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It is now some 6 months since I undertook to learn reading music and when I look at a music sheet, I still feel overwhelmed and it takes me a couple of seconds (1-5)to decipher the notes.

How long did it take you to be able to read music fluently? i.e. you look at the music sheet and you know instantly (and subconciencely) the music notes, the same way that you look at a written page and your recognise the individual letters immediatelty ?

Here is what I do
I bring some scores to work with me and practice reading the notes on my lunch break
Once I have gotten to know the piece in my head a bit, especially the accidentals, i feel confident to play it
The other thing I do is to break the song into smll chunks and only do a few bars at a time until Its right
Then the next section and so on.
I dont play the entire piece until each section is as good as i can get it
Works for me

How long this takes depends on how much and how often you work on it, though reading lots of ledger lines can still take experienced players a good second or two. Something I did was take a pencil and all kinds of pieces I liked (though the pieces all ended up being way over my head and I didn't learn any of them, I most enjoyed doing this with pieces I really liked), and just spent some time every day writing in the note names above or below the notes. Eventually you memorize every note location and can recognize them instantly. This is why harder pieces (but not too hard!) are actually better for this exercise because they're more dense with notes.

I'm still working on it. Some folks have an aptitude for sight reading. Some are fated to struggle with it. Most are in the average range. From reading the forum, my conclusion is that the average dedicated beginner will get to a useful point after a year or two years at 15 minutes a day of working on sight reading. Those in the struggling group might take five times as long to make similar progress. Those in the high aptitude group might get there in a month or two.

Readers might find TromboneAl's journey to be of interest, link to the first post of his sight reading blog. More recently, he announced he was giving up his Sancho Panza quest after five years, three working with a teacher mostly on sight reading. Before readers jump to conclusions, TromboneAl got much better at sight reading, improved by leaps and bounds. However, he dedicated at least an hour a day to that single task. Despite that dedication, after five years, he still fell short of the highest levels of sight reading proficiency. Studio musicians are expected to be able read new sheet music and be ready to record at a professional level right away.

Just practice every day.... i have done this for between 10 and 30 mins mostdays, when i can. Think years not weeks and months. Since october i have gone through hannah smiths book and lots of random material. Allan bullards sight reading grade 1, now on grade 2 and although progress is slow... i dont think i am any different to average...

JosephAC, I have read your post, here:

It is now some 6 months since I undertook to learn reading music and when I look at a music sheet, I still feel overwhelmed and it takes me a couple of seconds (1-5)to decipher the notes.

How long did it take you to be able to read music fluently? i.e. you look at the music sheet and you know instantly (and subconciencely) the music notes, the same way that you look at a written page and your recognise the individual letters immediatelty ?

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This has to be one of the most intersting subjects because everybody talks about reading and playing music but most people don't talk about how they do it. And probably most people do it quite differently based on experience and education.

I had a 4 or 5 individual piano lessons over 40 years and couldn't cope trying to type all day and then try to practice a lesson - always ended in failure. Turning 40, I saw an ad for anyone at any level who wanted to play. The conductor said get a triangle and somebody said get a sax. So I got sax and an excellent teacher. Sitting in a band of 30 muscians who ranged from teens to 60s who played from varying - school to college - was an impressive experience as a none musician. I thought reading the notes on the staff was reading music - so I could only play the the opening and closing notes of any piece. I played for 4 years flying by the seat of my pants and then the conductor died and the band died.

At 63 I had health issues that limited my energy level to sitting up for a meal and going back to bed. I knew that was no good, so I tried to sit at the piano and try to play the beginner book of playing the piano. I couldn't afford a teacher so I knew I had to do it slowly, carefully and without mistakes. When you drive a car, you learn quickly that an accident is never okay no matter how small. So, too, playing the piano, it is never okay to make a mistake. I was only able to play/practice 10 minutes or less at a time once or twice a day. I did that for a year working through the beginner book. Having learning and memory problems, I played the music every day slowly without mistakes, not looking at my hands and making sure I knew the note names as I played the notes - and everyday I would review the previous pieces I had learned since I started playing the piano, so play review, play review without mistakes. So after a year I could ready and play the music without difficulty. I also was careful that I knew how to count the note values in each measure that the sax teacher taught me.

Now playing 2 years, my energy level is better and I can play about 20 minutes at a time.

