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SO WHO'S IN?

Let's support each other in the endless journey to sight-reading improvement!

If enough people are interested, I'll go ahead and make myself a new email address and Youtube account, this one devoted only to my sight-reading. The idea is that one piece of pure sight-reading every day or so would be uploaded to Youtube and shared on this thread.

This way we can all support each other in our journey. I know my videos may be riddled with mistakes and painfully slow, but that's all part of learning to sight-read, isn't it?

I am in. To get good at sight reading was one of the main reasons I took up piano 5 months ago. It has been a very slow process so far so it would be nice to see how others are coping

I'm too much of a luddite to participate in posting videos, but I'm game to pledge to sightread every day and comment on how it is going.

When my ipad isn't misplaced or locked in my office at work or having a dead battery I use the ABRSM Wessar app, which is appropriately challenging--that is--just this side of impossible.

Sight reading for absolute beginner? Sight reading is reading music from a sheet isn't it? Excuse the dumb question but I got to thinking there's a difference between reading music and sight reading.

People just beginning to sight-read can use 5-finger music if they feel that's a good level for them.

Reading music means reading the sheets in front of you while you're playing. Sight-reading can also mean this.

Prima vista sight-reading means reading the music the first time you've ever seen it. (You've also had a very quick look over it, looking at time and key signature, tempo and difficult sections.) People can also mean this when using the word "sight-reading".

For the purposes of this thread, I'm mainly talking about prima vista sight-reading. But if you want to upload something you've read once or twice before playing, that's cool too. It's still a greatly valuable tool to be able to play something with a few minutes of practise beforehand.

We won't be Nazis here -- prima vista sight-reading, reading pieces a few times, and learning a piece by reading it many times all help sight-reading, and it's worth doing all of these.

This is a cheer group for everyone who wants to get better at sight-reading in all its forms.

Oh I couldnt do that! Im at the absolute beginner level when it comes to reading music. I need to study each note seperately. It doesnt come naturally or easily to me. Like learning a foreign language.

The first thing you need to do is be able to recognise a note instantly and play it when you see it. I suggest flash cards or writing out random notes on staves. Start with just the C note one day. The next day play only C and E notes. The next day, add the G note, and play random C, E and G notes that you've written out. Start with the treble clef, maybe switching between treble and bass notes every day. I suggest learning up to one ledger line above the treble staff, and one line below the bass staff.

Soon enough, you should be able to recognise the notes quickly enough that you can start on the five finger music. Then learn not to focus overly much on the notes. Know them, but don't analyse them or try to think which note it is. It's much quicker to see that a note moves up a step, or that it skips onto the next line or space.

You're welcome to join us whenever you feel comfortable!

Yes I have found an app for my phone that does that. It flashes up a note and you have to hit the right note on the virtual keyboard before it disappears off the side of the screen.

It seems the same, but I have a feeling the way I described would help you learn it quicker. Sitting at the piano's a little different as you have to either look down or feel for the correct key.

Well, it is very, very, confusing. I opened a beginner's piano book and I learned every piece in the book, 50 pieces, of course, all short, because they are beginner pieces. Now, I can open any book at that level and play the pieces by sight reading because it is my level. I am now working through John Thompson's music book number 1, is a little harder, the next step, and I can play the pieces after I crawl through the piece a few times over 3 days and then it will take me many months of playing the pieces everyday to bring them up to speed, if you will, to play them very smoothly and musically.

Now, someone like Lange Lange should be able to sight read a lot of music because he plays at a very high level. But if Lange Lange was learning a new piece, he would have to crawl though the piece measure by measure just like I do for many days, and over many months to bring the piece up to speed, etc.

So when posters here say they want to sight read a piece immediately or after a couple of glances, makes no sense to me - unless you are playing a piece of music well within your playing and reading range.


For instance, I play and review all my pieces I have ever learned in the last year since beginning piano and I can play those pieces easily because I play them everyday or most everyday 365 days/times at least. If I am sick and can't play the piano for a few days or a couple of months, as a result of surgery recently, then I will make a few mistakes because I haven't played them everyday recently, but I can play them fine reading the music. I have NOT memorized any of them, just play them by ready the music which I do everyday.

So would any poster please explain how any piano player is able to sight read any music that is not "easy and simple" to his level of playing the piano and reading the music to his level of reading/playing - else they would have to crawl through the measures - measure by measure.

Thank for you any humble explanation so I can understand sight reading.

So any piano player can read any music at his level because he knows all the notes on, above, and below the staff and he knows the rhythms because they are well within his knowledge and experience.

There are no dumb questions. This gets debated a lot. I tend to use the term more broadly, but I know there are folks who use "sight reading" to mean the first time only.

I wrote an article a few months ago discussing this very thing.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Sight-Reading-Music-Vs.-Reading-Music&id=7438618

Thanks, Brian Lucas for referring to the website about sight reading that indicated that one can only sight read if you practice reading and playing the piano and sight reading is only limited by the piano player's ability to play the piano.

