Best way to improve sightreading?

[davidjosepha]

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on the best way to improve sightreading. Obviously, I should practice sightreading, but is there any recommended way of doing it, or recommended material to sightread? I know there are books full of sightreading exercises, but I don't know if those would necessarily be any more helpful than all the stuff I already having lying around. I've been sightreading Bach inventions over the past day or two, and was looking for suggestions on other things to sightread because I'm going to run out of inventions very quickly. I still have all the piano books I've had since I started taking piano lessons that have "real" pieces in them (I don't have any piano method books, but I have everything starting from when I started buying the sheet music books by composer...I think probably the earliest material I have is a book of Beethoven dances).

So, thoughts?

[asuhayda]

Bach is great for sight reading... since you're doing the Inventions now, maybe move onto the Sinfonias or the WTC.. That will keep you busy for the next 10 years .. there's two complete books of Prelude and Fugues.  Just read through everything very slowly.

There's no real magic bullet to sight reading... you just have to do it a lot.

This is what I did anyway. I'm still improving with sight reading and I've been playing piano for 25 years. So, it's a process.

Bach definitely helped me a lot though.

Another thing that might help is to pull out old easy pieces and sight read them.. I know it's not a cold start, but since you've already played them, it gives you a little push.  The whole idea of sightreading is to be able to look ahead in your music slightly.  So, I find that playing old music that I don't remember anymore helps with this.

Other than that, just pull out any random music you can find and read it.. do it every day forever!!

Good luck.

[davidjosepha]

Bach is great for sight reading... since you're doing the Inventions now, maybe move onto the Sinfonias or the WTC.. That will keep you busy for the next 10 years .. there's two complete books of Prelude and Fugues.  Just read through everything very slowly.

There's no real magic bullet to sight reading... you just have to do it a lot.

This is what I did anyway. I'm still improving with sight reading and I've been playing piano for 25 years. So, it's a process.

Bach definitely helped me a lot though.

Another thing that might help is to pull out old easy pieces and sight read them.. I know it's not a cold start, but since you've already played them, it gives you a little push.  The whole idea of sightreading is to be able to look ahead in your music slightly.  So, I find that playing old music that I don't remember anymore helps with this.

Other than that, just pull out any random music you can find and read it.. do it every day forever!!

Good luck.

I already have WTC book 1 and I started sightreading it, but I decided I should start with something easier for sight reading first so I switched to the inventions. Thanks for the rest of the advice, too!

[faulty_damper]

Here's my input from my knowledge and understanding of neuroscience.

The speed at which you identify notes, decide how to play, and execute movement is vitally important in sight-reading.  To increase this speed, you must practice with only the smallest parts until it is accurate and secure.  This may mean several days of reading individual notes. (It takes just over three weeks for new neurons to develop and migrate to the area of the brain that is deficient, though existing connections may strengthen during this time.)  The goal is both speed and accuracy.  Practice hands separately.

The same applies to reading rhythm.  However, since rhythm can be performed without an instrument, it does not need to be practiced at the piano.  It can be done in your head.

When these parts are securely, accurately, and speedily executed, they can be combined with less effort than tackling the entire score at once.  This strategy would be especially helpful for beginners because the parts are broken down.

Musical context is not necessary.  You can turn a score upside down to practice it.  This also provides more reading material.

[davidjosepha]

Here's my input from my knowledge and understanding of neuroscience.

The speed at which you identify notes, decide how to play, and execute movement is vitally important in sight-reading.  To increase this speed, you must practice with only the smallest parts until it is accurate and secure.  This may mean several days of reading individual notes. (It takes just over three weeks for new neurons to develop and migrate to the area of the brain that is deficient, though existing connections may strengthen during this time.)  The goal is both speed and accuracy.  Practice hands separately.

The same applies to reading rhythm.  However, since rhythm can be performed without an instrument, it does not need to be practiced at the piano.  It can be done in your head.

