Sight reading advice

[yup790]

I want to get good at sight-reading so my questions are:

Is there a book that consists of grade 3/4 pieces, each at about a page or 1/2 page?  Preferably with different styles.

Also, what is the best way to practise sight reading?

[cabbynum]

I want to get good at sight-reading so my questions are:

Is there a book that consists of grade 3/4 pieces, each at about a page or 1/2 page?  Preferably with different styles.

Also, what is the best way to practise sight reading?

No idea on the book, I just jumped into hard atuff, it was tough at first but I'm a lot better now. I've got a long way to go though.

Best way to practice. Not sure if this is the best, but I grab a book of sheet music, say the chopin nocturnes.
I open it up to a random page and find the first phrase on that page and start there and play to the end.
Some of the nocturnes take a lot longer to get through than the others.
You can do easier stuff too. Also play things you've never heard before.

[hfmadopter]

A book like that may exist, if it does I'm not aware of it as yet. But by being a Gold member here at PS you can download a whole host of works off  the membership fee. There isn't a whole lot at level two however but will find several at level three and 4, 5 and 6. Work your way up till you get to Bach Two Part Inventions which are very good for your mind and hands. Schumann has some lower level works and I believe Mozart too, here at PS.

I find music for early students at a place stating Music for Piano Teachers. Again downloadable but free sheets of easy playing music. It works well for young hands ( my grandson is 6).

 I like to work in the New Age Genre of music to sight read and learn some fun music at the same time, I've spent about a year doing this. The patterns are pretty familiar between composers works in that genre. I pick pieces by mood and by Key signatures so as to not keep repeating the same things in say the Key of G for instance. But that genre has given me pieces that I can perform, pretty easy to learn, mostly sight read except for the trouble spots that take more time etc. Currently working on Mozart though and a pop piece I did decades ago..

[the_fervid_pig]

There's Czerny 101 studies, Burgmuller, that kind of thing, and Bartok's Mikrokosmos is meant to be good for sight reading. Book 3 looks to be about Grade 3-4 ish. (ABRSM)

[stillnimble]

My old piano teacher recommended obtaining a copy of the BBC Hymn Book. This will give you a fresh piece of music for every day of the week for a year.

Still Nimble

[the_fervid_pig]

What if you hate hymns though? There's the past examination board pieces, you usually get a mix of styles in them, and they're graded.

[stillnimble]

You do not need to like hymns, the object is to sight read fresh music. You do not need to practice them as it defeats the object. You must keep reading music you haven't seen before.  If you play wrong notes don't goback over them. Eventually you will start sight reading better as the days go by.

Stillnimble

[yup790]

I’ve been looking at the book
All the tunes you’ve ever wanted to play (150 songs)
and
fur elise, 100 beautiful classic pieces

[jy_]

I'm using some Graded books, will probably be moving to Scarlatti Sonatas soon although I'm not sure of their level. Khulau is good, too.

Tried Prokofiev's Suggestion Diabolique, although that was a bit hard , and the atonality makes it quite hard to figure if you're playing the right thing or not...

I suck at sightreading, but i think that sightreading is about learning to read forward? Maybe get a score that you're familiar with and play as though you're learning it, paying attention to the bar after the one that you're playing (e.g. if you're playing bar 2, read bar 3) and so on

[hfmadopter]

I suck at sightreading, but i think that sightreading is about learning to read forward? Maybe get a score that you're familiar with and play as though you're learning it, paying attention to the bar after the one that you're playing (e.g. if you're playing bar 2, read bar 3) and so on

Yes it can slow one down not to read ahead. Depends on the speed of the piece as to how far ahead, I often read just half a bar ahead or even just a few notes ahead but the key is to not be playing the note you are presently reading. It gives no room for fudge factor to not read ahead at least slightly.

And speaking of keys , it really helps to know the key signature and it's related chords of any given piece that you attempt to sight read. When ever I play a new piece to me I download it's key signature chords and arpeggios and do a quick refresher before going to the score of the piece. . People hate doing this but it's an essential part to sight reading because it helps to establish patterns of music and basic hand positioning, even if you aren't sticking with it entirely throughout the piece, it grounds the foundation of the piece none the less, IMO.

[lilla]

I have seen Denes Agay's 'Joy of First-Year Piano' recommended for sight reading.  Pieces are short - some 1/2 page, interesting, and varied both in level and genre.  The 'Joy of . . .' series has many additional books which would keep a sight-reader busy for some time.  Although, I do also recommend hymn reading.  I find it greatly improves overall sight-reading.  I keep a hymnal on my piano and play a hymn a day - whatever is next, some  easy some far more difficult.  The most important part, is simply to sight-read a selection every day - could be from whatever is at hand.

