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Hi. I've been playing piano casually for years - even played in a band and felt my around songs based on chord shapes.

It's time to learn how to actually play piano properly; correct my bad fingering technique, learn all the scales, theory etc That's the "easy" part. I can comprehend music theory, I can drill scale practice without guidance.

What I can't seem to do is learn how to read music. I've followed many of the links on this awesome site, however, it just seems to not stick. I know I don't have a great memory, but I've taught myself other languages before, so I don't see why my brain can't do it. There are primary schoolers out there who can read music while I keep struggling, looking over at the Grand Staff complete with A-G inscriptions to help me along, never memorising anything.

Just looking for some tips and advice for those of you who were in the same boat. I know that learning to read music will be the most important step forwards for me to improve. I will be able to actually read the Jazz books I have; even learn some songs!

Cheers


EDIT: I guess I should add; notation systems? How can I learn to read music if there are so many different language standards? What one should I invest my time in? I like the look of chromatic notation systems, but what are the chances I will ever read sheet music noted this way?

Treble clef: EGBDF lines and FACE spaces up. FDBGE lines and ECAF spaces down.
Bass clef: GBDFA lines and ACEG spaces up. AFDBG lines and GECA spaces down.

Don't use mnemonics. Just memorize these lines and spaces note for note, both up the staff and down. This is easier memorized by memorizing the entire sequence: EGBDFACE, GBDFACEG, etc which keeps repeating.

The reason most people have difficulty reading music (including me) is that we try to do too much initially. There are three basic things that we get from a sheet music: rhythm, pitch and fingering. When we try to do all three at the same time without knowing how to do each one properly, it is difficult, and we get frustrated and give up. The solution is to work on them separately until they are effortless by themselves. Then we can put them together more easily.

Rhythm tells us how long to hold the note, how long to rest. Practice rhythm separately by counting,clapping, etc, preferably with the help of a metronome.

Pitch tells us which key on the keyboard to play, and fingering which finger to use. Practice pitch and fingering away from the piano. Keep the sheet in front of you, and speak the notes out loud along with the finger you will use for them. For example, C=1 E-3 G-5.Then try it out at the piano without considering rhythm. That is, play the piece note by note and hold one note until you play the next without consideration as to how long each note needs to be held. This is easier said than done. Take your time, and you will see progress.

I have been learning to play piano for twenty months and learning to sight read has proven to be as tough as I thought it would be. Not that I have some self defeating prophecy holding me back, it seems many others share the same view. I made several mistakes along the way but I am confident I am on the right track at the moment to be a thoroughly average reader. I will quite happily settle for that. So here are a few opinions:

Unlike piano repertoire there are no short cuts. While I might be able to tackle and play a grade 6 piece with only a grade 3 experience one cannot do this with sight reading. SR seems to really depend on small incremental steps that cannot be avoided. My first lesson in humility was failing, even after much time spent, to be able to sight read harder pieces than I could comfortably play and my first revelation was sight reading is not that hard if you go to the very beginning and work your way up. So start at the beginning, with either flash cards, smart phone apps spend time everyday note naming which needs to be turned into note playing. Intervals come next and are very important, for everything I have read says that seeing patterns in the music is the key to sight reading. Intervals are the first patterns which will lead to chords and phrases. Of course rhythm has it’s part to play but I had a big breakthrough when I understood it was the glue that holds sighting reading together.
If you cannot read preliminary grade music then start there. I found this helpful as you are generally only reading treble or bass and become good at crossing one to the other. After a while I was able to start reading both staves and so my journey continues.

Note naming, note playing, interval recognition all play vital parts for when they can be done well and automatic they stop hesitations which is the killer of sight reading. So again as many have said before me, finding a tempo you can read without hesitation is key. There is no shame at reading preliminary stuff at 25bpm, how great it feels when you go to 35bpm. Staying at very easy tempo’s were a little counter intuitive to me at first but two things happened. Firstly my confidence was greatly increased for there were no crippling hesitations, but my mind and eyes were free to explore and so starting to look ahead began. I thought this would be impossible when I first read about it but slowly it is coming. So now when I look back on the “10 Golden Rules of Sight Reading” you find in any google search, I realise the rules given do sum it up. People just forget to add there might be months of work in each step.

