Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Ex-terrible sight readers --> now great readers!

This app looks great, I'm very tempted to get it. I'm just afraid that I will purchase a ton of music straight away, when I will probably be able to read only the first few pieces. Did you purchase the packages progressively as you moved on? I see there are ABRSM exam pieces but also music form other schools.

The pieces are in collection by grade, starting at 1. You can purchase them one grade at a time and each examining board separately. The ABRSM collections are the largest. Trinity and AMEB have about half as many pieces. I find the app really helpful. You can set the metronome speed, from 40 bpm and up. The 40 is a bit fast for 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, because it counts in three note groupings. The rest works great. For prima vista sight reading I think the app is a great trainer.

There are a lot apps only for ipad when it comes to music learning tools.
Would an ol d "iPad Mini 16 gig" do for these apps?

sightreadingfactory, forscore, irealB, now this "Wessar sight reading",...

I think this "2 grade levels below" is quite aspirational and not a great starting point for many (most?) of us.
If this is a skills gap, far better to start at a very basic level that you can actually grapple with and go from there.

My repertoire level is around Gr 5/6/7 ABRSM, my sight reading level is around Gr 2. I mean the level that someone *doing* ABRSM Grade 2 would be expected to *sight read* at.
And I'm only so-so at this level, I'd *probably* pass in an exam but no guarantee.

If the practice material is too hard then you won't progress at all. I think for a lot of us, sight reading at 2 grades below our playing ability is a hard won success that comes from lots and lots of practice, not the starting point.

Barbaram
I totally agree about the level to start... 2 grades below is only a general benchmark: really to highlight only that you can not sightread at the same level you can play.

Where to start? Only at the level you can do, of course. Start at two grades below and see how that works: if not well, move down until you reach a comfort level. It may mean 4 grades below what you can play, and then you need to work your way up. I fall in the same category as you: as a kid, I was an excellent sight reader, but have lost this skill through many years of not using it, and am now climbing my way, painfully, back up.

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Thank you SwissMS! I will give it a go and start with the easier ABRSM pieces.

@barbaram, I completely agree! I think for me, the "2 grade below thing" is very ambitious. I'm learning pieces at grade 3/4 but a grade 2 piece would still require me some practice, no way I could sight-read it at tempo.

Talking about tempo... it's very important because theoretically I could very well read La campanella at 10 bpm. What is a reasonable tempo for sight-reading? Half tempo, full tempo? Some pieces are just too dense and fast to read everything. Even a good pianist might have to drop some notes or mentally rearrange some things (a skill in itself).

Have fun with the Wessar app, sinophilia!

Theoretically, ABRSM tests at two grades below the grade that the candidate is sitting. So, the grade 5 sight reading tests should be roughly grade 3. I think they are actually harder than that though. The Wessar pieces are taken from the board's actual test books from previous years. They include all kinds of rhythms, all kinds of music from Baroque to Latin, to Jazz, staccato in one hand and legato in the other, etc. Grade 5 contains up to five flats or sharps. They even have inventions and ragtime at grade 6!

On the speed question, it should be enough to keep the flow, and there should be no hesitations or corrections. I think doing prima vista sight reading with the metronome is a good idea. It does not allow you hesitate or go back and fix. The idea is, if you are playing with another musician you have to keep the rhythm and just keep going.

I believe that ABRSM sets great store by sight-reading skills - more so than other exam boards, probably - and none whatsoever by memory skills, because they know the the 'average amateur' in the UK (ever since Victorian times ) play music from the score, and don't ever perform from memory. And they may be playing hymn tunes, carols & Christmas songs at Christmas to entertain friends & family or for a sing-a-long, short salon pieces to impress suitors etc, much of them by prima vista sight-reading.

I was called upon to do just that last Christmas - sight-reading piano accompaniments to songs I don't know (and never seen the music before), as well as having to improvise stuff from guitar chords in song books, to accompany people's singing. I've also come across lots of sheet music and volumes of intermediate-to-advanced level salon-type music on the tops of uprights (and in the benches) when visiting old public homes and properties. Sheet music that used to be sold very cheaply as the (red) "Lilac Series" and the (white) Chesterian series (which helpfully includes the ABRSM Grade level for each piece). That was how I got my hands on all sorts of stuff as a student with very little pocket money - everything from The Maiden's Prayer and To a Wild Rose to Oscar Merikanto's A Summer Idyll and Grieg Lyric Pieces, all the way to Rach's Prelude in C# minor, and even more advanced pieces, almost all in their original form. That was great for me, as I had (and still have) a morbid aversion to simplified arrangements, and would rather take a year to learn a piece as the composer wrote it (or put it aside until my technique developed sufficiently), than to find a simplified arrangement that I can easily sight-read.

And the ABRSM also know that only a tiny number of kids learning to play piano will ever become soloists who have to perform from memory. Those who take up music as a profession will be likely using sight-reading skills all the time (as teachers, accompanists or chamber musicians, or jobbing pianists in restaurants etc), and memory skills hardly at all.

Good Lord... I was looking at the Wessar apps this morning and they were there, in the App Store... now I go check again to get one and they are nowhere to be seen! Not in the Italian store, UK store, or US store!

There are clearly different schools of thought about it.