[nanabush]

A very effective method of working on sight reading is to take a book (graded as suggested earlier), that is one or two levels below you.  Just sit and play through the book one day.

I moved to Vancouver for school after having finished my undergrad in piano, and over the holidays back home, I didn't have any of my books.  So I've been playing through the grades 3, 4, and 9 RCM haha!  My mom loves it because all the pieces sound so innocent in the earlier books, but it's just something fun to do on the side.

When I was practicing a lot more seriously (leading up to audition for university and during), I'd often pick grade 9/10 pieces and give myself about 10 minutes to work through the kinks and try getting it.  So a piece like Claire de Lune, Chopin Op 9 #1 Nocturne, Grieg Notturno, Ravel Pavane, etc.

===

On the other hand... while I was in high school I was OBSESSED with stuff like Scarbo, Rach 3, Prokofiev Toccata, etc. etc.   So I feel like my internalizing the reading aspect of really difficult music came first, and then later I worked on polishing my sound.

For me, I found two points in sight reading... getting the notes down (which is what I was fixated on in high school.  Like saying "WOO! I played a page of Scarbo after 3.5 hours!!!!") and then making some music out of a piece (today, I sat and played la Fille au Cheveux de Lin by Debussy, and after playing it I just kind of sat back, took a deep breath, and said "holy sh*t, that was amazing")...

The Scarbo example was me earlier, trying to grind through difficult passage after difficult passage, rendering slightly-difficult passages in other pieces into something that was not challenging to play through.  The musical quality was severely lacking though...

The Debussy example was something I developed later... picking a Grade 3 RCM piece or whatever, and possibly trying to play it a semitone higher at sight, or playing it in the parallel minor key, just to see if I can add a musical challenge rather than MOAAARRR NOTESSS.  So, playing the Debussy, because the actual "read the put your fingers in place" is no longer an issue, I had time while 'sight reading' it to shape it the way I wanted.

I can't answer threads like these without turning my response into a rant-like post haha.

TLDR:  Maybe pick one 'challenge' piece and try learning a page of it in an hour.  And then maybe take 10 pieces from an easier collection, and play them as if you had to record them at a studio the next day.

[peanutbutter]

I'm also in the search for such a book, to no avail. Maybe you could try First Lessons in Bach, Schumann's Album for the Young, Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos (a wide range of levels), czerny etudes (if you like them), clementi's sonatinas, Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and some Scarlatti sonatas. I think most of the 2-part inventions are in the level 5/6 category, though, so don't rush into them. No. 1 is for grade 4 if I remember correctly...

Also, don't be surprised if Bela Bartok's series sound weird, it sounds like that until book # 3 but gets more interesting from here. This series really sharpens your sight reading skills.

You could also browse the PS piano music, second tab from the top and browse by level, key period, composer, key, type, etc etc. Browsing is free for silver members, but not downloadable, You could download almost any of them from imslp.org anyway

Best wishes

[amy_bluem00n010]

You can try the Piano Pieces for Children, the green one. The piano pieces on this book have grade levels at the top of the page. I like this book and I used this book. You can practice your sight reading with the piano pieces there. The grade levels vary from Grade 1 to Grade 6.

[sucom]

It is my own belief that the very best way to improve your sight reading is to do lots of it. Don't only play what your teacher gives you to learn.  Play everything you can possibly get your hands on, especially music you like.  You said you don't like hymns which is a pity because playing through a hymn book, one after the other, is really helpful for sight reading, but no matter. 

Remember that sight reading means to keep going regardless, wrong notes and all.  You're trying to develop the ability to keep your eyes focussed on the music while that inner clock keeps moving along.  So play pop music, show music, jazz, rags, carols, easy classical music, method books, easy arrangements.... anything and everything.  Also, you can buy graded sight reading books and books on how to improve your sight reading from any music store.

I advise spending a small part of your practice time each day simply playing through music you like which isn't a piece which your teacher has given you to practice.

I have always been strong at sight reading and I believe this was helped along by my father who used to pick up music every week and plonk it down in front of me and say, 'play this!'  Then he would cajole me along while I was playing all kinds of wrong notes.  Eventually I began to play more and more correct notes and the skill just developed from there.

With my own students, the strongest sight readers are always those who play other music, besides the pieces I have given them, which they really enjoy and which inspires them.

[chopinfrederic]

I used to practice sight reading using this book:

It's a very good one, I'm pretty sure you'll be very good at sight reading in no time.