Last point is the material itself, you need to have a daily regime set aside just for sight reading practice. Most posts I have read recommend 20 – 30mins, the average time a brain can stay focused and open to learning. Even in this fairly short duration you need lots of material but the material has to be at a level specific to your ability.
A couple of things I find useful.

Denes Agay books Joy of First Classics 1 & 2. (Probably preliminary grade)
Any Big Note Books eg 100 Best Loved Piano Solos
Denes Agay books Easy Classics to Moderns Vols 17, 27 (grade 2 to 3 is my estimate)

I also use a program to be found at sightreadngfactory.com but I always stress this is not a substitute just an aid. In saying that it covers a few levels of the early stages and is unlimited material plus great to play along with.

For some of us, learning basic sight reading is a long and difficult road. There are websites, apps, that help with drilling and memorization. Some use flash cards or index cards. Many suggest spending some time every day on the task.

Many beginners use very easy music, new music every day to practice their sight reading. For some, even this was too much. I resorted to reading scores out loud, note by note.

I'll never be a good sight reader. However, with some effort, I have learned enough to transcribe some of my original music and notate my arrangements of popular tunes, and sound out music from lead sheets. Combine poor sight reading with my flunking out of basic ear training (see other recent thread), it is a wonder I can play at all. It does explain why I spend so much time on original music and so relatively little on learning covers.

I suggest at least learning enough sight reading to use lead sheets which have the treble clef notes on the top and chords in letter form on the bottom.

Thanks so much for all the input! You guys are very generous taking so much time to write such detailed responses.

I guess even logical people can benefit from having someone else tell them things they should already know. In other words, I just need to accept that there are no short cuts or drastically easier ways to learn.

I can look at "twinkle twinkle little star" and, (assuming I didn't already know how to play it), I would find myself staring at the staff and working my way slowly up from E. 25bmp for any random sequence equally as basic would be beyond my current ability!

So I need to grind through the monotony of moving these individual notes into long term memory by exposing myself to them day in, day out. Flash cards sound good - perhaps there is an iphone app that will make this a more portable task.

Having composed and played music in a jazz/funk band before (believe it or not), I think the hardest thing for me is slowing down and not letting my current ability and desire for improvisation interfere with re-learning the basics.

Cheers

Something we can all be caught out on. However an experienced sight reader will do a quick analysis of a score before beginning. Something we all have to learn to do.

here is a link to printable flash cards.

Can you elaborate on what this analysis involves?

See this site. There is a really useful and free online tutorial on sight reading:

Jane Sight Reading Lessons

I wish it helps.

Hey ZigZiglar, I have the same problem and I've been learning for almost 16 months now and it's still slow going on the sight reading for me. I find it helps to pick lots of pieces and just try them out without listening to them first. This is because I find that when I play familiar pieces or pieces I've heard before, I tend to use my ears rather than my eyes and I don't really read the notes properly.

There are lots of scores available online so sometimes I look for simpler pieces and use them to practice reading. Currently I'm also using the Alfred books for sight reading as there are some pieces there that I have not heard before and the pieces in the book are generally not too complex.

Hope this helps!

If this is the issue (you know E but have to count up for other notes) then you are in exactly the same position as my students when they are first beginning to read. We learn the first line on the staff first, then the pattern of lines and spaces. Once they understand how everything works and can get to all notes with slow counting of lines and spaces, we start memorizing a few home notes, generally the bottom middle and top lines of the staff first (treble: E B F, bass: G D A) followed by middle C.

Try memorizing a few home notes. It doesn't really matter which notes you choose, but keep it to a small number like 2-4 per staff until you are confident on those. If you spread them around the staff they will help you get to all other notes quickly, as all other notes will be very near a home note.

I do think mnemonic devices help (FACE, Elephants Get Big Dirty Feet, All Care Eat Gas, Good Burritos Don't Fall Apart - or whatever ones you can think of). Generally, I tell my students to use these when doing flash cards by having them written out on a piece of paper right there while they look at flash cards until they can memorize them. In the midst of playing, I only tell them to read the first note(s) for each hand using these devices, and then write it in. If there is a note that gives a student trouble in the middle of the piece, then we stop and figure out what it is and write that in, or write in the finger number.

