currently i am preparing for my grade 6 piano but my piano sight reading is really really bad!!!! i always wonder my sight reading on the piano is so bad is because everytime i learn a piece, i memorise the piece and everytime i play the piano i just look at my hands and the piano but not looking at the music at all. my friends told me when people should not look at their hands when they are playing and they said i can't sight read is because i always memorise the music and not look at the music at all! i always try to look at the music while i am playing but without looking at my hands i cannot play the right notes and always make mistake. my friend told me even if i pass my grade 6 is not equal my piano skill is grade 6 is only the 3 pieces and when i heard that i think my friend is right. how can i improve my sight reading and not memorising music and not looking at my hands during my playing. i really worry about it.

There is only one way to improve sight-reading skills and that is to keep playing new pieces of music. Get a piece of music, learn it, then once you are playing it from memory and not 'reading' the notes, go on and start something new. Don't bother with the ABRSM sight-reading books until you get close to the exam otherwise you will memorise those exercises too. Just keep learning new music.

Shelton

I've been trying to improve my sight reading over the last couple of weeks by trying to look at the music all the time. Up to now I've got decent marks in exam sight reading by memorising a bar at a time and then looking down at my hands, but this method doesn't help when I'm trying to play accompaniments with my flute pupils.

I've found my sense of where I am on the piano is much better than I've thought it was, and my playing's definitely improved by looking at the music more.

I used to be bad at sight-reading but what I did to get better is practice playing a piece I know REEEEEEEEEELY well while not looking down at my hands. Of course you'll make mistakes, but the more you practice it the less mistakes you'll make (obviously!). Try learning the shapes of the chords/phrases.

Another thing I used do is sit down with the music in front of me bt not the piano, and without looking at my hands "playing" the piece on a table or some kind of object! That meant I didn't have to listen to the mistakes I made!!

Hope this helps

thank you very much for helping me.

The answer to this question is always the - just practice!! Today I accompanied a friend playing her french horn - me on the piano - sight read some short pieces about grade 6 level. If you have to do it you can. Just keep playing stuff - perhaps seemingly easy and it WILL come.

Best for me not to give advice... I got 10/21 in sight reading in my grade 5 exam.

i've personally found that the ABRSM specimen tests are not the best practice until just before the exam. the only practice really is by sight-reading 'real' music. go to your nearest music store, and browse. pick a large book with plenty of music to practice on (also more cost-effective ) obviously check it's at a level that you feel would challenge you but nothing too hard - you know better about this than i do. try a page or two at a time, and don't memorise any of it. don't play through the same section twice. provided the standard of pieces is relatively constant, your sight-reading should progress from poor (first page) to above the standard expected in the exam (page 300 or whatever).

if you feel insecure without 'checking' your hands, perhaps you could try some studies appropriate to your level? the board publish a series of "Graded Pianoforte Studies" maybe you could start with those. scales will also help of course. try some with your eyes closed

good luck with your sight-reading

I've always been TERRIBLE at sight-reading. I think I panic when I have to sight-read, and if I make a mistake, I just can't resist correcting them... which is exactly what you should NOT do.

I failed the sight-reading section in my Grade 1, by one mark. Then for G2 I got just a pass, for G3 I got a bit above pass, for G4 I got about 15 or so and for my G5 I got 17, which was a complete surprise! But I think that was just because the piece I got in the exam wasn't too difficult; if someone plonks a piece of music in front of me and tell me to play it, I doubt I can.

The specimen sight-reading tests are, IMO, not that good. Most of the pieces just have loads of sharps/flats for the sake of it, or are in 5/4, or have a really funny rhythm... it just doesn't sound appealing. I suggest you get some short pieces you can play and which actually sound nice.

I am OK at sight reading mostly but find it hard on the piano!


I do that too - try not to in exams but it's hard to resist!


Someone posted a while back that sight reading is going to be revamped and the pieces will be more tuneful! So that will be good - when it happens...

