According to Dr. John Mortensen, this is not a limitation of innate ability, but rather a limitation of experience. His YT video encouraged me to take sight reading seriously and begin working on it early. I took @BartK's advice and bought the RCM Four Star Series Book for sight reading. I also subscribed to RCM's online ear training course. I made a thread here. I've been using the book and the online course for about 3 months now, about 15-20 minutes per day.
I play a bunch of stuff, none of it particularly well I suppose, and I always read it. I can't play anything without the sheet music in front of me, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit.
I guess it's because I'm kind of a grazer when it comes to music. I play something or part of that something, then move on to play something else. So I probably have a few hundred things that I bounce around between as the notion strikes me.
I just do this to amuse myself and my bird, I'm not playing any concerts or competitions, so this works well enough for me.
I have played a few "accidental concerts" over the course of time, amusing the folks at the dementia home where my mother lived and such (won't be doing that any more I guess since she died last year) but generally speaking I'm not trying to impress anyone other than my bird.
And she's easily impressed. 
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If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
In my younger days I learned violin. I already had some proficiency reading the treble clef. Took a few years to get good at reading the bass clef. The notes on the staff are arranged in order from the lowest to the highest. You read a C on the staff, the next C would be on the same spot so shouldn't be an issue. The only issue is playing while reading. The first few times when you're not familiar with the notes you hesitate. Once you learned the notes, you'd rely on the sheet to avoid memory slips. Someone like myself used to memorize entire pieces to avoid reading and I still do to some extent. My reading improved a lot over the years.
You should't rely on mneumonics like "Every Good Boy Does Fine" or "All Cow Eat Grass". Thinking about phrases would slow you down. Everybody can recognize the Middle C on the staff. Notes of the staff are arranged in order (line-space-line-space). Needs practice to instantly recognize notes. When notes appear to be in order going up or down you know it's a note run. All you need to read is the first note and you can play other notes after without thinking too much.
You can sign up to the Sight Reading Factory. Practice reading at your own pace. Go through the simple reading exercises and do a playback and see how close you get.
https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/
When it comes pieces for a performance, I'd choose pieces that are repetitive when I have little time to prepare. A few months ago I found an arrangement of Simon Garfunkel "Sound of Silence" with 5 verses. The verses are similar with slight variations between them. The way the piece is arranged with chord arpeggios DFA (D minor) & CEG (C major) are easy to remember. It's a piece I know well so don't need much effort to memorize.
thepianoplayer416 You should't rely on mneumonics like "Every Good Boy Does Fine" or "All Cow Eat Grass". Thinking about phrases would slow you down. Everybody can recognize the Middle C on the staff. Notes of the staff are arranged in order (line-space-line-space). Needs practice to instantly recognize notes. When notes appear to be in order going up or down you know it's a note run. All you need to read is the first note and you can play other notes after without thinking too much.
Mnemonics don't work. All they do it teach you to memorize the mnemonic. You sound smart but you still can't do much except be a parrot.
On the other hand, the "Landmark System" seems to be a workable method of learning the staff because we all sort of do it that way anyway as we learn. Basically, we all know where middle C is. All of us should also know where C is on the treble clef. Learn where C is on the bass clef. Then "landmark" G and A on the bass clef. With those positions locked in every other note can be located without too much slowing down. That goes away (supposedly) as you gain proficiency.
I still have to count ledger lines and write the note value on the sheet. There's no help for doing it any other way that I've found, but that's why you look over the score before playing in the first place.
The landmark system is good at the beginning but eventually you want to be able to instantly recognize any note and play it.
If you think about it, learning all lines and spaces of the grand staff plus the middle C line and two ledger lines above and below the grand staff, all that combined is only 29 distinct notes. That's about as much as learning the alphabet. Is it really so much work to memorize a new alphabet? It really doesn't take very long to learn to instantly recognize any note and play it. Everyone should do it as soon as possible.
The hard part which takes years is doing the mental chunking, coordination when playing multiple notes at the same time, and reading ahead. I mentioned some of my experiences on another thread, which you might want to check out.
Player1 I still have to count ledger lines and write the note value on the sheet. There's no help for doing it any other way that I've found, but that's why you look over the score before playing in the first place.
Learning to read notes on ledger lines is no different from learning to read other kinds of notes. It's a question of practice. The reason some people are not so good at reading notes on ledger lines is because they tend to occur less frequently so there is less practice doing it. That's also the reason it's harder for most people to read notes using a large number of ledger lines. For example, I'm quite good at reading up to four ledger lines above the treble or 4 ledger lines below the bass clef, but beyond that I would have to start counting since I've had so little experience with more than 4 ledger lines.
iternabe According to Dr. John Mortensen, this is not a limitation of innate ability, but rather a limitation of experience.