The awesome thing is that if you work hard learning the names of the notes as you play them and learn how to count the note values as you work through the measures, playing the piano is a joy. Because I didn't have a teacher - I couldn't afford one - I was running scared that I would get into trouble and wouldn't be able to play the piano so I reviewed 90 percent of the time playing without mistakes and then I read a general post from a teacher that said playing the music over and over when you can play it, is a waste of time. I realized that applied to me, so I immediately changed how I did things/practice and I am glad I made the change. It was time. I am just at the end of Book 1 of John Thompson, method book, so as I am just about finished playing the piece from start from finish smoothly without mistakes - for 4 days before - I start reading at night before I go to bed to read through the next new piece making sure I can read the notes by names as I read through the measures of the piece. So my new piece has 40 measures and for the first time I am playing a piece with a key signature of Eb major so three flats, Bb, Eb, Ab. So I say the names of the notes in the first measure bass/treble clefs like Eb, G, Ab, Bb. So I do that and I also go through the piece measure by measure making sure I can count the values of the notes of the piece accurately . Then when I play the piece, I am familiar with the notes and recognizing the flats that are present because none of notes have flat symbols, you have to remember what notes are flatted. And there will be no surprises or mistakes hopefully when I play the piece. So if I can play the piece 3 to 5 times without mistakes and smoothly, That is the end. I don't review it like I used to. I move on the next new piece. What I like about it is that I don't have to hang over the piano trying figure out the counting or the note names. I have done the leg work and piano playing is just piano playing. If I do make a mistake I stop and try to figure why I made the mistake, name error, finger error, brain error, tired - then and only then I try to play it without errors and when I can do that 5 times I move on.

So I am moving along faster now because I am not always reviewing.

Well I can tell you one thing this reading process comes VERY slow.
I play some things like joplin rags, chopin waltzes, debussys reverie (although all on my level of skill)... but no way I could sight read any of these pieces. So it's not really motivating too to read and play pieces like mary had little lamb at beginner level.. while you can play so many beautiful pieces by memory.

The hardest thing is that there is not so much material out there on sight reading. Most books are like 40 pages and cover one level. I wish those books were 300 pages for one level each and still I would have like multiple books on that level!

That said, there is enough material to sight read (all sheet music can be sight readed) but it's hard to find something at your level.

Anyway I have a question:
Does anyone know at what tempo, BPM, you know your sight reading is good? I know every piece has it's own tempo.. but if one can sightread a random piece for instance at 120 BPM, can one say that his sight reading is good enough for that level of sheet music?

I ask this because the sightreadingmethod I work with atm, my reading is way to slow so the grade/level is way to high. I want to go through my sightreading books again and see where I slow down under the "good sightreading BPM'.. so my teacher can give me material at that level.

JosephAC, I am only a month in front of you in taking up piano but have looked at the sight reading issue in great detail from the onset. There is a distinct correlation with playing ability and sight reading ability. So as you improve and tackle more complex pieces so will your sight reading improve although the rule of thumb is your SR ability is about two levels below your playing ability. Good sight readers don't see individual notes so much as they see a pattern they have played before (same as you see words not letters). So that sort of ability takes time and is connected to experience.

From my very first day at piano I made time for sight reading and will practice for around 15 to 20 mins most days as recommended. Personally I think it is good for my brain to work on this activity but I get the feeling most people are just not into sight reading and get by with a very basic skill level.

For your note recognition you can find some flash cards at here I used them everyday until I could name each note adequately. I now use a program called Prestokeys linked to my DP which I think is the best thing since sliced bread. I also have SR exercise books and have downloaded or bought stacks of easy level sheet music to use in my daily exercises.

After seven months I still think my sight reading sucks but I no longer do that stumbling thing you mentioned (looking at the note for 1-5 seconds, and in comparison to where I was at day one I have come leaps and bounds

I'm learning my second piece and just in the span of last two days I've noticed that it takes me surprisingly little time to decipher certain notes. I still have to rely on the FACE/All cows/Burritos Don't Fall Apart mnemonics but I can see that maybe in 6 months time I can read any note directly. At this time (picked up piano in April) I'm not concerned about being able to play as I read, I trust that the ability will somewhat develop as I read notes for the pieces I learn.

