The Sight Reading Thread

Ok, now…

Bart, I love this topic, thank you for starting this thread! I’ve been wanting to read and post in it but it’s taken me awhile to get caught up…

I don't want this to be a hair-splitting debate about the definition of "sight reading" and wheather that means first time only or more general reading

Bart, I agree about not wanting to open up the debate in terms of what “counts” as sight reading, bc in my opinion, it’s all reading and that’s the most important thing. (Oh and I don’t care if it’s music that you know in your head, i.e., you could hum the melody or something, versus music you don’t know at all. Both are equally useful for sightreading)

But a while back, I wrote at the other site a fair amount about the difference between “sight reading” (playing something house not read before) and what I call “read-playing.” To me, “read-playing” is playing or practicing something, maybe you’ve been working on it for months so you know the music well, maybe you could even play the piece completely or almost from memory without the score. But the point is, even if it’s not the first time, or not the 10th time, you’ve seen it, you are actively reading it while playing, making it a point to keep your eyes on the score, reading along, making sure you’re not passive in how you read (or look at) the score.

I think a lot of people have the score on the music stand while playing, but over days and weeks of practice, they are reading less and less, even though they may not be aware of it, because they’re passively memorizing the music.

So my point in making the distinction between sightreading and read-playing is to say that it is absolutely crucial that we be aware of reading and that we make it a point to do this “read-play” activity even with pieces we have been working on for a long time.

I think this is perhaps one of the most important activities one can do to develop sightreading ability. In other words, over time, active reading of known pieces contributes to the ability to sightread new pieces, i.e., to play through a piece of music you’ve never seen or only seen and played a few times.

So hopefully my bringing this up doesn’t sound like more of that hair-splitting debate, because if I recall correctly, the folks arguing about how to define sightreading were caught up in the question of what counts as sightreading, whereas my point here is that if you want be able to do one (play through a piece you’ve never seen before at a reasonable tempo), you have to be able to do the other (read-play through a piece you know while actually, truly, reading it). Because I strongly believe that active reading of known pieces contributes to sightreading ability, but only if you make it a point to always (or almost always!) ensure you are doing active reading.

Ok last post in this thread (for now) and then i have to go to work

So, I want to make a little tip sheet for myself to print out and have by my piano, and I want it to be “short and sweet,” simple phrases that trigger the ideas< rather than paragraphs of explanations…. So based on all the ideas in this thread, here is the beginning of a tip sheet.

Sightreading tips:
Use a metronome and play in strict time
Play through without stopping
Play through mistakes
Count out loud

I’ve left some things out that are obvious to me (like, choose easy material, look through the piece first…)

But what else would you add to this list of tips?

ShiroKuro I like the way you describe this, I have noticed that it’s good for me to force myself to properly read the music when playing pieces I know quite well, partly to make sure i haven’t inadvertently had something wrong creep in there!

Interested to see your non classical sight reading sources, although i almost entirely play classical, I would like my sight reading to include non classical as this is sometimes the type of music i play through without learning (eg Christmas music in December, Disney music on request etc)

Your sticky note looks similar to mine, except I also have the reminder to make sure I’m choosing easy enough music that I will be getting it mostly right!

ShiroKuro I think this is perhaps one of the most important activities one can do to develop sightreading ability. In other words, over time, active reading of known pieces contributes to the ability to sightread new pieces, i.e., to play through a piece of music you’ve never seen or only seen and played a few times.

My thought as well. I don't practice sight reading per se, but I do actively read and over time my ability to pick up a new piece and "read" through it has increased; with increased ability to read new pieces, my speed of learning those new pieces has increased. I don't see myself picking up a piece I've never seen before and playing it in front of somebody--there are people who do, and more power to them--but it's not something I see myself doing. What I do see as the benefit of better sightreading/reading is making it easier to start new pieces at or above one's level.

BartK A good test is if your teacher or anyone pointed to a measure and told you to start there would you stumble in confusion for a few seconds and have to go back to the nearest known starting point or are you able to just look at the music, know where you are, and resume playing from there?

My answer is no if I don't have any fingering written in, yes if I do. An even harder test is if your teacher says start on the second part of beat 2 in measure 38, or some such random spot. Being able to start on a random measure, or in a random spot in the measure, works only if you can also use fingering that works with what came before and what comes after.

BartK But I still think that dedicated sight reading practice in strict time has had a tremenously positive effect on my reading ability.

100% agree.

It's a different kind of experience where you have to deal with issues on the spot as they arise and learn how to get out of trouble gracefully. You learn to recognize patterns more rapidly. You learn to use intuition to guess at some of the notes based on patterns you know. You learn to let go of errors. You learn to find notes without looking and keep moving your eyes ahead in the music. All of these and more are developed much more significantly when doing strict sight reading, IMO.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes!!

I didn't mean to imply (with all my rambling about read-playing) that actual focused sightreading isn't needed.

It most definitely is. I have gotten away from it, but this thread has inspired me to revisit my sightreading materials. I'm going to print out that tip list (as soon as I'm confident it's mostly complete) and get a book or two out and ready, and plan to add sightreading to my standard practice routine.

BartK Maybe the "look at the bass first" advice is a way to get students to notice the bass chord changes quickly and focus on reading the melody.