When these parts are securely, accurately, and speedily executed, they can be combined with less effort than tackling the entire score at once.  This strategy would be especially helpful for beginners because the parts are broken down.

Musical context is not necessary.  You can turn a score upside down to practice it.  This also provides more reading material.

I can sightread most pieces that are a bit easier up to speed hands alone, but hands together is much more difficult for me since I don't have enough brainpower to look ahead so I can make fingerings that will work.

Rhythms are easy for me. 6 years of sightreading my percussion parts in band have helped a bit with that

Also, I'm not looking for help in learning pieces quicker, I'm looking for help with looking at a relatively easy piece of music once and being able to play it competently. Obviously, this will help with the speed I learn more difficult pieces, but that's not my only goal here.

[faulty_damper]

Once individual notes can be read with ease, accuracy, and speed (the fastest you can accomplish, the better) the next part is learning (another word for memorizing) two note patterns.    This is what psychologists call "chunking", grouping individual parts to form a larger part.  This is simply chunking two individual notes together.  In musician-speak, this is interval identification.

The mechanics can be first practiced without reading.  Just practice playing two intervals with as many different fingerings as your hand can manage.  Speed and accuracy count.  It must be practiced until easy.  This will automate the mechanics during reading so you don't have to think of how you'll play; you'll just play.

The reading is as before.  Practice until it's easy, accurate, and fast.  The faster, the better.  Precision is also of upmost importance.  Easiness indicates your movements are efficient and effective.


What great sight-readers have is a vast memory-base of various possible combinations of notes.  When they see a score, they see the notes in large chunks.  They essentially play from memory.  The difference is the order in which they recall that memory, similarly to how you are reading this reply.  You already know all of the words.  The difference is the order that is being used to communicate my ideas.

In contrast, if I were to speak about an unfamiliar topic like neuroscience, the following sentences will be difficult to understand and pronounce because you don't have knowledge (another word for memory) of the terms:

The chemicals involved with neuronal communication include excitatory neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, glutamate, aspartate, noradrenalin and histamine, and inhibitory neurotransmitters such as gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine, and seratonin.  Dopamine functions as both an excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter and is essential for the formation of memory.

Notice that for the common words, you could understand but the unfamiliar words may have been difficult to pronounce.  Also, the meaning may have been difficult to understand as well.  This example is similar to sight-reading music.  Better your background knowledge (memory of notes and note patterns) the easier it will be to sight-read because you are using a larger memory bank to decode new patterns of information.

[asuhayda]

In contrast, if I were to speak about an unfamiliar topic like neuroscience, the following sentences will be difficult to understand and pronounce because you don't have knowledge (another word for memory) of the terms:

The chemicals involved with neuronal communication include excitatory neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, glutamate, aspartate, noradrenalin and histamine, and inhibitory neurotransmitters such as gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine, and seratonin.  Dopamine functions as both an excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter and is essential for the formation of memory.

That is very interesting.  Thanks for posting... something to think about. 

[gleeok]

I recommend this site: www.sightreadingpractice.com/, its very good for training, and works very well in mobile devices.

[faulty_damper]

I can sightread most pieces that are a bit easier up to speed hands alone, but hands together is much more difficult for me since I don't have enough brainpower to look ahead so I can make fingerings that will work.

It's not enough to be able to read it musically hands alone.  You must be able to read it as fast as possible hands separately.  You are not trying to make music.  You are trying to learn (memorize) the note patterns.

Fingerings are patterns that you have already memorized and then apply when you read new music.  The reason you are slow is because you have a limited fingering vocabulary.  Advice: read hundreds of scores and memorize certain scale patterns and their fingerings.  You are only interested in the fingering pattern, not the music.  So focus on speed and accuracy while ignoring music.

The reason you can't look ahead is because you don't have memory of the note patterns.  Because you don't have memory of note patterns, you have no choice but to play what you are looking at.  For teachers, it is bad advice to tell a new learner to "look ahead" because it would be useless; he has no memory to recall what he is reading that allows him to look ahead.  Good sight-readers are able to "look ahead" because they mostly aren't reading anything new.  They see familiar note patterns and play from memory.

