How to train myself to read music faster?

[amorefermati]

Whenever I come up with 3 or 4 notes bundled together, I struggle to count the lines one by one in order to find out what note it is, is there a way to train myself to do this process faster?

Also I struggle with pieces where there are many sharps and flats, I have to constantly remind myself Oh B Flat, or F Sharp etc...

[chopinlover01]

What I found really made the difference was learning to read intervals well. If you can look at the space between two notes and immediately identify it as a sixth or a seventh, you're already ten times better off than try to read each individual note.

[eldergeek]

My advice would be to get hold of a book of scales and arpeggios. Mine includes all the basic chords with  inversions and common cadences in each key. I am working through it one key at a time, and I find that recognising chords is getting easier and easier as I get more familiar with all the major chords in the various keys.

The other thing I am doing at the same time is to learn the theory behind harmonising simple melodies using (initially) chords I, IV and IV together with their inversions. I find that thinking about chord progressions and cadences as well as actually writing them down is helping a great deal in recognising chords when I play - it is not fast progress, but it is definitely working for me.

[michael_sayers]

Hi amorefermati,

I agree with eldergeek - the more work goes into developing technique, the better the sight reading will be.

J.S. Bach's 371 harmonized chorales also may good for developing sight reading.


Mvh,
Michael

[quantum]

Try to see the chord as a single item, as opposed to multiple notes for which you need to spell out each one.  When we first learn to read text we learn the alphabet, then we learn how to put characters together in order to form words.  At first we spell out each character of a word in order to decipher it, but as our skills improve we learn to read words as a whole.  We progress to thinking of a group of characters as a single word and its associated meaning, without the need to spell it out in order to decipher what it is.  Similarly with chords in music, one needs to progress as seeing them as a single word.  

The above suggestions on becoming familiar with scales, chords, arpeggios, and cadences in all keys is an important one.  When you are familiar with these and they appear in a piece of real music, you will instantly recognize them and play them as a single entity as opposed to spelling out individual notes.  The more keys you know, the more you will start to pick up on recurring patterns and how intervals, scales, chords, etc. look when viewing them on the score.