Hi all,

I started a thread about a month ago about starting grades.
I have now entered for grade 4 in July, it will be my first piano exam.

I am very happy that I will be ready for it. I can handle the pieces fine and playing the scales isn't a problem. However, I do feel that if anything is going to let me down, it will be my sight reading. I find that I memorize pieces quite quickly, and, although I do look at the music whilst playing, I don't really feel I am READING it (if that makes sense!). When learning a new piece, I would say that I "decode" it note by note rather than reading it more fluently. My teacher said to look at easier pieces that I have and play through them, so I have been playing from a grade 1 exam book from 2004 (my brothers) but I still don't feel its doing much good.


I'm looking for any advice on things to do to improve my reading. It would also be great if someone would be able to suggest a sight reading exercise to do when I'm away from home and therefore have no access to a piano.

Many thanks,
Tom

I kind of understand what you're going through. I tend to get rid of sheet music as fast as I can. Bringing it back a couple of days later so I can alter my dynamics. The only times I really look at it once I've played a piece a few times through is to reassure myself for more difficult/less intuitive passages.

To be honest though your teacher is right, the only way I've seen to get better at sight reading, is to sight read. And the easiest way to do this is to get a book of pieces several grades below your exam pieces and just run through the whole book.

I set myself rules for the ABRSM example book that went as follows: 5-10 a day, never play one more than twice through. That way when I finished the book and came back to the beginning it had been enough time/not enough practice for me forget the first pieces.

Adding in any other pieces you can is great.

I found that the time given during sight reading felt a lot longer than I thought it would be during my g2 exam. I'm not sure if this was because the examiner was concentrating on their notes too much or not. Either way I found it to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. So whilst you should definitely practice (as much as scales), it probably won't be as bad as you think.

It's time to get back to basics. Don't be ashamed to go back and get those old beginner books out. When you open them up and your reaction is, this is to easy, that's about where you want to be starting.

If you are (decoding) a piece upon first glance, you are not sight reading. The idea here is to train your eyes to always be slightly ahead with the music. You're ability to memorise may well be useful here. To begin with aim to be around half a bar to a bar ahead. You can build this up later to several bars, some even manage a line.

Always look at the music, not your hands. Never stop to correct. Never go back to polish and never sight read the same piece twice, that defeats the object.
Most importantly, count, tap your foot, feel the beat under your fingers.

Remember your standard of playing is already around the grade 4 standard, so what you are trying to do here is not develop your playing ability as such but your reading ability. You have the necessary technique, you just need to develop the means to apply it upon first seeing a score, at first, well beyond your current level.

Sight reading is a complete skill in itself. Personally I put more practice into sight reading than I do scales and the likes of, as I feel it's more important and of course, far more enjoyable.

Best of luck,

P.S, this is great advice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASBNbeREEY

Isn't someone who is able to learn a piece accurately enough to practice without the score in a short time actually a fairly efficient reader? If it takes a long time to work out the notes/rhythm won't you need the score to refer to for a longer rather than a shorter time?

I didn't see that point. But it should hold true that if you (OP) can memorise a sheet of music quickly then you should be fine at reading music in general, in which case sight-reading sans instrument may be redundant.

I'm assuming your main problem is not seeing/understanding the notation/rhythm, but instead maybe translating that into a piece that your hands can play out?

I was a terrible, terrible sight reader and it always brought my marks down. After grade 7, I took
a break from lessons for a while and would just play through some Bach or any easy-ish pieces (including the lower to mid level Suzuki books) that
were lying around - just for fun, by myself, no pressure. By the time I played grade 8 (a few years later), I did fine!

I think a big element is confidence: once you think you can't sight-read well, you can get stuck and panic
whenever you have to.

Thanks for the reply guys

Correct, I do seem to struggle more with rhythm than reading notes.

I would disagree though that being able to memorise music must mean I am a fairly efficient reader. I have a good memory for how a piece should sound (from when my teacher plays it to me in the first place) so I seem to apply rhythm more from memory than reading it off of the sheet.
What I really struggle with is a piece of music that I have not heard before. This is where my sight reading really lets me down hence why I am a little concerned with the sight reading tests in the exam.

Probably best to play a lot of music you've never heard of before then without any examples.

