I was sight reading just now and I noticed that I'm applying accidentals subconsciously. I used to have to mentally keep track of them but now I noticed I played a passage and wasn't even thinking about the accidentals and I played the passage correctly.

I suppose that is why when you ask advanced sight readers how they do it they mostly don't have a precise answer other than "practice". I think if someone asked me just now how I did that I would have no clue. I read the accidentals on the page and my hands figured out where to go and my brain somehow kept track of which ones to apply when. There were even some naturals to cancel them and somehow it came out fine.

So yeah, now I get the people who say it's "practice" and don't offer any more help. If you do a lot of it your brain starts picking up the details subconsciously.

    7 days later

    BartK I was sight reading just now and I noticed that I'm applying accidentals subconsciously.

    I must concentrate on the accidentals. And to the accidentals of the key, of course. But if I played a black note (e.g. F#) and I re-visit the same note shortly after, it is automated. Similar, like starting with a scale on a new key. The first runs are brain-work, but then the fingers can remember what they did a few seconds ago.

    About keys and accidentals:
    In the beginning I had a kind of a cheat-sheet to know what black keys to press at what amount of accidentals for flats and sharps. The only one I didn't need to look up something was the single F# and the single Bb. Maybe because I remembered this from my childhood playing accordion. I seldom played in a key with more than one accidental.

    But during my sight-reading practice I figured out a very easy rule:
    The black keys are always alternating between the 3-black-block and the 2-black-block. Of course starting on the 3-black block, otherwise the 2-black-block runs out of black keys.
    And within each black block it is the same left/right order:

    • # sharps from left to right
    • b flats from right to left

    And if I forget, I look to the keyboard and see with F# / Bb my first black key and know where to begin with.

    Maybe I babble too much, this picture should illustrate what happens in my brain:

    I know this might be trivial for those who are playing piano a bit longer or have had a good teacher or a good understanding in music theory. But for me this was very helpful.

    Btw: if you press the keys in this order, it makes a nice sound. I assume this is related to the circle of fifths.

        WieWaldi
        Yes, that's the same order as that in which the sharps and flat are written in the key signature. I suppose you don't notice that until you have to write key signatures by hand. 😉

        Such tricks are good at the beginning but the goal should be to know which sharps/flats are in the key signature automatically. You do that by practicing your scales inside out until you can play any scale in your sleep. In a way that's similar to what you wrote about your fingers remembering the sharp/flat after you played it except it's permanent.

        But all of that is not really what I was talking about. I can already automatically play sharps/flats in every key signature. However, if there are accidentals that modify the key signature this is where things get more complicated. There are often chromatic notes that are not within the diatonic scale and then the automatism of the scale notes doesn't work and you have to consciously keep track of which notes are changed. That is until you get to the stage where this is also automatic. 😉

        So, I'm just giving my perspective from someone who has gone a little bit further down the road to sight reading mastery. 😉

            BartK I suppose you don't notice that until you have to write key signatures by hand. 😉

            Lol! This I actually knew from the beginning. But if I look at the F#, it is the top line of the treble staff. As a beginner, this isn't the F you begin to read. The first F you encounter is the one above middle C. On top of that, a note-head is a ball. A ball in the size of two lines on the staff, very easy to read in value. The symbols # and b are bigger and do overlap a lot more with the lines. For instance, on the b-symbol, not the center of the symbol is the location. It is the center of the o-ring of the b-symbol. My brain doesn't connect accidentals to a note-name, like a note-head does.

            If I see something like this, it is always a little bit of a guess work, what note-head is meant by the accidental:

            Edit: But as you mention it: This explains why the accidentals are always ordered in a zig-zag shape, and not just randomly placed: (Before that, I always had the impression, this zig-zag ordering is used to save space on the paper, haha)

            BartK Such tricks are good at the beginning but the goal should be to know which sharps/flats are in the key signature automatically.

            Yep - but it is still more helpful than learn to read notes with tricks like the "landmark system". Know your Cs and Gs in treble clef. Know your Cs and Fs in bass clef. Then you can count the missing lines. Or the "GBD FACE" trick. Not any helpful for sight-reading. It just replaces a lookup-table. But I feel more than 50% of all YouTube videos sell those tricks as the holy grail to beginner sight-readers.

            BartK However, if there are accidentals that modify the key signature this is where things get more complicated. There are often chromatic notes that are not within the diatonic scale and then the automatism of the scale notes doesn't work and you have to consciously keep track of which notes are changed.

            Haha, tell me something new! 😁

                  17 days later

                  Trying to upload here regularly to keep track of my progress. I realized it's actually a nice challenge, because you try to keep your sight reading as musical as possible when you know that people will listen to it.

                  11 days later

                  Digging this post up once again from the grave. I was looking through Heller Etudes and realized that the first two were quite sight readable. I apologize for the random AC noises, didn't realize it would be that loud when I was recording.

                    ranjit I really like Heller's music.

                      BartK Claire Huangci is a scary good sight reader.

                          I just had this video popped up in my YouTube feed, and watched with fascination. Yes, a small part of it is recommending the Sight Reading Factory app. But the overall video is quite comprehensive, and the concepts presented seems very sound to me. A good road map as I am about to embark on this long journey.

                            BartK Great video! Thank you for sharing this. I like the suggestion for very small sections at a time. I'd been trying to do 4 measures at a time, similar to what might be required in a piano exam and had limited success with that.

                            I'm glad they covered a little bit on proprioception. It's probably my biggest barrier to keeping my eyes glued to the page. Hanon doesn't seem like it would have enough interval variations for that.

                              iternabe Thank you. Adding it to my watch later list.

                                ranjit Claire Huangci is a scary good sight reader.

                                All of them are scary good sight readers. 😆 I wanted to see what Hamelin had to say but they cut him out. I need to get a Tonebase subscription.

                                  a month later

                                  Looking forward to the day I'm not embarrassingly bad at this... no matter how much I try, I find it hard to keep going without stops and my brain often fails to process the next chord in time.

                                    You say that, but I'm still insanely jealous ranjit 🙂 I wish I played the way you sight-read 😃

                                    ranjit Not that I have anything in my piano playing to be egotistical about, but I'd say of all the piano things I do, sight reading practice bruises my ego the most. I have good days and bad days for sight reading. The bad days are like I'm hopeless and why do I even bother.

                                      a month later

                                      I hope to keep posting my progress here. It is great motivation!

                                      6 days later

                                      Slowly getting better (hopefully).

                                      a month later

                                      BartK Thought I'd revive this original thread with my recent discovery of the usefulness of Sonatinas for sight reading practice.

                                      They seem to be chock full of the kind of content that would be useful for recognizing patterns as opposed to individual notes and come in a variety of piano exam grades from 1 to grade 6.

                                      A month or so ago I got the first book of Faber's Piano Sonatinas. It has Sonatinas ranging from piano exam grade 1 to grade 3. I've sight read through all the grade 1's and now have them flagged for future quick study pieces.

                                      Sonatinas aren't my favorite classical genre to listen to, but they're actually a lot of fun to play.