As a side note, I can only imagine how much practice it takes to be able to fluently sight read a piece in a certain key. "OK, this piece in key x. This and that note will be played as flats."

Joseph, I like this website. It helps you practice recognizing individual notes, flash card style.

http://www.musicteachers.co.uk/namethatnote/?service_path=namethatnote

As someone else said ... Think YEARS for this to improve significantly ... and maybe MANY YEARS.

That being said ... stop judging your progress against how good you think you (or others) should be by now. Just keep doing it if you wish to improve. There is no other alternative.

You do not have to be a good sight reader to be a good piano player. However, it helps you get going on a piece faster. So, do what you can but don't beat yourself up if you aren't progressing at a pace that you expect.

If there is one thing you will learn about playing piano it is that nothing happens at your expected pace. You just keep practicing and things happen when they happen. End of Story.

Thank you all for your insightful responses. As usual, I appreciate them dearly.
My take on is to practice SR daily and be patient. Something that I will definetly incorporate into my routine on an ongoing basis.

I see that reading and sight reading are used interchenagbely and hence the reponses. I always associated sight reading with reading and playing on the piano and usually new music sheets so you rely on your reading for your playing and not on your memory.
On the other hand, my 'reading' was in reference to 'reading away from the piano', e.g while commuting, lunch time in the office, in bed.... in preparation for reading and playing my new piece..

I subscribe to Michael's approach to read and play slow enough so I do not make mistakes.

I also subscribe to earlofmar's flash approach, for I use Piano Tutor app for notes recognition.


I must also admit after a while, I get carried away with playing pieces and ignore these practices.

Well you do all that other stuff in order to be able to "get carried away with playing pieces". Nothing to apologize for in putting aside Practice and Learning for a while each day and do a bit of Making Music instead. That's what it's all about.

What really helped me was to drill, quiz, and visualize.
At first I would just drill it in by saying (first identify what clef you are in) and say "third line B, second space A. and so on. After doing that for a while I would just look at music or even a blank staff and identify each note or line/space etc. When I was going to sleep I would visualize a a staff and do the same thing. After a while I would just look at a note and know what it was without thinking.

most importantly be patient with yourself. it takes time but before you know it you will be reading music without even thinking about it.

I think it may also be useful to recognize that what a beginner views as "reading" music may actually be something somewhat different.

I call it "memorized reading". You actually have the piece memorized and can play it without music. You are following along on the page as you play but not really "reading" the music in order to know what keys to press. You already know which keys to press (memorized) but you are using the sheet music as sort of a security blanket so you do not forget what comes next.

So, when you see a polished performer playing something while looking at the music, there is a good chance that he already knows the piece but is just following along on the sheet as a reminder.

Or Not ! He might be reading it, but that takes a special level reading ability.

Just something to be aware of.

This is a great observation. In my own case, it's true to the point of being a problem.

I happen to memorize easily, and once I've memorized a piece, I too easily slide out of the practice of really looking at and reading the score while I'm playing. I tune the score out, so to speak, and I might as well not have it in front of me.

The biggest problem is that once I hit a wrong note or chord, since I'm not looking at the score, I get confused easily about what comes next.

I'm not sure how to break this habit, and specifically, whether I should even try with the pieces I've already memorized, or whether I should try a better approach beginning with each new piece.

Well, of course, that is not quite the same as what I described. What I was describing was to actually pay attention to the score but not using specifically to decide what to play ... note by note. Then you can use it to remind yourself of what comes next. If you "tune it out" then you may as well not even have it there.




Well, that is the problem with memorizing music. Especially, if the memorizing is based primarily on muscle memory. Then you have what is known as a sequential memory of the piece. As long as you play the correct notes, your mind/muscles know what to do next. But, if you play something unexpected (wrong note) then your mind loses its' way and you are stuck.

That is why I stopped memorizing everything. If it happens, fine. But I play while reading it as much as possible and let memory happen naturally through repetition.

@Clssclib

Yes, sounds like to much depending on muscle memory.
Try mental playing, visualise playing every pianokey in your head, including fingering. If you than hit a wrong note you still know what to hit next because you know you just made a small mistake.
Only thing is that mental play every piece is really hard. My playing relies on muscle memory, real memory and theory. For instance I remember left hand as "Dmaj 7 broken chord followed by G major"... not always all the notes but they come with muscle memory and since I think in chords I don't have to think about all the notes seperately.

