Improving Sight Reading

just keep practicing? or any tech's people have out there?

Scales help. Random improvisation helps a little if you're into that sort of thing.

Practice by taking out a veritable library of simple-ish pieces and just go through each at tempo. Don't take any twice unless you really think you ought to or you really liked one. :unsure: Sight read music you think you'll like just be looking at it.

Be familar with as many chords as you can learn and memorize.

Learn rythms. Take up the drums, just get a pair of drum sticks and some snare music. You'll learn rythms real quick.

That's as much as I can come up with off hand. I'm not sure whether this all in particular helped me or not, but I kinda get the feeling it had an effect on my sightreading skills.

yeah cool, cuz when i read its im beyond slow.... and when there are chords for both hands.. i DIE!!! lol..

but ill take your advice. thanks.

Some things I’ve found most helpful with respect to sight reading are:

1. Practice sight-reading on a LOT of stuff that is lesser than your current level.
   (basically what Musicman just said)
   
2. Learn to play more than one instrument (totally unrelated instruments) like piano & violin.
   (I personally found this to be extremely helpful because it gave me additional prespectives from which to view the score)
   
3. Practice playing chords and their first and second inversions.
   (also repeating what Musicman just said)
   
4. Play the scale(s), and chord progressions if applicable, for the key of the piece you are trying to sight read before you attempt to sight read it.
   
5. Don't be afraid to actually *study* and analyze the music of a piece before you play it. That's not only acceptable but it's good procedure!
   

I wouldn't try to *learn* to sight-read music to the level where you can just sit down and play a piece at tempo the very first time through without having ever seen the piece before. That's not something you that you *learn* to do, that's something that just comes with experience. Don't be afraid to analyze a piece first and even go through it piecemeal the first time. That's NOT CHEATING! That's perfectly FINE.

hmmm yeah, i picked up Classical Guitar and that uses alot of ledger line reading due to the Low E string.

yeah thanks so much for the stuff. ill get to it TOMORROW cuz its 11 pm right now xD

Another thing specific to the piano. It never hurts to play hands separate. Go through the piece right hand only, then left hand only before attempting to play with both hands.

This works better for some pieces than others of course, this can depend on how much the hands support each other in the particular piece.

Another thought too, if chords are holding you back, trying playing the piece through just playing the root notes of the chords instead of the full chords. Then maybe try it again just playing two notes of the chords, etc. until you find yourself reading the full chords more fluently.

By the way, Classical Guitar! Nice choice! :unsure:

oh i never thought about playing the root first then adding the rest of the notes, that sounds good.

just keep practicing? or any tech's people have out there?

Improving sight reading is really so simple. Now, remember that I said simple and not easy. All you really have to do is learn your scales and your theory. Then you can recognize that in the music that you are playing. It will help you to play patterns or chunks of stuff that you already know instead of trying to sit and read each note individually. Then, once you know your stuff what you have to do is practice. That is really it.

You are terrible at first so start with site reading something that has maybe one note per hand. Do not be discouraged by the fact that you are site reading pieces that are at levels that are lower than your performance level pieces. I would first start with something like an Alfred book and just quickly go through all the little exercises. You need to practice and practice until you can site read stuff like that easily. Then you can move up to the next level of diffuculty. Just site read everything you can find. Now, when I say practice site reading what I mean is to actually practice the act of site reading something that is not familiar to you. I do not want anyone to go practice site reading the same piece over and over until you have learned it because that is not site reading. Also, when you are practicing it is very important that you do not stop even if you cannot play all that is written. If you want to get better at sight reading you have to understand that you have to play what you can and keep in rhythm and on beat. If you miss a note in a chord it is not the end of the world. If you stop for a second and read that note or chord then you have reached the end of the world and you have failed. Try not to stop when practicing site reading. If it is too hard to do this then find something that is more simple than what you are trying to site read. Now, the best thing to use to learn to site read is a hymnal. However, you have to work up to this level first. Some hymns are more diffucult than other to site read so pick according to your level.

This is it. It just takes time to learn through practice. It is a slow process. Do not get discouraged by the fact that you cannot site read everything after a month or two or even a year or two.

alright, ill keep in mind the "do not get discoraged"

cuz i tend to get discouraged... when i tryied to learn a hymn for my Church...

Hymns are pretty difficult because of the expanded chords and inversions.

What I do is after or before I practise I play 2 pieces that I have never seen before. I will just play them as well as I can, and I won't stop if I make mistakes - since this is not about playing nicely :closedeyes: It is about practicing your sight-reading ;)

A good way is to get some Bach chorales and just read the soprano and bass voice. Once you get better you can add the alto and then eventually tenor.

The beauty of the chorales is that they sound good at practically any tempo so there's less discouragement when you're first starting out.