Interestingly, I participated in a country wide piano contest of sorts earlier in the year, this year. It was stated in the rules that performances from sheet music or memory would both be accepted. Also, this contest I think represented a fair cross section of Amateur pianists in Canada as it targeted all ages and all skill levels. Nonetheless, 90% of the performances were from memory. Likely a reflection of RCM in Canada.

"Those who take up music as a profession will be likely using sight-reading skills all the time (as teachers, accompanists or chamber musicians, or jobbing pianists in restaurants etc), and memory skills hardly at all."

Disagree. I grew up in a family of an RCM, life long pro of various music disciplines. Sheet music (or score of any kind) would only be used in the scenarios you mention, often not in these scenarios, and never in any other. Pros' are playing often enough that they need to function well without it.

You've got it, exactly.

With RCM, you lose marks if you don't play your exam pieces from memory. Not so with ABRSM - they even make allowances for glitches that may occur during hasty page-turning. No student that I've known ever played their exam pieces from memory.

The ABRSM's philosophy is as stated on their website - to foster a love of music, and make it part of people's lives even as adults.

"Those who take up music as a profession will be likely using sight-reading skills all the time (as teachers, accompanists or chamber musicians, or jobbing pianists in restaurants etc), and memory skills hardly at all."


In North America, there is this 'star' and showbiz mentality, which is largely absent (so far) among the majority of classical musicians in the UK. Kids in N. America do student recitals and perform for audiences from memory, and so on, which they don't in the UK. (BTW, I'm talking classical music only here). I know a few piano teachers and professional musicians (in orchestras, chamber groups etc), and none of them ever play anything from memory. In fact, most told me they've not played from memory ever since they finished with diplomas etc (performance diplomas - but not teaching diplomas - generally require playing from memory).

And the teachers here don't do student recitals - they do grade exams. I've mentioned in the past that I never played any piece from memory for the first ten years as a piano student.

So long as they stay with classical, it's fine. If they ever want to venture into a much larger world of what is available to them musically, then they will need to get off the dependence.

Hi Johan, I think the iPad mini is a bit small for sight-reading, but it could still be feasible. I was using one until a couple of months ago, before getting the Pro.

Bennevis
Your comment that the US has a 'star and show-biz mentality' is unwarranted and really unfair. Because the UK students do not play by memory and recitals in the US do? Did you ever consider that student recitals in the US mimic a 'performance solo' setup where pianists do indeed, play without the music?

Because something is different, doesn't mean it is inferior-- and doesn't mean there is a motive other than a decision about what might be best for the objective... there are different approaches, and all of them have their advantages or disadvantages. None should have a pejorative label because it is different from the way it was done in a different region and/or a different point in time.

http://sightread4.com/piano/

@dogperson: How do you search IMSLP by grade?

I've been to USA enough times to see the difference. There is definitely a showbiz element which is part of life in USA that you don't see in the UK. Compare a typical football (i.e. soccer) match in the UK with a football match in USA, for example. Or a village parade in the UK to one in USA. BTW, I didn't say that one is bad or inferior - I'm just pointing out the differences, and linking them to the differences in teaching, and in student expectations. If you've never been to the UK, I'd urge you to pay a visit in the summer, when there are village fêtes and shows in many places, including re-inactments of the English Civil War and other such events, which are fun for tourists. In Scotland, you have the Highland Games too. They're all free . You'll immediately see what I mean.

And you've got it right - student recitals in USA mimic a 'performance solo' setup. Amateur musicians in the UK just don't do 'performance solos'. Neither do students, unless they have aspirations to be concert pianists etc, and heading for music conservatoires. And teachers don't do student recitals.

This app was very helpful for me as well to start to get my hands to work together sight reading. BUT, at level 3 I ran into a road block because of all the jumps and chords. This led me to Bootcamp Sight Reading DVD's by Shawn Cheek. He has a lot of good drills that teach jumps between random intervals. It's horrible to listen to, but the point is that it is hard to memorize random hand placements. After a couple years averaging about one hour a day 4 days a week, I'm a little better, but all my other playing went down the tubes because I didn't have any time left for other practice. At age 50, dedicating 2 years to sight reading was all that I could afford. For the past 3 months I've gotten back to learning new music. It's great! The sight reading is halting at best, but I think that my goal of being able to increase the speed of learning a song has increased enough for me. I don't plan on playing for a choir or a band, so just the added reading competence gets rid of the worst headaches when learning a song.

I have read that learning to see "chunks" of music as arpeggiated chords can help. It would be great to find some lessons along these lines, but alas, they don't seem to exist.

Reading, yes. Prima vista sight reading, not so much.

If you sub with a band, it depends on how much lead time there is. It's best for all concerned if you can get a look at the book beforehand. Even if not, you'll know the tunes if not the specific arrangements.

For solo bar and restaurant work, you can do what you want -- play from memory, or from your charts. I can't imagine any bar or restaurant or hotel here presenting you with sheet music you've never seen before. You're expected to provide it. Ask them for sheet music, and their first reaction will be "Uh-oh, we hired the wrong guy." ;-)

Yes but it's no longer in the App Store where you can download it to your iPad. I've talked with Wessar and they said there is a problem with Apple. Should be fixed in 1-2 days.