I asked my teacher about this recently actually... but it was well before this thread started, and not in the context of sightreading per se... I think he said the reason has something to do with harmony, but oddly enough I can't remember what he said!
I have a lesson today, maybe I'll ask again. He's pretty patient!

I'm pretty sure that I'm most often looking most at the treble clef, but I think it depends on the score of course. I'll try to pay attention to what I'm doing when I practice tonight

I participated in an online sight reading course run by Lona Kozik during covid lockdowns. Her advice was to read the lowest notes first which I find quite difficult.

keff I participated in an online sight reading course run by Lona Kozik during covid lockdowns. Her advice was to read the lowest notes first which I find quite difficult.

She was talking about chords, right? I think it comes down to training and how you are used to doing it. The background of this advice is, in my opinion, that the name of the root-note is the important one, you need to know. And normally the root note is the lowest note.

BUT: there is no guarantee that the chord isn't inverted, so in my opinion this advice is pretty worthless. If she learned it that way from her teacher, she got used to doing it that way and then this is the easiest for her. And because this is the easiest for her, she is teaching the same to her students.

Let me propose what I think is best for chord reading (and I will train this way):

• treble clef / RH: read from bottom to top
• bass clef / LH: read from top to bottom

Or to be more precise, read the "inner" note and memorize the shape of the chord (also the inverted ones). The reason for this is simple. If you need to look down to your hands, place your eye on the inner finger (e.g. thumb) and the rest of the chord is then just muscle memory. And if you orientate in the center of the keyboard for both hands, your eye has to move a smaller distance, and you can check both hand with a single glimpse.
(I find it very slow to place my left hand with the pinky as reference finger. Especially if the hand does a jump and the destination key is covered by my hand.)

Some time ago, Sam posted a link to a video where the eyes or pianists are looking at. And I found in case of looking to the keyboard, the eye is often oriented to the thumb (or where the thumb needs to go).

My tip, probably already covered in thread WAY to long to read all the way through.

Use a printed score. First work out all the chords if not indicated, an write them on the score including what inversion it is. Next identify and notes on ledger lines that are beyond what you instinctively know. Write the note beside it. Then figure out you fingering and write that one score.

Now just practice it, adjusting figuring if necessary.

@WieWaldi this is super interesting, thanks for posting it.

The idea of eye orienting to the thumbs makes a lot of sense to me, because if you know where your thumbs are, you can get the rest of your fingers where they need to be.

As for reading direction, reading the treble clef bottom to top, and the bass clef top to bottom might sound like it doesn’t make sense (bc you would start in the middle and then it’s like your eyes have to go in different directions). But actually, since we can take in a lot of visual information, if you’re looking at the middle, you are likely able to see the notes above and below as well… hmm, I’ll try to see if I’m doing this…

ShiroKuro

I also asked my last teacher about it. He said that you have to start with the treble, and then bass, and you have to read a few bars ahead of your playing. I was there to improve my sight reading, so he was focused on that. One of the exercises I had to do during a lesson was to play a new piece from sheet music, and as soon as it went well I had to transpose it to a different key at the spot. So I had to play the piece from sheet music, but in different keys. Maybe because you don't start to memorize it as fast this way, I don't know what it was for to be honest. Does someone else know what it is for?

ShiroKuro The idea of eye orienting to the thumbs makes a lot of sense to me, because if you know where your thumbs are, you can get the rest of your fingers where they need to be.

It may seem like a good idea, but it isn't. It isn't, because piano music isn't generally built from the thumbs outwards. The most important things are usually found at the top and the bottom. Here are the essential elements, in order of importance:

1. The melody

In most of the music we play, the melody is the most important thing. You will recognise a piece if you hear just the melody. There are times when I've saved my skin in opera rehearsals when the going gets really tough by playing only the melody. It's more important to get the tune (notes and rhythms) right than all the rest. Usually the melody is at the top, but you need to be able to recognise the rarer cases where the melody is in the middle, or at the bottom.

2. The bass line

In classical or romantic music, if you get melody and bass line right, you can already give a good impression of the piece. Most of the time the melody together with the bass line is enough to indicate the harmonies.

3. Other stuff

• harmonies
• accompaniment rhythms
• dynamics
• inner voices
• ornaments
• rubato
• other details...

These elements vary in importance. Probably harmony is the next one to concentrate on, but sometimes a subito ff or pp will trump the harmony. An advanced sight-reader quickly works out what is most important, but if you're a beginner sight-reader it's enough to concentrate on getting top and bottom right.

One more thing: the idea that you must read ahead. If you think you should always be looking at a place further on in the piece than what you are playing, it won't work. What you do need to do is to learn to grasp things phrase-wise, not note by note. I'll post in more detail about how to achieve this when I have the time.

Josephine One of the exercises I had to do during a lesson was to play a new piece from sheet music, and as soon as it went well I had to transpose it to a different key at the spot. So I had to play the piece from sheet music, but in different keys. Maybe because you don't start to memorize it as fast this way, I don't know what it was for to be honest. Does someone else know what it is for?

If you can transpose a piece into another key, it means you grasp how it works harmonically. You're not just associating notes on the pages with keys on the piano, you're developing an understanding of tonal relations in the piece.