20 years, give or take. And I'm still learning.

Learning the letters is only part of the game, a stepping stone along the path. Your ultimate aim is to see the written page and immediately know which keys to press.

The fully actualized way of reading music is to see it on the page, hear it in your head and then play what you hear in your head on the piano. I will never achieve that as a matter of course but sometimes when I'm sight-reading I will have that happen for just a few phrases at a time and it's like experiencing an elevated realm of consciousness. That part of my brain that translates "dots" to "keys" hibernates for a few moments and it's all music. I envy those who can do that as a matter of course.

Brent H, I have read your post, here:


The fully actualized way of reading music is to see it on the page, hear it in your head and then play what you hear in your head on the piano. I will never achieve that as a matter of course but sometimes when I'm sight-reading I will have that happen for just a few phrases at a time and it's like experiencing an elevated realm of consciousness. That part of my brain that translates "dots" to "keys" hibernates for a few moments and it's all music. I envy those who can do that as a matter of course.

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I should mention that if you type or write shorthand or reading music while you are playing, you have to be able to do those tasks at a speed 20 percent higher than you are doing them so that your brain is relaxed at processing the data - and in that way you could have a short conversation and still read and play the music without mistakes. It is at that point that you can basically think of other things, same as driving a car, you think of lots of things, sing, talk, and do the task at hand. It is when you have to avoid an accident, or interrupt the relaxed flow, that you have to direct your attention to a crisis -- Most of us are always learning/playing new pieces and as such they are at their level so one is relaxed but never extremely relaxed - so more focused. If one attempts to read and play music from a beginner piano book 1 - even though you haven't played or seen the music before, you are above that level so you could read and play the music without mistakes while carrying on a short conversation while playing the piece.

Spot on dmd. Well articulated. I am guilty of that. I only check the notes if not sure.
For me, 'reading and identifying the notes' happens before I sit on the piano. When on the piano for a new piece, I wanted to focus on my fingering and sound production and less mental effort on notes identification.
What to be aware of? What is the disadvantage of this approach ?



I tend to do the same Kymber. I use most of my jogging time identifying notes on my visual/mental staff. It remains mental effort and not automatic.



I like this approach. But it would be harder for me as my deciphering process is mental and time consuming.

Oh, yeah. There are great exercises here:
-http://www.sightreadingpractice.com
-http://www.emusictheory.com/practice.html

Sand Tiger
This is an intriguing blog to go through. I am still going throguh it. It is an eye opener.

I only say "be aware of" because beginners may think they need to learn to "read" music well enough to read as they play in order to decide which notes to play ... when, in fact, that would take a considerably higher level of skill than most would ever hope to achieve. They need to be "aware" that using the sheet music as a guide after you have the piece memorized is a much more attainable skill.

What is the "downside" to this approach ?

I don't see one. Of course, if you can play without using sheet music at all, is even better. But, using it as a guide is reasonable, in my opinion.

But is it reasonable if you build a dependency to sheet music for playing a piece you're trying to memorize? What's the difference between using a sheet music as a guide vs. as a crutch? Just wondering.

Well, It is my belief that playing while looking at the music sheet is good ... period ... if you can do it and still do justice to the piece with dynamics and expression. As you do more of it, it will automatically become more of a guide instead of a "crutch".

I have tried the other extreme ... strict memorization ... and I found that to be unsatisfactory because I would forget everything I learned unless I kept playing it regularly. That got old in a hurry. So, now a mix of reading and memorizing seems to work best, for me.

As I started to mention in my earlier post in this thread, this is the goal I'd like to reach, but so far I'm stymied.

I seem to have two ways to play piano music: Either literally reading each note and other marking in the score as I'm playing that part of the passage (in "real time") -- something I can't do, frankly, with anything but the simplest "big note" music; or memorizing the piece entirely (which I do unfortunately easily) and playing it without looking at the score at all.

In piano, I gravitate to the latter, since it's the only way (or so I've convinced myself) that I can play pieces at tempo.

Oddly, on my original instrument (classical double bass, which I've played fairly proficiently in orchestras for many years), I "read" exactly in the way you've described -- using the printed music as an at-hand, in-sight reminder of the content of music I already really know, without actually reading the content note-by-note as I play.