I think what mortensen says is only partly true. Experience plays a big part in sight reading ability, but innate ability or talent also plays some part as it does In every aspect of piano playing. Just because he began as a memorizer but later became, I would assume, an excellent sight reader by practicing that skill, doesn't mean everyone can improve as much as he did. He's trying to be encouraging about the chance for poor sight readers To become good sight readers which is good, but his claim that experience is the only factor is incorrect. Probably everyone can improve a lot with practice but I'm quite sure the degree of improvement is partially determined by talent.
Thanks so much everyone for all the recommendations! There's a ton of material here for me to go through and I'm bookmarking it all!
Stub You don't have to be able to look at a note and say, ah, D#. You do need to be able to look at that note and have your finger go to the correct spot on the keyboard. Also, whenever possible, read intervals rather than individual notes. This applies to block chords and broken chords.
THANK YOU! This is the one thing I've been trying out this week and it's lifted a load off of me.
I just STOPPED trying to figure out all the note names before finding my place on the keyboard and it has helped tremendously. This is something I should have known already but for whatever reason I regressed back to trying to figure out the note names. The truth is the note names don't matter here.
It's like now I have more CPU available to make it work. While I'm not yet a sight reading machine, it's suddenly a more intuitive process.
twocats It sounds like you really dislike reading music and unfortunately the reality is that the more you do it, the easier it will get!
It's not that I dislike it. I've been trying to stick to it out of principle, because that's what everyone recommends, including my teacher. Lately I have been finding it counter-productive in practice because it has made my progress crawl to a halt.
Nightowl I struggle with sight reading too, but whenever I've seen you play you look very relaxed and confident, so I would never have guessed that you struggle much with any aspect of playing piano.
Thanks a lot for that boost of confidence!
There's some awesome material in this thread that I'm planning to study and follow up on more closely. Thanks all!
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Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME
In the beginning some people would label the keys with stickers and put ABCs on every note on the page. A few months ago came across an old piano on display. Many of the keys still have stickers on them. Matching letters of the alphabet doesn't require much effort... see an A, play an A.
A number of years ago I was at a gathering. 3 kids tried to decipher a piece with 4 lines their teacher assigned as appropriate for the level. For an hour they couldn't come up with anything that sounded like the song. If I was at a similar situation, I'd rather spend a few minutes to write letters on the page and put labels on the keys. Within an hour I would be able to play something (with some wrong notes) than trying to figure out most of the notes like hit & miss. Before we get good at reading, we still want to be able to play a few songs by taking the easy way out. Otherwise we'd quit early.
Think of each "note" on a page as a letter of the alphabet. You learn to recall each letter based on which line or space it is on the staff. Instead of thinking of letters of the alphabet as distinct symbols, you think of notes as looking similar except the circle is on a specific line or space.
People with perfect pitch can hear an A and know it's an A automatically. Other people who have the ability for relative pitch need to hear other reference notes before & after to determine what a note is. There are online links & apps to help you recognize notes by displaying & playing individual notes on the screen and you name the notes. Being able to recognize notes quickly would improve your reading ability.
When looking at the page, we're not just seeing random notes. We recognize beat patterns, note runs (up & down the scale), intervals & chords. The last piece I worked on was a tradition tune "House of the Rising Sun". Looking at the key signature with nothing I know the piece is in the key of C or A minor. The left hand notes A-C-E comes up I know I'm playing an A minor arpeggio. Before that I worked on an arrangement of Simon & Garfunkel "Sound of Silence". The song has a lot of repeated chord arpeggios like D-F-A (D minor) "Hello darkness my old friend" & C-E-G (C major) "I've come to talk to you again", F-A-C (F major) "Because a vision softly creeping".
The past 2 years my teacher made her students do a lot of scale & arpeggio exercises. They really help to recognize notes quickly.
