So after taking my Grade 5 Piano last Saturday and feeling kinda all about it... I realised one of my really sticking point is...Sight Reading! I made a complete hash of the Sight Reading on Saturday.. I saw the lines of music and was wha????

Anyway just wondering if anyones got any helpfull tips on improving sight reading aside from keep on practicing !

Thanks!

Now where are those theory results! !!

I'm a terrible sight-reader, but I'm better than I was. There really is only one answer - practise. There are things that you need to aim for - try to "look ahead", even if only one note at a time. Don't look at your hands. There is a book called Super Sight Reading Secrets which many people have found very useful. However, it can take literally years to work through it, if you follow it to the letter.

The only tips i can think of is just try teaching yourself new pieces all the time.Sight-reading is my speciality.I'm now teaching myself grade 6 music not bad considering ive only started again recently after a 2o odd year break ! ( if only i could master Grade 5 theory !!)

Yup, Sight reading is definitely my weakest point as well (closely followed by aurals...). I spectacularly failed my Grade 1 sight reading when I took it () although I'm proud of getting 17 for my Grade 5 (don't know how it happened....) It's really frustrating, because a lot of people just put some music in front of me and say, "Hey, you're Grade 6 on the piano, so can you just play this for me while I sing along to it?" or something, and I just can't! I'm able to play pieces well after a few practices, but I just can't go along with the flow. I think part of the problem is that I'm such a perfectionist, so if I get a note/rhythm wrong while sight reading I get too tempted to go back and correct it.

Suggestions people gave me are, in a nutshell, sight read loads and loads of music. There's no magical formula; as with everything else in music I guess it's all down to practice. Some people tell me to look ahead - look at the key/style of the piece, and try and foresee what kind of chord will be used next. Also, before you begin look over the:

- key signature
- difficult/syncopated rhythms
- time signature
- clef (does it change halfway?)
- scalic passages/chromatic areas
- sequences/repeats (does the RH mirror the LH?)
- ledger line notes

Good luck! I'm in the same boat as you!

Thanks for all your replies.

I know really it does come down to practise but its always good to know what others do to try and overcome their difficulties.

anakkron I get the same requests, oh you're doing Grade 5 Piano here's a piece of music play it! I'm like then finally try and explain that sight reading really is a skill in itself which needs to be developed. I too can take a piece of music away and learn it fairly quickly, but just absolutely terrible at sight reading. Oh well I'll just keep on marching!

Hey,

Ever since i began piano, my teacher gave me the sight reading book a grade ahead of the exam i was doing. This means when you go to the exam the sight reading is easier than you are used to because you have been practicing at a level higher.

As other people have said keep looking ahead, use the time given to you to try and imagine how it should sound as well as looking at time and key signatures etc. Examiners also want to see that if you make a mistake you don't get put off by it and keep going as best as you can - one of the worst things you can do is stop in the middle of it.

Hope this helps

Pete

I (in my opinion) am quite good at sight reading. All i do is play lots of different typesof music. I will probably pickup a new piece of music about 3 times a week this reallys helps asreallyit is all practise.

I'm a reasonable sight reader - what helped me most was accompanist work - mostly for friends and in variety shows. You realise just how much better it is to play some dodgy notes and keep going rather than be stop-start but note-accurate.

My sightreading is really great at the moment. It goes up and down, depending how out of practice you get, but generally I can sightread anything. I did my LRSM exam a week ago and had no trouble reading the grade 7 stuff he handed me. There are 6 things that helped my reading skills - practice, practice, Burgmuller studies, Czerny studies, transcribing, and practice.

I used to be shocking at reading. For the first 3 years of learning I got by from watching my teacher and using my aural memory of the piece each week. Then when I got a new teacher, I was in a very very deep hole because i could play better than my understanding of music. I didnt even know what a treble clef was, and when my teacher asked me 'what note is this?' I would reply with "3". LOL!!

Anyway, I got my sightreading up okay-ish by practicing the old fashioned way. I got to my DipABRSM which has grade 5 or 6 sight reading in the exam, and I passed it well due to the many hours of reading new pieces ALL THE TIME.

