Learning to sight read

[riwa]

Each piece I try to learn I find myself reading it and then memorizing it. Also I have not the greatest memory around so I think I should focus on sight reading. Right now I can basicly sight read a very simple piece (either G/F clef) but with two at a time it gets rly hard. So I keep practicing only to notice that Im just basicly memorizing again. I cant seem to get out of this "loop". Each night before I sleep I open a book with sheet music and just randomly read a few notes, skip to another random piece and do the same. Not sure this is a very good way but I dont know how else to continue.

Thankful for advice

[m1469]

I do not consider myself a great sight player at this point in my life, though I have the notion that I could actually get really good at it eventually, and I have the interest to do so, too.  I've been trying to work on it for just a little bit everyday by reading hymns.  What I do there is see the key signature, then mentally go through all of the chords for that key, in my mind before I start.  So, if it's in G Major, I sit there and think through each chord built upon the tones within the scale, and their corresponding Roman Numeral.  "Ok, G Major is I.  a minor is minor ii" etc., and I visualize those chords on the piano as I go through that mentally.  

Then, I've been sightreading out of time or at least super duper slowly, naming the chords as I go along BEFORE I play them, and inching my way to looking ahead and naming a next chord while playing what I am in the middle of playing.  I have been against doing this for ages, but since I've started just a few weeks ago, it's really helped to shed some light on my mental processing, and where some of my weak spots are, as well as possible solutions (and perhaps how one weak spot affects other areas).  

It dawned on me years ago that when I know the piece, the way it sounds, the way it's built, that I can read the score just fine.  I realized there's a correlation that I need to pay attention to there, since each piece of music is fundamentally built upon principles and patterns (with corresponding sounds) that are in fact memorizable.  So, I can read a piece that I know - and I figure I could then read a piece whose principles I already understand to a large degree, do you see?  I think this is probably related to Suzuki philosophy, but I don't know enough about Suzuki philosophy to say for sure.  I do know though, that not everybody who starts in Suzuki turns out to be a great reader, in fact, I think this has been a known and common a drawback in the method.

I know not everybody function precisely like that, and that some people actually have a difficult time reading the score once they've memorized (similarly to Suzuki), but I am convinced there are very specific, solvable, reasons why, which can just use some smart investigation and structured problem solving.

[m1469]

Agh!  I have to add more that works in conjunction but I don't have time to edit and make my original post a tight idea.  There is also the issue of the physical language or technique.  It is one thing to sight read, it is another to sight play (or sing).  I think I am actually a decent sight reader, as I've done lots of page turning (many times without seeing the score before or only seeing it 10 minutes before going on) for quite high caliber playing, and generally track really, really well and almost never get lost.  But, when it comes to actually playing it, there is a whole other "language" involved and one which must be able to match up with the scratches on the page in a meaningful way.  So, sometimes it's less a matter of being capable of digesting what's on the page when it's just on the page, and more a matter of quickly translating that into a physical language where you are actually enunciating on the fly what's there, too.  I believe this is also connected to fundamentals.

[nyiregyhazi]

Each piece I try to learn I find myself reading it and then memorizing it. Also I have not the greatest memory around so I think I should focus on sight reading. Right now I can basicly sight read a very simple piece (either G/F clef) but with two at a time it gets rly hard. So I keep practicing only to notice that Im just basicly memorizing again. I cant seem to get out of this "loop". Each night before I sleep I open a book with sheet music and just randomly read a few notes, skip to another random piece and do the same. Not sure this is a very good way but I dont know how else to continue.

Thankful for advice

Try this:

https://pianoscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/solid-foundation-reading-skills-lifting.html

It might sound simplistic, but my belief is that virtually all who struggle with reading have missed out on the most basic foundation blocks. Even if you already know your lines and  spaces pretty well, how quickly do you know them? Can you look at a three note chord and instantly know which three keys are signified by it- without stopping to calculate them one by one? If not, you need to improve basic note recognition.

You have to be able to directly associate the symbol you see with awareness both of a letter and the corresponding key on the piano. In fact, you should be equally aware of surrounding lines and spaces- never just decode one single note and then find it on the piano as a separate process. If I look at the fourth line up in the treble clef, I'm not just knowing it's D (or worse counting up lines to decode it) and then thinking about where to look for it on the piano. I also have a sense of how far it is from middle C and a sense of countless other notes on either side of it- especially the adjacent C and E. You have to be able to know any note at the first glance- and even have an awareness of notes that have not even been written. Picture the whole stave in association to the piano- not just one note at a time (even if you're only reading a single note at that time). It's all one single thing- a big map of many theoretical notes, rather than merely a coded system for finding notes in an isolated context.

[riwa]

Thanks for the help guys. Ye I think I maybe read too much and dont play at the same time. I've already read the article you linked to thank you though. There are a few notes that I need to think to read (if they are more than one line above/under the staff) but normally I read them fine. Normal or inverted chords aswell, I read them as: "Base C", "First inverted E min" etc. Also I dont rly know any scales on the piano yet. Maybe the G scale (I think it has only a single F#) so I cant rly visualize the chords.

I've just been playing for a couple of months (even less time tryin to learn to read sheet music) so Ill just keep at it. I just dont wanna get bad habits. My goal with playing the piano is actually to learn read sheet music and not the other way around. I wanna learn to compose so I thought first I have to learn to read music and to be able to see what and how the composer thought when creating a specific part.

Thanks again.

[progression]

Greetings to you all. I'm new here and i came to this site bcos i really love to learn how to play piano. My problems are; i don't know what sight reading is, let alone doing it and i lack chords. Pls! I need help.