Just wondering, how do you all sight read for piano? Do you, for example, look at the intervals between the notes and move hands relative to them, or do automatically know precisely where the certain notes are on the piano?

Just wondering, as I suck at sight reading currently! (mainly because I'm nowhere near fluent with the bass clef, but I'll get there some day )

I'm ok at sight reading, I'm far from perfect at it, but I'm not terrible at it either!

I just seem to kind of know roughly where the notes are and I just play them. I'm not sure how I do it really!

I think that the longer you play piano, the more familiar you'll get with associating the notes on the music to the notes on the piano. You'll get to the point where you'll know the piano so well that you could play a whole piece without looking at your fingers- unless it's really tricky and has lots of leaps etc.
It's probably a matter of practice.
Enjoy!

even if you can do the 'play without looking' thing, it doesnt mean you can sight read. (living proof=me!) for sight reading some people are naturally good at it but if you arent, like most people e.g.me...just practice a lot and it gets better, i promise. In the last 6 months i have been practising everyday and have now moved from vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv BAD to 'ok'ish.
I'd suggest that you look at the piece you are going to sightread for a while. Look at the key, time, tempo, and shape of notes. Play slowly so that you are in time and notes are reasonably correct. Dont worry about doing dynamics until you feel more confident.
p.s. there's another thread about sight reading self help books...i dont know if they work but if they do i want one too!

More by noticing intervals and recognising what chords are.
The things I find more difficult to sight read are those where the underlying harmony is not so obvious.

i just sit and look at it...and then get on playing....

I just play and hope (e.g. to not repeat notes)

It's kind of like that after a while you dont have to look at the keys on the piano to know which one to press or with any other instrument eg. with key holes you ust kind of know. After a while when you are very familiar with the clefs you just automatically play it. If I am honest I think I'm quite good at sight reading. I never used to be though it just takes practice. Keep going and youll soon be a whizz.

I find the best way to improve sight-reading is to keep learning new music so you can't rely on memory to perform and must read the notes. As soon as you have learnt a piece of music, try something new to really stretch your sight-reading ability.

Shelton

I found this advice on a website -

Know your notes
Know your scales
Practise reading - pieces roughly around 2 grades lower than your current standard
Try to learn one of these every day - good enough to perform (remember - 2 grades below)
Use the music - even when you know the notes well enough not to look
Have a tough nightmare piece - read a dozen bars very very slowly every day

Don't know if it helps - also try to learn shapes e.g. scales, steps and skips and intervals, certain typical phrases e.g. broken triads, 5-finger shapes etc. I know I used to devour music when I was learning - my books, my sister's books (she hated me sight-reading her tunes while she was still struggling with them - pretty obnoxious of me, I know!) - even tried my dad's music, which was too hard, but all good practice!

I feel like this too. I think the more you sight-read, the better you get until it doesn't really seem that difficult anymore.

Well in your exam you get 30 seconds to have a quick look through the piece and you can also practise in that time as well. I would recommend playing any bits that look tricky as then when you play it for 'real' you'll sort of know what's coming. As for practising at home I found the Specimen Sight Reading Books really helpful as the more I practised them the better I got. The first time I played one for my teacher I was soooooo slow and kept forgetting which key I was in but then in the exam I only lost about 3 marks and I even managed to play through the whole piece in the 30 seconds I had. My advice is:

Look ahead whilst you're playing so you know what's coming next.
Remember to check which key you're in.
Try to keep moving and not concentrate too much on each individual note.
If you make a mistake don't go back and correct it as you will get marked down for this (apparently!)

Hope this helps and good luck

Lisa xxx

I used to be quite good at piano sight reading, just from playing general music that I would find around the house, or at school. However, recently working towards my grade 7 exam, my teacher and I realised that i'm not very good at the grade 7 level sight-reading, and she bought me a book, called Right@Sight by T.A. Johnson. I think there is one for each grade. It starts by having questions and answers at the beginning of each piece, to make you think about the key, any accidentals, time signature, and any awkward hand postions. Then half-way through the book, it leaves out the questions so that you can think for yourself as you would have to in an exam. I usually do three or four at home each week, then do a couple in my lesson. The specimen sight reading tests are useful, but if you're trying to work at improving sight reading, then you may find that you want more practise than the specimen examples.

My teacher always told me to remember the basics
time sig - count yourself in and keep counting
keg sig - then look for accidentals
which clef is each hand using - and does it change
shape of melody - and range of notes used
form of accompaniment

above all, keep going!

I also find the 'improve your sight reading' books useful - they introduce one thing that you're likely to get at that grade per stage so you get practice at using it in sight reading style exercises. The specimen sight reading test books are also good to test how close you are.