The link to online note reading exercises:
https://www.musictheory.net/exercises
navindra are you doing the 40 pieces a year challenge? It might be a good way to get your reading practice in.
iternabe Thanks for posting the link, that video was very helpful. Dr Mortensen seems to really know what he's talking about and he was very firmly of the belief that there are no short cuts, people just need to put in the work. I also watched his video giving advice to parents of young adults who are aiming to make a career in music, via gaining a music diploma. That video was quite an eye opener and gave good advice about how to prepare students to pass the entrance audition and the need to manage expectations about the realities of a career in music. It seems that only the most elite students are able to carve out a career as concert pianists, while the vast majority will end up teaching music, perhaps alongside doing some performances/accompaniment work/writing music. This video contains very useful information for anyone dreaming of a career on stage.
thepianoplayer416 Thanks for the link - I might use that to work on basic staff reading - especially the bass notes.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
navindra It's not that I dislike it. I've been trying to stick to it out of principle, because that's what everyone recommends, including my teacher. Lately I have been finding it counter-productive in practice because it has made my progress crawl to a halt.
It's the same for me because there's such a big gap now in what I can play when I slowly read and memorize, and what I can play directly from sheetmusic. I think the difference is 5 grades or something like that.
Josephine It's the same for me because there's such a big gap now in what I can play when I slowly read and memorize, and what I can play directly from sheetmusic. I think the difference is 5 grades or something like that.
That almost describes me. I try to observe a "self-judgement free zone" when I practice reading. I'm not always successful at the judging part either. If I can laugh, it helps.
Josephine navindra It's not that I dislike it. I've been trying to stick to it out of principle, because that's what everyone recommends, including my teacher. Lately I have been finding it counter-productive in practice because it has made my progress crawl to a halt.
It's the same for me because there's such a big gap now in what I can play when I slowly read and memorize, and what I can play directly from sheetmusic. I think the difference is 5 grades or something like that.
What do you mean by "play directly play from the sheet music"? I have a feeling you mean play perfectly in terms of the notes and rhythms and without any stopping. But when you're sight reading or even reading a piece the second or 10th time, that level of reading should not be an expectation or a requirement.
Josephine I'm sorry, I didn't see this reply for some reason. I meant playing without stopping with both hands together, but at a lower speed. With the pieces I'm memorizing I can't read left and right hand at the same time. Depending on what sort of music it is I first read the right hand of a measure, then left hand, then combine hands, or read an entire phrase right hand, then left hand, and then hands together. And it goes super slow. When notes are far apart from each other I have to do steps of thirds to get to the correct note. I can't see it at once which note it is.
When you're sight reading or reading a piece but not for the first time it's perfectly ok to stop or hesitate or even correct mistakes if necessary. The only time stopping or hesitating is not okay is when you're playing with other musicians which doesn't apply here. Based on your description of how difficult it is for you to sight read, I think you need to practice reading and sight reading much easier material for now. And you should make an attempt to sight read both hands at once by choosing material that's easy enough to accomplish this or by slowing down the tempo enough.
Josephine I am not a teacher or psychologist but it's possible that even though very simple classical pieces might be boring compared to your usual pieces, if you are able to sight read them reasonably well that might be rewarding enough to make up for their relative lack of appeal.
Josephine, I used to feel the same way, but now I look at sight-reading practice much more positively. Once I got over how much lower my reading level is, I went all in and got lots of music at that level. I also struggle with chronic tendonitis, which limits my ability to play certain pieces or even how much I can work on technique some weeks. But my sightreading books are always there for me: they never stress my arms, even just 10 minutes of it feels like I'm doing something towards my learning, and several months later, I am noticing some progress. Finally, after the slower process of practicing a performance piece, there's something liberating about taking out easier sheet music and playing, and thinking, "Wow, I'm actually moving along measure to measure and (mostly) getting this!"
That does sound fun and motivating
I can sight-read some intermediate pieces that has no big jumps, big chords or tricky fingerings.
I'm working on a Bach piece with 20 bars that I played before. A lot of scale runs & tricky fingerings. The bigger issue is to get comfortable with the fingerings that work than re-learning the notes. On average I'm doing 2 bars a day so the end of the week I should be done with the top 10 bars.
The piece is like a Bach invention with both hands doing similar things alternating back & forth. I'd rather take my time to learn it well than to be able to play it from top to bottom in a few days.
thepianoplayer416 I can sight-read some intermediate pieces that has no big jumps, big chords or tricky fingerings.
I'm working on a Bach piece with 20 bars that I played before. A lot of scale runs & tricky fingerings. The bigger issue is to get comfortable with the fingerings that work than re-learning the notes. On average I'm doing 2 bars a day so the end of the week I should be done with the top 10 bars.
The piece is like a Bach invention with both hands doing similar things alternating back & forth. I'd rather take my time to learn it well than to be able to play it from top to bottom in a few days.
If fingering is an issue and this is often the especially the case in Bach, It's a very good idea to write It in so you can use consistent fingering Probably learn the fingering More quickly also.