[gleeok]

@faulty_damper

I'm impressed by your advices! Obviously, sight-reading has to do with memory and neurones ...and that kind of stuff xD, but until now I hadn't thought about it that way. Based on what you said, the more we play, the more "memory" we develop and the easier it will be to play new pieces and so on! It simply makes sense. Practicing is the key to educate the brain and have faster reactions when sight-reading.

One question... once these neurones are created, they can be "lost" ? For example, if you don't play for a very long time, you will "lose" this memory created for the sight-reading and fingerings? Or they will just enter a dormant state and "wake up" once you try again?

[faulty_damper]

From a neuroscience perspective:
Microglia, the terminators and garbage collectors in the brain, are responsible for removing damaged synapses (the connections between neurons), damaged neurons, and useless neurons.  Neurons that are not used will be destroyed by microglia and removed.  This is fundamentally important for understanding why memories deteriorate over time.  If you don't use it, you'll lose it.

In contrast, the psychological perspective suggests that once a memory is in long term memory (long term memory is abbreviated as LTM) it is there forever.  This is incorrect.  What appears to be "forever" is actually the mind filling in the blanks.  A memory involves billions of neurons and trillions of connections.*  You can remove a hundred million neurons and a couple trillion connections but there will still be trillions of connections left.  Imagine roots of a tree: you can remove a number of the roots but the remaining roots still allow the uptake of water and other nutrients.

In learning, if you stop and do not use those brain cells and those cells are not used for other purposes, either the synapses will be removed or the entire neuron will be destroyed and removed.  Similarly, if you break a leg and it is placed in a cast and the muscles are unable to contract, after a couple of months when the cast is removed, the leg will look scrawny; the muscles will have atrophied.  (The muscle cells do not get destroyed, they simply get smaller.)


*  I am roughly estimating this number; there is no research or current technique that allows neuroscientists to precisely quantify the number of brain cells and connections that form a memory.

[gleeok]

From a neuroscience perspective:
Microglia, the terminators and garbage collectors in the brain, are responsible for removing damaged synapses (the connections between neurons), damaged neurons, and useless neurons.  Neurons that are not used will be destroyed by microglia and removed.  This is fundamentally important for understanding why memories deteriorate over time.  If you don't use it, you'll lose it.

In contrast, the psychological perspective suggests that once a memory is in long term memory (long term memory is abbreviated as LTM) it is there forever.  This is incorrect.  What appears to be "forever" is actually the mind filling in the blanks.  A memory involves billions of neurons and trillions of connections.*  You can remove a hundred million neurons and a couple trillion connections but there will still be trillions of connections left.  Imagine roots of a tree: you can remove a number of the roots but the remaining roots still allow the uptake of water and other nutrients.

In learning, if you stop and do not use those brain cells and those cells are not used for other purposes, either the synapses will be removed or the entire neuron will be destroyed and removed.  Similarly, if you break a leg and it is placed in a cast and the muscles are unable to contract, after a couple of months when the cast is removed, the leg will look scrawny; the muscles will have atrophied.  (The muscle cells do not get destroyed, they simply get smaller.)


*  I am roughly estimating this number; there is no research or current technique that allows neuroscientists to precisely quantify the number of brain cells and connections that form a memory.

This clarifies a lot! I hadn't played piano for almost 5 years and now I'm back. It seemed I still had some of the ability with my fingers (the "smoothness" and placing) and the familiar feeling of the piano was not lost, but sight-reading was definitely not like before, and I had to review almost everything, of course I was able to catch much faster than the first time, but I didn't expect it to be that bad. Luckily I bought an instructional book for that . So, it pretty much explains itself in way that; I had some "memory" from before, but the paths for this memory and what was lost had to be recreated. Thanks for the explanation, this is deadly interesting haha .