Sight Reading

[cody_wickham]

Hello.  I'm have been playing the piano on and off since I was 12 no formal training just messing around with it and a little help from my late mother.  It recently occurred to me while learning a new song, Joseph Ascher's paraphrase on god save the queen,  that I am a terrible sight reader.  I believe I have improving technique.  But I cannot sight read the simplest of music.  I know this is bad but how detrimental will this be in the long run for me and can somebody explain a path on how to improve my sight reading.  I mean a very detailed path.  Thank you.

[rbrentnall]

Hello, I am in a similar position. I have been playing keyboard messing around for years and got a piano about 10 months ago and have been trying to learn by myself since. Not sure i could afford to have regular piano lessons. I have found sheet music online and can read it one note at a time and then learn it by practise but can't actually sight read it. For an idea of physical ability i can play Fur Elise fairly well (except the right speed for the 32nd notes) but my reading is not in proportion. I know there are no shortcuts and the answer will probably be practice but if is there a book someone could recomend-when i looked there are just hundreds to choose from-that could be good. I'm not quite a beginner but fairly close. Some tips on what and how to practice would be appreciated.

[aeriec]

Hi there,

I'm also in more or less the same position as you guys. I never had really formal lessons, but learned somewhat from family and such who knew a little bit. Like you, I can play a few pieces that are pretty far ahead of what I can sight read comfortably, but I've made the decision to practice sight reading almost exclusively every day until I bring it up to speed.

One thing I will tell you is that it will be a humbling experience lol. You have to really start from the beginning. I figured that since I could play a few more advanced pieces that I would be able to start sight reading at least at half that level. I was wrong.

In order to really see some good improvement you have to go back to a level where you can sight read a song straight through with roughly 95% accuracy. For me, this was seriously elementary level stuff (i.e. only in C major, no hand position changes, and mostly quarter notes and slower).

The important thing is to take everything in slow chunks. Don't expect to be able to jump into pieces that are in, say B flat major with complex rhythms and jumps all over the keyboard. Start off with the really easy stuff in C major, then slowly add stuff with simple position changes (i.e. from middle C position up to C5, or simple key changes to like F or G major), and keep building on as you master each new concept (i.e., don't try to skip over anything until you're able to sight read through a few new pieces in that difficulty level with like 99% accuracy at tempo or close to it). Also, play a lot of music at each new concept level. This really helps your pattern recognition and helps you get used to new pieces faster.

I don't know if this is a possibility for you, but something that has helped me a lot in my sight reading has been using the game Synthesia along with the learning pack (lets you play with sheet music instead of the guitar hero-esque bars) and a midi keyboard. It really helps with the whole "not stopping" thing, as it forces you to keep going if you screw up (much like guitar hero or stepmania and the like), and it gives some feedback as to whether you're hitting the right notes (a big plus for me at the beginning so you don't have to look down and check if you hit the right note every time). The learning pack add-on costs $15, but I think it's worth it (imo the guitar hero bars themselves are useless, I want to learn to sight read actual music notation instead of relying on a proprietary computer program to learn new music lol).

I've been at it for about a month now, and I'm still pretty terrible, but I've made measurable progress and I'm pretty excited about it (went from barely being able to read a simple C major melody in one hand to being able to comfortably read most easy melodies and chords hands together at tempo or a little under in C, G, F, and D major with 8th notes (as long as there aren't too many ), and some not huge position changes (they're my biggest obstacle atm).

So basically:
1. Start at the lowest level you can comfortably sight read at tempo (which might be lower than you expect) and work from there.
2. Add new concepts one at a time and master them before moving on.
3. Don't try to skip ahead in concepts before mastering them; you need all of them.
4. Go for quantity over extreme quality (i.e. don't try to polish every piece. Get it to where you can play the notes at tempo with accuracy and then move on to the next one).

Hopefully that helps a little. Keep at it, and good luck!

[pianowolfi]

Some of the most common prejudices against sight reading, or music reading in general:
1. It's so hard
2. Count the lines and spaces
3. If you read single notes and add them it will be the music.


1. No it's not hard, it's very simple. The grand staff is not designed as something you need to think about for hours, and count, and calculate. It's a simple tablature. You have to learn to see at which place a note is and to associate it as fast as possible with the related key. It doesn't even matter if you know the name of that key or not, a simple concept of the repeated black and white key pattern on the piano is enough.

2. There are 5 lines and 4 spaces on each staff. Every note has it's unique place. For instance the *middle* line in the treble clef is B, in the bass clef it's D. See them as a whole picture. Up to 5 ledger lines might be added above or below any of the single staffs. Also treat them like a tablature. The sooner you learn to associate each unique place on the staff with the respective note on the piano the better. You will learn to see and feel and listen instead of deciphering and counting and calculating.
I mean, really, put 10 beans in front of you on a table, in two groups of five beans each. Do you really have to count them to know how many there are? It's about learning to see it.