Here's a thought. How long did it take to learn the 26 symbols of the Alphabet and how many of us think that being able to read these letters is amazing? How long then, would it take to learn the 29 notes on the Grand Staff i.e. from C two octave below middle C, to C two octaves above middle C? Yet, how many people are as good at recognising these notes compared to the Alphabet? Just like with letters, once you know the notes, you have a better chance of making sense of their relationship in music just like in words and sentences. If you want to be a good sight reader then learn to recognise every note on the staff just as though it were an Alphabet. Do this away from the Piano at first and when you recognise them all, then go and find them on the Piano. Sadly, there is no short cut to becoming a good sight reader.
Decent Sight reading though can also be attained from the recognition of intervals e.g. 2nds, 3rds 4ths, 5ths etc in the early Grades and a maturer understanding of Harmonic structure in the Higher Grades....playing lots and lots and lots and lots of music helps too.

Gae

my problem:
if i play the right note i forget time, if i i play the right time and notes i forget other stuff. gaaaaaaaaaah

It is very easy for me to forget the time signature, but I am improving! The dynamics are the only problems for me!

I think a major thing in acquiring good sight-reading is to have a good sense of keyboard geography: knowing where the notes are without looking at one's hands, after all one can't look at both the music and one's hands at the same time, and it would be impossible to sight-read without looking at the music!

Looking for scale patterns and recognising chord shapes also helps: I actually find it easier to read three notes with one hand than two as the shapes are more recognisable to me....

It's just really a matter of practise, practise, practise: there's not much else to do. Paul Harris's Improve Your Sight-Reading books are good, as are the Right@Sight ones by J.A Thompson (the Right@Sight ones are more tuneful than the Improve Your Sightreading ones).

My teachers always taught me to worry about the timing most, then the notes, and lastly the dynamics... But i always find it hard, sometimes i just prefer to play the god damn piece and get on with it

I'm afraid that I am an excellent sight-reader (don't shoot me!!!). I think the reason for this is that when I was learning I used to want to play so much music that I would force myself to read it. I was always buying books, sometimes classical sometimes TV themes or pop music. I guess on average I would try and play about 20-30 different pieces a week. I think of it like reading a book, if you see a word enough times you know what it says and it's the same with the notes. My advice would be to get some easier music than you're studying now and just keep trying to play it! Good luck

Ditto!!

I had a period in my life back in the 80's where I was unemployed for a year and a half after finishing my degree. I was applying for dozens of jobs all over the country but as it was during the recession I was getting rejection after rejection. Rather than stew over it at the time, I spent my days taking music out of the Library, buying cheap music from second hand book-stores and then walking around to my sister's house, where I could practice on her old piano in the garage. I would try to learn a couple of difficult pieces and also sight read through other pieces of music, no matter how difficult and what Grade, often getting through a whole book of music in an afternoon. I would average about 5 hours a day of practice on and off over this period and boy did it improve my playing and sight reading.

Gae

That is SUCH good advice. So, so true! Certainly in my case.

i love playing new pop songs and modern pieces for piano, i get so much random sheet music! ivs found that sightreading is improving this way but because these pieces are easier i still find it hard to do grade 8 sightreading. Since when do you see a NORMAL piece with about 6/7 sharps in it????????????????

Exactly! Unless the composer was feeling particularly inventive that day... My music teacher gave me a shock yesterday, we were looking at the music for My Fair Lady (we're going to have a go at it), and he said we weren't doing bad considering it was written for professionals. He then said how good at sightreading British musicians are, apparantly they're the best and they concentrate more on sound on the continent. That's me stuffed then!

Jess

my teachers soooooooo bad at sightreading its funny. but he's amazing at composing and everything else though!

I take it you never accompanied a choir singing anything by John Rutter?

Wasn't there a piece recently for grade 6 or 7 which was in 6 flats, then 6 sharps..................just found them. Grade 7 2003-2004 Cradle Song by Kjerulf. And there's a piece by Nielsen called Mignon.

oh...well, rarely then.besides too many sharps and flats really put me off!

Actually, you get a lot of Pop song Piano arrangements written with several flats and sharps. One example is Charles Anznavour's "She" which I've seen in Db or Gb major, I can't remember which one. I don't know if the original songs were in these keys though or whether they just make them purposefully difficult to glorify the Pop Artists!

Gae

My teacher gave me a checklist to follow before playing the piece:

~ Key Signature ( any other # or b )
~ Time signature
~ Any rhythms
~ Dynamics
~ Articulation

Golden Rules :

~ Always Count
~ Never Stop

I find that the sight reading books help Because I had got a book a week before my exam (and I couldnt sightread at all) never stopped playing for a week and I was able to play the piece in my exam (kind of)

Dont know how many marks I lost because Ive not got my results back yet!