I really really am working on it - honest! - but I'm just rubbish at piano sight-reading.........

Lowest mark 11 for grade 5......even failed with a 13 when I took grade 4 (yet still managed a distinction! )

Any one interested in joining? This isn't a whine thread - I hope to drum up some support to help us all get better - somehow

Our manifesto:

To offer support and sympathy to any fellow sight-reading strugglers;
To enlighten strugglers to the fact that they are not alone;
To do our utmost to improve our sight-reading;
To come back as sight-reading passers and offer any effective advice we have learnt in our struggles.
(and then whole-heartedly embrace the 'I love sight-reading club'! )

Hey, well I'm in too - I even got separate sight reading and aural lessons for my grade five... up until then I'd always failed sight reading and got full marks for aural... grade five I failed both!

My singing teacher said joining a choir would help, unfortunately though I loved the first one I joined, it stopped after two months, and the second one is fun, but I seem to either get lost, or follow the person next to me!

Note the little "i" in the thread title - that's how I feel when confronted with sight-reading in the exam. It doesn't help that some of the sight-reading tests are so disharmonious that you can't even 'wing it'........and the advice I was given to play slowly but in tempo went against me as I was marked down severely for being overcautious.

Rallying call!
I haven't failed it myself but have had several pupils fail it. Well done on the G4 distinction; everything else must have been very good. Just think what you could do if you could improve the sight-reading too!

Oh dear... I felt horrible after grade five - the separate teacher who had helped me was always lovely, and he did his best with me... made me feel a bit hopeless... My problem is that I recall all the advice my singing teacher and my sight reading teacher gave me, I find my first note in the intro if it's there, or if not I try to work it out... and then I try to work out the rest of it from that... but it's just too much to keep in my head all at once. In choir there're these people and they'll just sing a section we haven't learnt yet to themselves and get it note perfect!

Most memorable quote from an examiner: "Um thank you, let's just try that one more time, with the words this time - I couldn't tell which note you were trying to sing."

It's a consistent statement on the bottom of the comment form for all my piano exams

Problem is, because my memorisation is so good, I can't get to grips with sight-reading as once I've played a piece a few times, I go into autopilot...........do other people find it is the case with them?

Lots of my pupils are like that. Once they've played through it a few times, however badly, they aren't reading it any more; they're searching for the notes in their heads. I'm a poor memoriser, on the other hand, so I don't function that way; I have to read it! Just try not to let it get too far behind. Just pick up a few unseen things every day and blunder through.

Thanks for your comments - I know we are re-visiting old ground here but hopefully in a more light-hearted fashion!

On browsing the 'sight-reading' and 'memorisation' threads in the 'grown up' parts of the forum, I get the feeling that most people are either good sight-readers or good memorisers - very few people can do both well. Is that too general a comment?

Well come to think of it, I memorise well - also as a singer, I tend to learn my songs mostly by ear, and then learn them without even looking at the notes.. I'm my own worst enemy!

Hey - we're both in the same boat!

Would you like to be vice-president?!

Anyone got lower than a 10? My Grade 8 mark, with a comment saying something like I failed to grasp the basic tonality. Ahem.

Sure, yay!

Trebor, apparently "no aspect of [my sight-reading] was fully correct" last time. I did get ten though.

Not yet - but it's a question of time unless I drastically improve - my marks have gotten lower each sitting........

Welcome to the club!

Should we sort out some sort of manifesto, VP?

Hmm good idea - let's start a list of intentions for this club...

To offer support and sympathy to any fellow sight-reading strugglers.
To enlighten strugglers to the fact that they are not alone!

What else?

Good start.

How about:

To do our utmost to improve our sight-reading so that we can whole-heartedly embrace the "I love sight-reading" club when we do!

Yes - and to come back as sight-reading passers and offer any effective advice we have learnt in our struggles.

Hear hear!

I failed sight reading once. Do I qualify?

Great manifesto btw!

Having been there before, you could be our counsellor........after all you are leading the "most considerate" scoreboard

How's this for a title?

"Most highly esteemed considerate counsellor of the I failed sight-reading club"

I like it! Thanks Looney .

I don't know whether I've ever actually failed sight reading, but I've definitely done very badly on it!!
On flute, i can get most of the notes in tune but the rhythm alkways goes to pot, and in violin its usually the other way round with some intonation problems.
Drives me mental!
I swear I can't count lol
x

May I extend membership to those who are bad at sight-reading - it's much of a muchness really (there's only 1 point between a pass and a fail )

Welcome maddielou!

Ooh, a client!

Perhaps I can help you Maddie? (Or perhaps not, but I'll have a go!) I suspect it's just a matter of doing as much sight-reading as possible. Once you're not worrying so much about the notes themselves the intonation should pretty much take care of itself. Hard to believe, I know, but I found it myself. And I'm sure you can count!