It is funny, but understandable, that the whole piano world wants to sight read Ballad played by Richter - Chopin Ballad No. 4, after their first piano lesson - and are searching the web for the magic that will enable them to sight read Ballad and all it takes is not money, but sitting on the piano bench day after day reading piano music and playing piano music. It is a destination after a long journey of playing the piano that you can sight read any music put before you like Lang Lang.

I'm not sure I can explain it, but I can do it (and my teacher sure can do it).

It really depends on what you mean "easy and simple," though. I study ragtime pieces of moderate difficulty. When I first pick up a piece, I don't really have to crawl through the measures, measure by measure, but I'll certainly flub quite a few notes and won't really have the same interpretive depth as a piece I've specifically studied. So it's sight reading, but not performance quality.

On the other hand, I can read by sight ragtime pieces on the easier side of the genre. I'll still flub stuff but be closer to tempo and have fewer flubs. I'd consider these amateur performance quality and certainly not far off the level if I were to study the piece.

I was not a gifted sight reader. I recall having to painstakingly play measures note-by-note. But I was even worse at ear playing and memorization, so over the years, my brain rewired to where, now, for a lot of common patterns, I see the black marks on the page and it just makes my hands want to move a certain way. I don't really consciously have to think about the note names.

It's basically a time and study thing that, in my case, took a long time to start to develop. But if you ask me to explain "how" I do it, I can't. It's more that I simply did and did and did and did and did it until eventually, I could sort of do it.

Eye-oriented, professional musicians... as opposed to amateurs like me... are absolutely capable of reading very complex stuff at first glance and at performance quality.

Here's a video of Tom Brier, a well-known West Coast ragtime performer, not only reading a score at first sight but live-improvising over the score.

I dont know about lang lang but i remember reading czerny remarked that lizst was constantly barraged with complex materials to the poin t he could play the most demanding music at first sight as if practiced for many hours....

How do we walk, talk, breath and assess the enviroment for dangers all at the same time...?

Cognative ability and practice..... lots and lots of practice till we are as much a musical instrument as the piano, atleast for the dedicated few ... not me yet lol

For me, it did help to go through "Improve Your Sight-Reading!" books 1 and 2, and maybe 3, possibly 4. But after that, there's just not enough material in the books (or most sight-reading methods -- I haven't tried Hannah Smith but I think my levels beyond her book). Those first books in the series taught me HOW to sight-read, and started slowly and easily, building me up. After book 3 or 4, you really need more material at that level so you can master it before moving up a level. That's where I bring in the website I linked in a post above.

I'm using Bartok's Mikrokosmos and after exercise 20 it's already starting to get difficult for me, still in 5-finger position but with the two hands doing different things... I wonder if I will ever magically improve just by trying over and over. I try to read by intervals and read ahead but it's still so hard.

sinophilia, I know what you feel. I'm sight-reading Mikrokosmos I at the moment.

You need lots of resources for your appropriate level. Once you get through a score, it's no longer sight-reading. Here are some basic freebies from the Internet;

http://gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html
http://www.lds.org/music/library/childrens-songbook?lang=eng

Hope this helps!

True, but there's nothing wrong with reading a piece a second time, as that's still a useful skill. Just don't read it too many times if you want to keep it as sight-reading material for later. Still, I don't think it's a hindrance to read through a book a second or third time while you wait for more material.

I don't think the Mikrokosmos are as good as they say for sight-reading. But then again, I've only gone through the first book. It's great that they're progressive, but 35 pages is seriously not enough for you to get much better, especially when every piece gets harder than the last one, rather than keeping you at the same level. I think they're better suited to learning material.

That's the main method I use. I'm a bad sight reader and as you say, after book 3 or 4 it gets very difficult. I'm doing the 6th now but a lot of mistakes, extremely slow playing. The books are very good in my opinion but could have been hundred pages each grade, maybe even 200 pages in stead of like 25.

The methodes introduces 'chords' relatively late in my opinion. Therefore I'm doing this hymn stuff nowadays.. man that's hard but I still like it.

As far as "first glance" thing; I play these little "sight-reading" pieces like maybe 3 times.. because in the end.. it's all about recognizing patterns and intervals. Cause if I play it only once with mistakes what did I learn from it?

When I play a piece wrong the first time, the second time I really focus on the intervals so that the next time I have this interval in antoher sight reading piece I won't make the same mistake again! This is the approach I use for the hymns too, getting to know the intervals and play it "good" before moving on. I take this piece, select like 8 bars.. sightread-play it and where I mistake or tend to mistake I'll analyze and try again.

Lost Woods, I like your process, and use it sometimes if I wasn't satisfied with my first go. By building your familiarity with a piece, you can be more prepared when a new piece comes along with a similar pattern. Which is why I do think there's something to reading a piece multiple times. Right now I'm learning a difficult piece, and for the third time I'm doing it with the music in front of me, always reading, very slowly, and working backwards from the last section to the first. This is how I want to learn music from now on. Memory fails. Sheet music is there to remind you how it all goes. When my reading skill gets better, I should have less trouble performing and accompanying.