3. learn to see not only single notes but patterns. For this it is very helpful to learn scales and chords and the circle of fifths, i.e. learn the modules that music is build of.
  Once you got that a note that is higher on the staff means it's more on the right side of the keyboard you are able to start reading patterns. Does the melody go down or up? Does it skip places on the staff? Are there more beams (=faster) or does it look rather white (slower) ? Learn to recognize that the distances between the notes in most cases represent precisely the distances between the keys. Sharp=half step up, flat=half step down, no matter if it's a white or black note. Double sharp=two half steps etc.

[fleetfingers]

One thing I will tell you is that it will be a humbling experience lol. You have to really start from the beginning. I figured that since I could play a few more advanced pieces that I would be able to start sight reading at least at half that level. I was wrong.

So basically:
1. Start at the lowest level you can comfortably sight read at tempo (which might be lower than you expect) and work from there.
2. Add new concepts one at a time and master them before moving on.
3. Don't try to skip ahead in concepts before mastering them; you need all of them.
4. Go for quantity over extreme quality (i.e. don't try to polish every piece. Get it to where you can play the notes at tempo with accuracy and then move on to the next one).

This is good advice.

[sucom]

Can I add another take on this?  I believe there are two important elements to improve sight reading.

The first is to gradually build up accuracy by playing easier pieces steadily and surely. The more you do this, the better you get.

The second is to practise sight reading a lot, and I do mean a lot, by playing anything you can get your hands on.  Hymns, carols, pop music, easy pieces, music from the library, other pieces from exam books .....  If you have the music, try to play it, wrong notes and all!  Just enjoy the overall atmosphere of the music, even with wrong notes.  I read a lot how important it is to hit right notes and of course, the basic idea is to hit the right notes! lol.  But............just playing with wrong notes but at the correct speed and with the right atmosphere and expression is helping to speed up sight reading.  The first time you play through something, there may be 75% wrong notes.  The second time there may be 50% wrong notes but you are 'feeling' and 'expressing' the music as it should be, albeit with wrong notes!  Gradually, there will be less and less wrong notes in the pieces you play. 

Sight reading has never been a problem for me and when I look back, I think my father unknowingly helped me improve.  He used to bring his favourite music back from the library (he couldn't play himself) and he would put the music in front of me and say "Play that!" and then tell me, "No, it doesn't go like that, it goes like this" and encouraging me on, he would force me to read the music quickly, even with wrong notes.  At other times, I would play a record of my favourite piano concerto and play along with it, including more wrong notes than right notes but my goodness, it really improved my sight reading.  In my view, there are times for methodical, accurate practice and other times for just allowing the music to express itself.  Both are important.

[quantum]

One thing that greatly increased by sight reading ability was playing in ensembles and accompanying.  The act of making music with another person encourages you to keep on track despite mistakes - you are less likely to be self-indulged in stopping to fix problems.   It also lets you prioritize your focus to the most important elements needed to keep you on that track.  For example if the piano part has a sea of notes you just cannot cope with, you may opt to prioritize the bass line and omit less important parts in order to keep pace with the other musician. 

[sucom]

I totally agree with you Quantum.    Being able to prioritise the most important elements is a key factor when sight reading.  Keeping going IS the key to building up speed, even if some notes, or a lot of notes are inaccurate or even missed completely.

[keyboardclass]

I totally agree with you Quantum.    Being able to prioritise the most important elements is a key factor when sight reading.  Keeping going IS the key to building up speed, even if some notes, or a lot of notes are inaccurate or even missed completely.

Good advice.  Get your brain working at the right speed first.

[mcjanes]

My sight-reading shot through the roof one summer when I started playing organ in church. I used to have to practice the hymns for hours. After the third or fourth service, I noticed they'd sometimes change a hymn at the last minute to something I hadn't practiced, and being forced to side read a hymn, where you literally can't stop for a split second because the congregation is singing. After many such instances, my ability (and more importantly, confidence) to sight read is exponentially better.

Hymnals are a great place to start. Get one and just start plowing through some hymns without stopping.

[quantum]

Hymnals are a great place to start. Get one and just start plowing through some hymns without stopping.

Much agreed.  Hymns are excellent for practicing sight reading.  They also lend themselves well for adaptability to other related exercises such as: sight transposition, re-arranging parts (like putting the Tenor line on top as a descant), re-distribution of parts (playing Alto and Tenor in the Left Hand which involves reading two staves and two clefs in a single hand), piano orchestration, re-harmonization of the tune, etc.