Mostly, I tell my students that in the midst of playing, they should read the interval:
-Does the next note go up, down or repeat?
-If up or down, how far up or down (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc).

I also have them describe out loud what is happening in the piece, So for example, let's say we are playing Mary Had a Little Lamb and we figured out the starting note was B. They would describe it like this: "Start with finger 3 on B in the RH, step down, then down again, then back up, and back to where you started, play that note 3 times. Then step down and play it 3 times, then back up once, then up a 3rd play 2 times. Then it repeats like the beginning, but it changes when you return to the B, you play it 4 times, step down play 2 times, step up, then down and then down again."

Obviously for longer pieces you may want to just describe the first 4 bars and then try playing it. You also want to identify any tricky rhythms and try tapping them with counting before playing. Otherwise if the rhythm seems simple you can skip that step.

I'm not sure what you mean about different notation systems. There are some others out there, but there's really one that is taught in private and public music lessons that we are describing here and most written sheet music is using this system. If you are referring to different nomenclature for jazz chords, you will have to ignore that for now until you are a better reader and can understand what chords they are trying to describe. There are some reference books that describe what each name is referring to.

The Faber series has the concept of "Guide Notes" which has really help me improve my sight reading.

Instead of learning the position of every note on the bass and treble clef, I learn a few guide notes instead.

For example, one of the guide notes on the bass clef is "F". Not only is is easy for me to recognize that note while reading it, but the notes above and below "G" and "E" are also easy to spot.

This may not work for everyone but is has helped me. Another major reason why the Faber series is by far my favorite among those I have been exposed to.

ZigZiglar, along with looking for information about guide notes as BrianDX suggests, you might find it helpful to look for information about intervallic reading.

I don't mean to disagree as I have no experience teaching music, but don't mnemonics make what is a 1 step process into 2 steps?

For example, if there is a note that I'm identifying, if I had the sequence memorized, I could directly count up/down and read it, but if I use mnemonics, I would first have to recite the mnemonic and then piece together the first letter of each word and then count up to read it. Am I wrong?

Perhaps mnemonics would be useful to younger students, but for adult beginners, isn't direct memorization a better solution? If we can remember so many passwords for various online accounts, surely EGBDFACE isn't so hard :P

Zig, here's an online note drill app that may help you. It's similar to flashcards, but lets you choose from several levels of difficulty.

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

One thing about this thread that should give all of us beginners some solice; Sight reading is HARD, and it takes a lot of people quite a while to acquire proficiency.

So whatever method works best, just don't get discouraged.

Personally I don't think memorization or mnemonics work. I think that's why it takes people forever to learn how to read music and it frustrates them. You have to say the whole saying for a note on the top of the staff. And which saying goes with which staff again? Plus, it doesn't address ledger lines. I know it's the way it's always been done, but I don't teach it and often speak out against that method of learning.

I teach a method where you know a few key notes then associate all the other notes around those main ones. I use C and G. Less notes to remember, and more real world to how I actually read. It shouldn't take you more than a month to be able to recognize a single note anywhere on the staff (including ledger lines). I've had students go through 30 flash cards perfectly in 2-3 weeks. The difficulty is in reading multiple notes at once and adding timing to the mix.

As you get better, you can not only relate notes to the main ones, but to each other as well. The more real world music you apply it to, the better. Speed comes with practice and can never be your primary goal. Go for accuracy first.

I could not agree more ! Take any piece of music, plainly if you are a beginer an easy piece, find the notes one at a time and then pencil in above it which finger you are going to use.

It depends on the person. Obviously, if a person doesn't need them, then I don't use them. Mnemonics are used only as a tool for memorizing the note names in order, not to be used for the rest of one's life, but a stepping stone. Eventually, the student just reads the note, but this takes time.

Some people can just remember what the 4th line is, but what if you can't? What do you do to figure it out? Count up from a note you know? How many steps does that take?

PS: I have most of my logins and passwords written down on several post-it notes. The ones I use all the time I have memorized, but there are many that I use once a month or less.

I'm not sure if this was in reference to my comment before, but I only have students write in starting notes and once in a while when needed other notes. But if you write in note names for every note, then you're not reading anymore and it becomes a huge crutch. Just clarifying in case I was misunderstood.