That seems quite second-nature to me on bass. It's been much harder to get there on piano, with two staffs and multiple lines of music.

I think reading the music while you're trying to memorize a piece is probably a good thing - you might actually be memorizing the music too, at least to the extent where you can find your place immediately when your memory fails in the middle of playing the memorized piece.

Many classical players who are slow readers, are not so much worried about their reading skills, but getting the playing dynamics up to par. Usually pieces are learned by rote and things move along fine until one day you return to it and find it needs to be re-read. So if you read at 5 npm (notes per min), its like starting over. Solution: work 5 or 6 great pieces into your fingers, then run them thru every day.

That's what I have been doing. The problem is that, with practice time being in short supply, I'm doing too much playing of pieces I've already mastered and memorized, and not enough reading of new pieces.

If I don't do enough reading, I won't become a good reader very quickly. Radical thought, that...

And that absolutely will work. But you sure get tired of those 5 or 6 great pieces.

JosephAC, are you familiar with intervallic reading and landmark notes? Do you have a teacher, or are you working on your own?

That is always the trade-off.... Play better TODAY or play better TOMORROW. If you force yourself to do more playing while "reading", you will progress more slowly today but may reach a higher level in the long run.

Of course, you know that already ... as you have become an accomplished player with another instrument. It is just a matter of whether you can muster the patience to do it.

Patience (or the lack of it) is the greatest challenge to an adult beginner in piano.

Of course that in turn brings up ones personal meaning of "play better", doesn't it?

For my part, I know of certain songs I can play Good Enough, others I can fake my way through but they are not Good Enough and many, many others I really can't play at all. I have no particular desire to make my Good Enough playing sound "better".

A song I'm playing that's Good Enough may suffer for lack of finely-tuned dynamics, it may have the odd omitted or even occasionally wrong note, it may even be played more slowly than the writer intended. But the gist of the song will come through and it will both be recognizable for what it is and it will sound nice and make me happy.

So for me, the definition of "playing better" means having more songs in my Good Enough category. Someone else may not feel it is Good Enough until they can play it without error ten times in a row, from memory and with the most exquisite phrasing and dynamics that their fingers will allow. If I had to stick to songs I could play perfectly from memory I would quit playing the piano and just watch television or play golf instead. But that's just me!

Yes, I am familiar with intervalic reading and I am working with a teacher. I started sight reading drills forthnight ago and I am not yet at full momentum with sight reading.

I am not sure what you mean by landmark notes.

So far, I am comfortable with some of the intervalic reading and playing but not all intervals.

Will it ever be possible to do intervalic reading and playing without the need to automate notes deciphering?

To my understanding process, the reading & playing process is a combination of automated notes deciphering and automated intervallic reading and playing.
Is this right ? Or is it one or the other ?

Landmark notes mean you learn to recognize very quickly certain notes, for example 5 Cs, or treble G and bass F, and build recognition of other notes by relating them to the landmark notes.

It sounds like you're in good hands with a teacher and intervallic reading, which seems to be the accepted modern way to learn reading music. I learned to read music differently, and it was so long ago that I don't know how to describe what the process was like, except to say that I was fortunate in that it never seemed difficult.

Joseph,

Can I make some suggestions based on personal experience? I took up the piano four years ago from scratch and now at age 65 am preparing for the ABRSM Grade 1 exam. If you are younger then I am sure you be able to progress faster.

Landmark notes are a great concept as they help you to conceptualise the key that you will be striking just from its position on the grand staff. Its not rocket science, but I’ve never quite seen anyone map it out simply, and higher concepts taken aboard seem to help with these automatic processes.

Try mapping this out on paper and then run your hands across the fifths and recognise the keyboard notes on the staffs that correspond: (Note: there is a wrinkle in this desdrption concerning fifth and the mapping at the top of the treble staff (C# / F#) which a knowledge person may help to clarify for us.

