, but throughout high school and college, I steadily practiced and improved.  Following college I began using my abilities to make money accompanying voice students in lessons, which I have done again and again.  Sight reading helped me enormously in these cases to make money, and I have earned thousands of dollars because I am a good sight-reader who knows his way around the keyboard.  And even when I don't play note perfect, as someone said Mozart said, I still can "get by" especially when I'm playing with singers.

I see sight-reading as a sort of adventure, because for me it is like "waiting to see" what will happen.  I don't necessarily hear the whole thing in my head, nor do I particularly look ahead.  Nor do I do short-term memorizing when I sight-read.  I do agree that sight-reading can be a crutch instead of memorizing.  Sometimes there are pieces I have played dozens of times that I still haven't memorized.

[nanabush]

Another example for my point made about a month ago:

I'm starting the Debussy Estampes and the Bach G minor English Suite for this year.


The Bach is INTENSE!!!  I'm just starting the fourth page of the Prelude after almost 2 weeks of working out fingering.  The 'Pagodes' from the Estampes was mostly sight readable - some details like tied whole notes, pedalling and staccatos/tenutos are things I completely left out or messed up throughout sight reading.  The fast notes at the end of the piece took a few minutes to get (there are two patterns the right hand plays for the last 2 and a half pages), and adding the left hand wasn't bad at all.

I know some people on the forum would do an 'order of difficulty' thread and put the Debussy higher up than the Bach, but holy crap the intricacies in the Prelude alone bother me way more than the entire Estampes set.  I got a bit ahead of myself and wanted to try the Gigue from the Suite, but after a few minutes decided to wait until I was at least done that damn Prelude 


So again, my point is that Bach is a beast to sight read!!

[phillip21]

I am a good sightreader (although not as good as some of the phenomenal talents described in earlier posts on this topic!), and ascribe that to being interested for over 40 years in hearing new works through playing through any scores I can get my hands on. 

The things that really give me problems are computer-engraved scores with inconsistent spacing of notes of similar length; key-changes at end of systems (or, worse, end of pages) on scores; and illogical accidentals arising from computerised transpositions.  All of these are often found in vocal scores of recent musical theatre works. 

Also, I get irritated by scores in which no thought is given to the practicality of page-turns.  I am going to 'name and shame' ABRSM Publishing in this respect re their instrumental grade exam books (as opposed to their piano solo exam books in which they sometimes insert blank sheets to create easy page turns).  Anyone who has had to accompany, say Richard Rodney Bennett's 'Buskin' from the current Grade 5 violin exam book piano part (especially unseen at an audition) will be with me in this!  I have to maintain a collection of photocopies for difficult page turns in their books.

[chris_goslow]

Also, I get irritated by scores in which no thought is given to the practicality of page-turns.  I am going to 'name and shame' ABRSM Publishing in this respect re their instrumental grade exam books (as opposed to their piano solo exam books in which they sometimes insert blank sheets to create easy page turns).  Anyone who has had to accompany, say Richard Rodney Bennett's 'Buskin' from the current Grade 5 violin exam book piano part (especially unseen at an audition) will be with me in this!  I have to maintain a collection of photocopies for difficult page turns in their books.

Lol.  I know what you mean.  Actually, I frequently find the page turns inconvenient.  Not sure if there's anyway around this!  Unless you have a computer device that will turn pages automatically... but hmm, that probably isn't that far off from happening!

[demented cow]

It would be interesting to work out a list of the (natural and acquired) abilities that good sightreaders have. Here are some preliminary guesses as to what these abilities could be. It would be good if fluent sightreaders could add to or subtract from the list:

a) Good reflexes (whether as a natural ability or trained either at the piano or in sport etc.)

b) Multitasking: Simultaneously playing one bar/passage and reading/memorising a future bar/passage. I.e. a similar ability to what a good simultaneous interpreter has. Maybe it's also connected to quick thinking in other areas (e.g. quick wit, good improvised public speaking).

c) Adequate technique: Obviously one can't sightread the Hammerklavier if one still has trouble playing Für Elise even after practising it.

d) Good harmonic understanding (whether through explicit study or whether attained intuitively by exposure to music; This helps because one expects certain chords to resolve into others, though if they don't, as in much post-Romantic music, I guess the reflexes will have to do more work.)

Another question: are good sightreaders necessarily good at improvising? I can improvise well (within my technical and harmonic range) but I am pretty disfluent at sightreading.