The way I do it is looking at the notes ahead of me, usually I can predict what is about to come next providing that the couple of notes follow some sort of chord or scale. I have some problems sometimes, especially with harder peices and odd rhythms. The best to get used to this is practice of course, Try something like Bach's Prelude in C. It's quite a nice peice and is easy to sight read. Although, it might not be too suitable for grade 1.

find stuff that you like...ive found that since sightreading a lot of einaudi and joe hisaishi as well as other random stuff helps as you actually want to LEARN these pieces!"

yes! i used to be TERRIBLE at sight reading, and then my piano teacher said look, you're going to have to sort this out!! and so what she did was to get out a load of easy piano books, and then cover up the bar i just played to if i did make a mistake i couldn't go back and correct myself! it actually worked!! and so then she got onto harder and harder pieces and gradually i got better.

it was such a good idea, and for my grade 5, i got 19 out of 21 for my sight reading! i was so so so so so happy

for fun like i do all the time, find concert repertoire and sightread that

some music that i have that i reccomend are
the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos (except the transcription of the Violin Concerto which is his 6th) and Piano Sonatas

pretty much every last Chopin work (preludes, etudes, nocturnes, mazurkas, waltzes, ballades, polonaises scherzi, rondos, concertos, sonatas and other works)

Liszt Paganini etudes, Sonata in B minor and Consolations

complete Mozart Sonatas and Concerto 21 in C

Debussy Preludes books 1 and 2

Schumann Papillons

Rachmaninov Preludes and Etudes Tableaux and Concerto No.2 in C minor

piano parts to any pieces written for woodwind (my favourites are the 2nd movement of the Poulenc Flute Sonata, 3rd of the Oboe Sonata and Schuberts Serenade arranged for Euphonium and Piano)

You forgot the Bach 48 !

You're on a roll tonight!

Don't you mean a (T)roll

i was actually listing what i have in my personal repertoire, but yes, the Bach Preludes and Fugues, the Partitas and English/French Suites are all wonderful pieces

as are the Handel Suites

don't have nightmares!

night night all

I'm a good sight reader I generally get high marks for that section. BUT I'm a really poor memoriser - I strugle to learn my pieces by heart and far prefer playing with the music in front of me.
My sight reading rocketed forward when I started accompanying and also playing music for musical shows so I'm sure the answer is to play heaps of repetoire and while you may never get to love it you'll become more confident.

im not too bad at it, i usually end up remembering certain sections :S ive been going over the 1st movement of the Moonlight Sonata and STILL cant seem to remember it yet i can remember majority of Debussy's La Cathederale Englouite and Rachmaninovs Prelude in C# minor Op.3 No.2 and even parts of Chopin's Polonaises

Yes the 1st movement of the Moonlight is difficult to remeber, to me anyways. I thought I was alone on that. Anyone know why it's hard to memorise?

the triplets. the section where it has got the melody in the triplets and the broken chords thats pretty easy to remember...but after that until the main theme returns is awkward, and the modulation after that main theme crops up again

I would actually be very careful about using too much of the Baroque or Classical period as sight reading training - mainly because we're so used to the structures and techniques that it 'makes sense' and we can almost predict what might happen next. If you go for something more recent you're more likely to be faced with something very unfamiliar that you really will have to read.

That said, one really good use for the more familiar styles is practising reading the music without looking at your fingers. If you can keep your eyes on the music without having to scan what your fingers are doing, you've got time to read ahead and prepare better.

hmm i can memorize moonlight fine... maybe it's just me?

i sometimes lose it when i get to the erm... well when it [goes up and then comes down] loads of times. i can't remember the notes to start on for those all the time, but for the rest of it is fine!

Good point, if you want to improve your sight-reading for an exam where they can throw any sort of atonal nightmare at you. However, if you want to get really good at sightreading Baroque and Classical music, that would be the best thing to practise, wouldn't it? In that case, being used to the structures and able to predict what is coming would be an advantage and something worth practising. I suppose it would be the same whatever style you wanted to improve on - practise sightreading that style.

Except those atonal nightmares, of course, where there is no "style" to get used to.

Fair point! Guess I'm just trying to say that you need to shock your brain every now and then

Sight Reading on the piano is very difficult - I agree! In the exam before last, I got something like 13/21 for sight reading. Then, before my grade 4, I just bought a book full of examples of sight reading for that grade, and it really improved my sight reading soo much, as I learnt one piece a day, from the book. In the end, I got 18/21 for sight reading, so learning the example pieces really helps!! Love Allie xoxox

a tip: nomatter how bad you are in the exam, KEEP GOING, i once got 14 (pass) instead of 12(fail) because the examiner said i was equally bad as other people but carried on until the end whereas they stopped halfway...

aw! i love piano examiners who are like that...

for my sight reading my grade 4 one said that i had good rhythm(i was counting in my head), notes were not all correct(none were correct), and that i began and ended on the right notes. honestly, you'd think that was all they cared about!!



i got something like 16 for that as well!! hahaha