Upper C, two ledger lines above the treble staff, is a fifth above F

Top of the treble staff is F, which is a fifth above B
Middle line of the treble is B, which is a fifth below F
Bottom line of the treble is E, which is a fifth below B

Middle C, which is a third below E

Top of the bass clef is A, a third below middle C
Middle line of the bass is D, which is fifth below A
Bottom line of the bass clef is G, which is fifth below D

Lower C, is two ledger lines below the bottom of the bass clef, and a fifth below G

Intervallic training will also help you conceptualise the mapping of the notes on the stave to the keyboard, since you will start to directly connect the note in its position on the staffs with the note to be played. You will then cease to spell out notes individually as you play them, just as when you read text you never spell out individual letters in words.

I have found there is no substitute for about an hour a day working on material at this level. The book I have found most helpful is called Sight Reading Success by Malcolm Riley and Paul Terry and comes with a CD so you can compare your own performance, but you need to build up understanding.

Yesterday I read an article on Scribd by David Warn and Johan Sandback called 10 Steps to Improve your sight reading, who make very helpful points about structured practice, which works well with book, but could be used with similar practise material.

I understand that the initial aim is to build up the “inner ear” so that when you look at a piece of music, you can sense what it sounds like (rhythm, timing, key, articulation, dynamics etc.) before you play it.

Warn and Sandback’s Step 1 is to practise time signatures and rhythms to build confidence reading rhythms. So, I am using the 70 or so examples in the book, and am now practicing all of the 2/4 examples as a block, then all of the 3 / 4 examples as a block and will similarly work through all the 4/4 examples in due course.

Already this is helping more than anything else I’ve tried.

The examples in Riley and Terry match the ABRSM grade 1 requirement. They cover Cmaj, F, G, D, Dmin, Amin etc, are only 7 bars long, cover both hands, one hand plays although the tunes swap between hands, so I can also address dynamics and articulation.

Step 2 is to practise each key signature separately to build confidence with individual keys. I plan to do that using the same 70 examples key by key when I am solid on the three time signature activities.

Warn and Sandbacks other 8 suggestions all look worth following as well.

I plan to check progress with my teacher each lesson (every other week) using the ABRSM specimen sight reading tests.

I hope you find a suitable approach that works for you

Sorry for the long post and apologies for the lack of clarity around C# / F# and fifths at the top of the treble.

Colin

The wrinkle is that a perfect fifth is seven half-steps, for example from C down to F. From F at the top of the treble staff down to B in the middle of the treble staff is only 6 half steps. Go ahead, step over to your piano and count it out. Listen to it also. This interval is called a "diminished fifth."

I would use the system as ColinH described it, using C two lines above the treble staff, and F at the top of the treble staff, as landmarks, and not worry to try to correct it to have a perfect fifth above B in the middle of the treble staff.

Thanks Colin. Your elaborate intervallic mapping definitely helped me a lot cement these notes. I am looking closely into acquiring and applying your suggestions.

I just love the quality of the feedback that I get at this forum. Keep sharing.

Chatting to a friend recently who can play an electronic organ, she said she likes going to listen to pianists because she played the organ and can read music. I beg to differ because when she had a go at my piano with my sheet music, she did not know what she was doing an said the music was too difficult for her although she could recognise a sharp and a flat on the score. She put it down to the fact that organ music is different and that is all she knows how to play properly.

So... when she says she can read music, she cannot. She asked me about the simple piece of piano music that I showed her and pointed at a rest and said, what is that so I replied that is a rest and she said what is that so I explained to her that it means you do not play anything there but give your hands a rest. If she could read music as she claims, she should know what a rest is.

bumping this up.

What do you mean exactly ? How to play these 5-6 pieces? Play through reading and playing every time and every day ? From memory every time ? ( finger memory) ?

What benefits will this recommendation bring ? Impress others? Augmenting your reading ability ?

By relying solely on memory, will you ever become a good sight-reader ?

JosephAC, I have read your post, here:

Solution: work 5 or 6 great pieces into your fingers, then run them thru every day.


What do you mean exactly ? How to play these 5-6 pieces? Play through reading and playing every time and every day ? From memory every time ? ( finger memory) ?

What benefits will this recommendation bring ? Impress others? Augmenting your reading ability ?

By relying solely on memory, will you ever become a good sight-reader ?

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When people post, they do so based on their understanding, their education, their accuracy.

To understand anyone's post about anything - reading music, it is important to request the name of a piece as an example.

There are people here who are playing very advanced pieces and some say they are having a difficult time reading the notes. I don't understand because to play any piece of music you have to know the note name and the note value at the very least.

