What is good sight-reading

[xander1984]

I want to know what constitutes good sight-reading. A lot of people, including myself, want to improve the ability to do sight-reading but no one I've met knows or has given me a clear answer about what make good sight-reading and how to go about achieving it. Is it just being able to read anything at sight and being able to play musically without making many mistake while keeping the right tempo? or is there more? Why is this so difficult to achieve and why is it that so few people have this ability?

[fleetfingers]

Is it just being able to read anything at sight and being able to play musically without making many mistake while keeping the right tempo?

Yes. But very, very few people have ever acheived a level where they can sightread "anything". How good someone is at sightreading is relative. It depends on who you're comparing yourself to and what music you are attempting to play.

To go about acheiving it takes practice. I was an organist and played hymns every Sunday in church for six years, and went from being a pathetic sightreader to a decent one. I accompany often for the congregation, the choir, vocalists, and instrumentalists. The things you mentioned - playing musically without making many mistakes, while keeping the right tempo - pretty much sums up what is expected when accompanying. It depends on the music. The hymns and simple church music I can sightread. Some choir music and classical stuff I need more time to prepare. But, I would love to improve and be able to accompany a violin concerto at sight. I believe that a huge part of sightreading is about recognizing patterns - chords, arpeggios, scales, rhythms, cadences, etc. - that you've seen many times before. If you become familiar with a genre, a musical form, or a composer, the familiarity makes it easier to read pieces of the same category. Once I'd learned a few Scott Joplin Rags, for example, the ones after that didn't take me as long to learn. They all contain similar patterns. The more violin concerto orchestral reductions I read, the easier it will be for me to sightread them...I think...I hope... I don't know - this is all coming from a 'decent' sightreader, not an awesome one. I am looking forward to reading other responses.

[stevebob]

I don't have much to add to fleetfingers' post, but it's very important to understand that nobody can sightread literally "anything"; the music we can sightread fluently will always be several levels of complexity lower than what we're able to learn by dint of time and effort over weeks and months.

The only way to improve at it is to keep at it!  Practice efficiently with material that is always unfamiliar; start with stuff that's simple enough for you to sightread comfortably, and move on to more challenging music gradually.

[mcdiddy1]

One possible strategy for improving sight-reading is to play pieces you already know every well.
Practice easy pieces quickly and difficult pieces slowly
Sightreading is basicly generalizing rhythmic and tonal patterns you have already seen before. You either know it or you don't so you play every thing you know and do not stop until you get to end.

You need to be strong in your knowledge of scales and key signatures and be able to play the basic chord progressions that occur in those keys

THere is a great deal of faking in sight- reading, and the best sight readers are often the best fakers but you must have a very strong technique and experience to pull it off.

Get over trying to be perfect at sight-reading and expecting to get every single note.

A large amount of sight reading comes from predicting as well. When you have experience playing in a key such as C- you would be expecting G7s, am,F chords and you would recognize them ahead of time

Read from the bass up so you can recognize the harmony and the bass line because the melody is often reflected in the harmony so it must be correct.

Those are some of the aspects of sight-reading that often are not discussed about but are really important to keep in mind

[samthegreat4]

Read from the bass up so you can recognize the harmony and the bass line because the melody is often reflected in the harmony so it must be correct.

That's actually quite a good tip.
Because indeed virtually every note could be the bass note for a given chord or melody line.
But by following the bassline, you should be able to guess out the chords.

[mcdiddy1]

That's actually quite a good tip.
Because indeed virtually every note could be the bass note for a given chord or melody line.
But by following the bassline, you should be able to guess out the chords.

Yea it really does help also because often the notes in melody is often reflected in harmony. Also the left hand is typically the weakest because we are often focused on the melody and most people are right handed making the left hand generally neglected.

[lostinidlewonder]

Without elaborating or the post will go on forever, some things that I found once I developed boosted my sight reading skills a great deal include (in no particular order):

1) Playing without looking at the hands. Having a keen sense of the keyboard and being able to move around many octaves without having to look at your hands. You may be able to sense the black notes with your hand and use them to guide you without your eyes.

2) Having a strong understanding about shape (chord and scale forms) at the keyboard that chords create and being able to read strings of notes and chord blocks stretched out. This allowed me to read chunks of music at a time being able to solve fingerings more readily and being able to control positions at a time while reading. Bach is just invaluable to train being able to read chunks at a time, WTC fugues are very helpful.

3) Observing the types of both hand movements that you can undergo, often I see it as
 a) basic support vs  melody
 b) scale passage vs chordal vs arpeggios
 c) part writing passages

4) Reading music while listening to a performance. Being able to follow music with your eyes and anticipate sounds before it happens. Focus on following the score of pieces you are not familiar with but of course do the same with well known pieces. Being able to follow the most complicated music even though you may not like the music itself is good training.

5) Being able to write directions on the score to help you understand phrases you play. No one expects you to sight read a piece you have never played before on 1st attempt without mistakes. So the directions you write on your score act as a preventative against these errors as you make your multiple sight reading attempts.

6) Develop rhythmic reading understanding and being able to mentally group a bar into segments which allow you to appreciate the rhythmic quality more readily.

7) Overall experience, the more music you know and have played the more you realize that new music you learn is just similar to what you have done in the past. Sight reading something that you have no experience with technically or musically is very difficult and practically an impossible feat to ask of anyone. What might be difficult for you when you where at point A becomes easy when you get to point B, then anything you read from point A becomes just routine but point B pieces the level that you are at are challenging to read just like when you where dealing with point A pieces in the past. But eventually your experience grows and point B becomes easy and now point C pieces become the challenge and the other stuff simply becomes routine. This musical experience is like an automated improvement to your sight reading skills that you cannot force it simply comes from learning hundreds and hundreds of pieces over time.

Generally what you can fluently sight read is many levels below what you can play when memorized.

[becky8898]

Hi Xander. I dont have alot to add, except this. I find having a good ear is really important. For myself  If I hear the music , even if I have never seen it, I never have to look at the melody while im reading the music.  I already know what note is next.  Actually I used to do this with bach two part inventions.  Once I heard one played I never had to look at the music.  The same thing can be done with more complex music.  If you can take in glances on the printed page and know what those notes sound like in your head, you can play the following passage without having to really read it.  Now im not talking about a polished piece of music,  just the ability to get thru it without embarrassing yourself.   Anyway hope that helps.

Cheers, Becky