Sightreading advice!!!

[rovis77]

Hi everyone, I have a question. I am an excellent memorizer but Im a poor sight-reader because I never practiced this. Can some one help me to get better at sight reading?, how much time should one practice daily. With what pieces or albums can I start practicing?. Should one aim to sightread at tempo?. How many months will it take to see some progress?

[louispodesta]

Hi everyone, I have a question. I am an excellent memorizer but Im a poor sight-reader because I never practiced this. Can some one help me to get better at sight reading?, how much time should one practice daily. With what pieces or albums can I start practicing?. Should one aim to sightread at tempo?. How many months will it take to see some progress?

Thanks for your post.  Please type the words "louispodesta sight reading" (without the quotes) in the box at the top right of this page.

It should refer you to the many posts that I have made on this particular subject.

[jimroof]

You need to provide a little more information before anyone can really offer an informed suggestion.  You say you are good at memorization, but what kinds of pieces are you memorizing?  If it is very simple intermediate works then my suggestion will likely not work.  If you are capable of playing an intermediate difficulty Mozart sonata or any of Bach's Inventions... then read on.

Two of the biggest struggles in efficient sight reading are losing one's place on the keyboard when significant distances have to be covered while keeping eyes on the music.  The other struggle, for me, is in deciding proper fingering on the 'fly' when reading rapid passage work.  I am not sure if there are many pianists who could sight read Beethoven's Opus 81a without painting themselves into a corner on fingering issues. 

So, to start with, choose works that do NOT require large leaps OR rapid passage work.  I suggest Bach Chorales or, if you have one handy, a Church Hymnal.  My sight reading grew by leaps and bounds when I was in college as the result of having taken a position as a church musician.  In addition to reading through many pieces at rehearsals, Sunday night at this church was 'request night'.  It was do or die.  At first... I died.  After a few months I learned to keep my head above water and, for the next 11 years I became a very proficient sight reader.  We had one soloist who would routinely show up right at the start of a service, hand me his sheet music for me to look over for about 5 minutes and then we would perform it sans rehearsal with no problem. 

So, try some good old 4 part vocal harmony a la Bach or similar.  Then start to read some of the easier Mozart Sonatas.  If possible, get editions that have generous fingering annotations to help speed things up a bit.

I would hold off on the Scriabin D# minor Etude for a while...

[lostinidlewonder]

Start to practice reading and you will get better. Do this by reading much that is easy for you and build from there (a task much more complicated than it looks).