I read in the forum that Chopin's Ballade 4 was one of the most difficult pieces ever written or to play. As a beginner, I thought it would be nice to look at music that was very difficult to play so I bought the piece. It is in 6/8 time. Most of the notes are 16th notes and a few 32nd notes. There are huge chords everywhere. Most of the notes are on the staff. There are ledger line notes that are up to 10 lines below and above the staff. I am not for a moment suggesting that I would be able to play this piece in my lifetime, but you or I could name the notes and count the values of the notes in the measures.

So it is important for people to explain exactly how something is accomplished so readers can read and understand what is being suggested.

I'll answer these in the context of krzyzowski's post.





He simply means that for those that aren't already and aren't willing to work to become better readers, the alternative is memorizing each and every thing you learn - and then practicing them regularly so they stay memorized - in the event you need or want to play something because you can't just pick up a piece of music (in this case, maybe even a piece you formerly learned and memorized, but then forgot) and play/learn it without difficulty.




While you might be looking at the printed page of music while you play something familiar, this type of "reading" is not sight-reading because the music you're looking at is already memorized in the fingers and thus your sight-reading (the art of reading and anticipating patterns in the music and moving your hands to the notes/chords accordingly) is not improving at all. This is why when you're practicing sight-reading, you generally only want to play through a piece once or twice because anything beyond this is just memorization. There are more suggestions for how to practice this in some links at the bottom.




There's little to no benefit as performance repertoire should be memorized and made capable of being played without the physical music anyways. This certainly can impress those with no experience in playing a musical instrument, but as mentioned, will do nothing to improve your reading ability.




Can you? Yes. Will you? No. Sight-reading is it's own separate little activity in piano study completely different from repertory study (memorizing pieces for performance) and needs to be practiced regularly (daily, for 5-10 minutes of an hour if an hour is the amount of time available for practicing, for example) in addition to repertory study.

Now the reason for going through the trouble of learning to and get better at sight-reading? Without the honed ability, it would be difficult if not impossible to explore the vast amounts of music that exist of all kinds of different periods and styles. The ability also makes it easier to learn new repertoire more quickly.


I recommend reading the following musiciansway blog post, free online e-book, and the following pianoworld thread about sight-reading:

• http://musiciansway.com/blog/2011/04/effortless-sight-reading/
• http://anthonymaydwell.com/Faith%20Maydwell/images/SightReading.pdf
• https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...t%20read%20-%20material%20an.html#UNREAD

Someone who has difficulty deciphering music would use the sheet music to figure out the notes' location & durations, and how the piece should sound. But then, once you "get a piece into your fingers" it is entirely possible to play it without remembering the notes on the score. This is "playing by muscle memory", and it is actually quite a common phenomenon.

There are a number of equally common problems with muscle memory, like memorizing mistakes made during the reading process (and never noticing, if they're sufficiently harmonious mistakes). Another is the situation in which one might lose one's place in the music, then need to restart from the beginning of a section (or the beginning of the whole piece), since that's the only way one's muscles remember how to play it.

tangleweeds, I have read your post, here:

There are people here who are playing very advanced pieces and some say they are having a difficult time reading the notes. I don't understand because to play any piece of music you have to know the note name and the note value at the very least.

Someone who has difficulty deciphering music would use the sheet music to figure out the notes' location & durations, and how the piece should sound. But then, once you "get a piece into your fingers" it is entirely possible to play it without remembering the notes on the score. This is "playing by muscle memory", and it is actually quite a common phenomenon.

There are a number of equally common problems with muscle memory, like memorizing mistakes made during the reading process (and never noticing, if they're sufficiently harmonious mistakes). Another is the situation in which one might lose one's place in the music, then need to restart from the beginning of a section (or the beginning of the whole piece), since that's the only way one's muscles remember how to play it.

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Thanks for taking the time to explain. I can't trust my memory and I would get lost in the music so I have to read and play the notes.

It is interesting, that - I always read through a piece making sure I can read the notes, and know the counting through the measures. Then I play the piece for the first time. Often when I work through the piece that first time - I will stop and go back to read through the piece again because there are things I don't appreciate from just reading - no matter how carefully I study the music - it that I immediate see or experience walking through the measures playing the piece - then from that moment, I okay reading and playing the music.