However, when I went to study jazz at UNI, I found that transcribing lots of solos and writing them down REALLY pulled up my sightreading. Think about it - you have to remember what you are hearing on the CD, work out the notes AND rhythm, and then write it down. I have transcribed lots of piano solos - from Oscar Peterson to Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau - it isn't easy, but man, did I get great aural skills, writing skills, analytical skills and not to mention inadvertently great READING skills!! After 3 years of doing a little every week, I have really improved and can transcribe whole big band charts now.

Sight reading is mainly understanding and reacting in a split second to what you are seeing on the page. The transcribing REALLY helped me. You should give it a go. Start easy though - the Associated Board has a CD which accompanies the Jazz books - try transcribing the example solos off that... Then go from there.

Hope that helps

segedy and all thanks for your advice.

I think at the moment transcribing would be really, really difficult for me. But I can definitely see how that would help.

My biggest problem is the ol stop-start- -stop - ? cycle! I find reading ahead and playing hard at the moment, but will try and improve this. Again the problem here for me is sight reading the bass clef, i'm actually ok at the treble clef but put them together and i'm all wha??

I did find working towards the Grade 5 theory helped somewhat, since in that you need to do transpositions and open to short or short to open score transfers.

I will persist and pratice harder!

Hey I just remembered a really good tip for the sightreading stuff. Try this - it's awesome and it sure will make obvious to you what your weaknesses are. I use this on students that ahve come to me from other teachers who play really well, but for some reason they cant read music.

It's very upsetting, soul destroying and debilitating to play for 3 or more years, get to a reasonable level, and yet still not be able to read music. I seem to get a lot of these students - and they are always from other teachers!!!

So I have come up with a fool proof answer - well, it's worked for me so far, and I have had great results.

Okay, step one:

Try tapping your hands on your legs the rhythm of the music you are sightreading.
For example, the treble clef will be tapped on to your roght leg by your right hand.
The bass clef will be tapped onto your left leg by your left hand.
Note, if this is hard for you, try just one hand at a time, not both together, and then add them together once you are ready.
Make sure you are IN TIME (as if you were a metronome) and go SLOWLY if you have to. Everyone has to start somewhere and there is no shame in going SLOW, so give your brani a break!

Step two:

One hand at a time, look at the notes and try and imagine a fingering pattern that could work.
For example, C-D-E-F-G-F-D-E-C would suggest the following fingering for the RH: 1-2-3-4-5-4-2-3-1. Do the same for both hands - and then actually physically put your hand in the air and bend the corresponding finger while looking at the rhythm. Do it IN TIME.

Step three:

sing or say the notes out loud for each clef
If you don't sing, at least make your voice go higher or lower as the notes command. Do it IN TIME

Step four:

Put it altogether.
You will be amazed at how doing this EVERY time you go to sight read something, you are actually developing the skills that are required to do it 'on the spot'. I promise you that each time you do it, you start to teach yourself patterns, not to mention get selfconfidence about it all, and it gets soooooo much easier. Soon you will be able to skip steps and then eventually you can just play it straight off.

One last thing - remember TRaK'D:

Time signature, Rhythm and Keysignature ' Details (like dynamics, articulation...)


And here are some useful books that teach you good skills that help for a quick response to seeing stuff on the pages - for example, have you ever had a sightreading that had trills in it and you had NO IDEA how to play them??? Here are some books to help:

Beyer studies, Opus 101
(starts very easy, gets up to medium level by the end)

Czerny studies, Hundert Ubungsstucke (or however it's spelt, lol) Opus 139
(starts medium-easy, get up to medium-hard by the end)

Burgmuller Studies, Opus 100
(Jumbled up pieces of varying difficulty, approximately grades 2 - 5)


Hope that helps. You should really try transcribing as well when you feel up to it. It actually isnt THAT hard - you just have to give it a good shot a few times - like anything really.

I found my sight-reading improved vastly once I joined an orchestra. Obviously, this is harder with a piano as you don't tend to play in orchestras! I guess what you could do, though, is get some other people together and have lots of sight-reading sessions of chamber music, e.g. piano trios, four-hand duets etc...?

Just a thought!

those tips really help me in sight reading since i play sight-reading passages very badly!! lolz!