Also you can try putting different spins on pieces you already know, just to practice putting in your own interpretation of a piece as opposed to playing from example. (Jazz pieces I usually find are good for practising different kinds of rhythm, as their rhythm is usually a bit looser)

I wasn't suggesting that being good at memorising suggested to me that reading skills were ok but that being able to memorise well enough not to need the score quickly sort of did.
If you need to have heard the music first that's not the same thing I had in mind.

Two things I remember my father (who was a superb pianist) telling me repeatedly when I was trying to sight read fourty odd years ago were:

1. Look ahead - this has already been mentioned)
2. Read from the bottom up. That's counter intuitive, I know, but it does help.

I still remind myself of bothof these when I'm called upon to sight read.

Another thing that's important is to have a good look through it before you start and note, the key and time signatures, any tricky looking bits, repeats, DCs, etc. I'm pretty sure you won't be penalised in an exam for spending a couple of minutes having a good look at what you have been given to sight read.

The biggest thing of course is practice. That requires a the availablility of a huge body of printed music because the second time through it isn't sight reading is it? These days you may be able to find lots of material online.

To be honest, I didn't really get any decent sight reading skills on piano until I had to do it in public regularly. The embarassment when you screw up makes you learn pretty quickly! It's character building.

Yes you will. You get 30 seconds.

As said, you will be penalised.

all syllabi and associated guides to ABRSM state that you will get 30 secs to practice before performing, anymore would be breaching on the dipABRSM's 5 minutes 'quick study'. True sight reading is, after all, literally playing as you read for the first time.

Under exam conditions you will be given a piece, and told by the examiner that you have 30 seconds to practice. After the 30 seconds the examiner will ask you to play it. You won't be given the option to continue practising. That said, I've not known examiners to keep an eye on the time, as opposed to just writing out their notes. So you may get longer!

Find the difficulty level that you can read without too much difficulty and with reasonable accuracy and fluency. Then do lots and lots of it.

Sorry, leant on the wrong button ! What I was going to say was, you do need to get a good grasp of rhythm reading to become a confident sight reader. The first thing I would check is whether you can count the beat out loud and play at the same time -- a surprising number of people have difficulty with this and its absolutely essential to working out rhythms by sight. The Paul Harris series of SR books has separate rhythm exercises and these are good for learning to count and for gradually building up a 'repertoire' of patterns you can recognise straight away.

Thanks for the replies once again



Funnily enough, since posting this question, I have read a bout the Paul Harris books and ordered a copy which should arrive tomorrow

I think that sight reading is like many other things our teachers tell us we must do. We think "yes yes" and then disregard it. I am only after a few years suddenly beginning to realise that I have been ignoring most of what I am told to do and not realising how important it is.

Now I am doing lots and lots of sight reading I am seeing improvement and finally beginning to enjoy it.

I am sure one large barrier to improving is thinking you know best and you ignore the advice your teacher gives you! I was told to do as much reading as possible, there is no other way, and to read children pieces if you need to. Just read lots!

On an OU course I attended we had piano seminars and one of the various nuggets I took away was that the rhythm is more important than the notes.

I recall internally making a "pffaa" sort of sound only to have it proved to me. The piano maestro played the rhythm of the piece on just one note. It totally convinced me.

Since then I have played a game with my daughter (she's 6) where we play name the tune by the rhythm of the melody.

I am now a firm convert: Better to play the wrong note at the right time than the right note at the wrong time.
Of course, if you can play the right note at the right time then you're laughing!

And back to the point of the thread, I think you should use the prep time to get the rhythm sorted (and the key, time sig, dynamics etc). You can read the notes as you go along...

Fully agree! My teacher keeps saying the same thing but since I'm 'terrified' of play the wrong notes, I try to get those right. Well, the consequence is that I get some notes wrong - quite a number, sometimes - and the rhythm wrong, too (though rhythm is my strong point)! So again, my teacher repeats advice ... I look at her and say 'you're right' and the story repeats itself the following class ... and the following ... and the following. Hope it goes better at the exam (Grade 7 in barely 2 months' time!!!

I thought this too for a long time and then someone pointed out to me that this is not always true and that sometimes it is only the melody that makes the piece identifiable. Compare "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb," for example.

I have since somewhat modified my theory and have come to the conclusion that the most important is not rhythm but a regular pulse which means that, for example, the beginning of a bar always falls in the right place. This is what enables you to sight-read in "real life" such as in an orchestra where feeling the pulse is vital to knowing where you are and coming back in again at the right place if you have missed out a few notes which were too hard (or too fast etc).