Sight-reading Basics Part 2 - Reading the Music

Sight-reading is an important skill for various reasons.  It's not just because, as I mentioned in my previous post, professional pianists are often asked to read music that they've never seen before at a high level; It's because EVERYBODY sight-reads.  Correction: everyone who ever learns a piece of music has to sight-read.  All sight-reading means is that it's the first time you've attempted to play a piece of music.  It's not just a skill; it's an inevitable part of the learning process.  Unless you only play by ear, you have to sight-read.

But why do I need to improve it if I don't plan to be a professional musician?

There may be multiple reasons, but there's only one that matters:  the better you sight-read, the faster you'll learn your music!!

Elite sight-readers are more than halfway done learning their music after they sight-read it one time.  Ask yourself this:  If you could take a piece that requires 4 hours of practice time and reduce it to 2, or 90 minutes, or 1 hour...isn't that worth the effort to improve your sight-reading?

In part 1, I talked about the importance of learning the keyboard well enough that you aren't having to constantly look at your hands.  Be sure you're making good progress in that area in order to fully benefit from the next segment of ways to improve your sight-reading.

Many of these hints below can be improved at www.musictheory.net/exercises.

Learn your notes

Playing and understanding a piece of music is VERY SIMILAR to reading any other language.  You have letters, words, phrases and sentences.  In music, you have notes, intervals, chords, melodic patterns, sequences, cadences and phrases.  When it comes to spoken language, you won't get far in reading anything on this blog unless you can identify each individual letter.  Written language is pretty much hopeless unless you get past "A is for Apple".  You need to learn every written note you will encounter in a piece of music for your level, and (I CAN'T EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH), You must practice note recognition until you no longer have to consciously think of the answer.  At any point in your lesson, I should be able to point to a note and ask its name, and you should be moving your mouth right away with the correct answer.  If you're pausing to think, you don't know your notes well enough to sightread at a high level.

Musictheory.net exercise:  Note Identification (go for speed, not just accuracy)

Learn your intervals and chords

If you're still reading, you obviously know your ABC's.  Do you think you'd be reading if you had to consciously identify every single individual letter?  Probably not.  I-t i-s h-a-r-d t-o r-e-a-d o-n-e l-e-t-t-e-r a-t a t-i-m-e and understand everything.  To even say you are reading, you need to recognize groups of letters as single words.  In music, this translates as intervals and chords.  These show you the shape of the patterns, things you are more likely to recognize at a playing tempo than the individual notes.  For intervals: start with generic 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc and when that is easy, learn to distinguish between major, minor, perfect, augmented and diminished (depending on your level).  For chords, start with being able to identify your primary chords as well as find the bottom note in any root-position (stacked in 3rds) chord.  Then practice identifying chords in inversions, as well as playing them.  Then work to types of chords (major, minor, augmented, diminished, types of 7ths).

Musictheory.net exercises: Interval Identification and Chord Identification

Learn to incorporate key signatures

Notice I didn't say "learn your key signatures".  What good is it to know that a key signature of 3 sharps could be A major if you forget to always play F, C and G as F#, C# and G# when you come across it?  Yes, you need to know what your key signature is, but you also need to be able to apply it to your playing.

Musictheory.net exercises: Key Signature Identification (for naming what it is) and Note Identification with settings checking key signatures to be incorporated that you would likely play at some point (for applying it).

ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD

When it comes to recognizing motives, sequences, phrases and other horizontal patterns, you have to look ahead.  You're still reading this blog.  Have you understood everything to this point (minus any technical terms you haven't yet covered)?  Then that means several things:  1. You know your letters. 2.  You can quickly string those letters together to identify words.  3.  You know what at least most of those words mean, and can deduce what the others mean by the context.  4.  You...probably... are... not... reading...one...word...at...a... time.   Look at the next 5 examples.  The first is a clean 8 measure example of a piece many of you might sightread.

Original work.  No copyright is infringed.

Sorry for the lack of resolution in this example, but you should be able to make out what it is.  Here are 4 ways you might be looking at the notes as you play them.  Consider what you're playing to be on the far left of any given circle with what you're seeing as you play to be the rest of the circle.  They are ranked from worst to best.

I only bothered with the first two measures.  Basically you're looking 1 beat at a time.

2 beats at a time.  This is obviously better, but you're still going to stall or have to play very slowly.

I would say that, at the bare minimum, this is where you should start when you read through a piece.  The problem comes in going from one measure to another.  You need to keep looking ahead.  Therefore...

This is ideal.  You are looking far enough ahead.  Also, notice the overlapping circles (oops, I missed one at the end).  You KEEP looking ahead.  Now you can see chord patterns, chord changes, the shape of the phrase, rhythm patterns.  Notice the instruction at the end of the first line.  You need to look to measure 5 to see what it coming up.

Looking ahead is essential.  As I mentioned on the previous entry in this series, I am not a natural sight-reader.  Everything I'm suggesting that you do are things I do now that I have not always done.  Occasionally, I find myself struggling to play something with accuracy, even something that is a 3rd or 4th time playing, and nearly always this goes away when I realize that I am not consistently looking ahead.  ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD.  DO NOT STARE AT THE NOTE YOU ARE PLAYING.

More steps to success

1.  Until you have mastered sight-reading, always use a metronome.  Set the metronome to a conservative tempo and stick with it no matter what.  The metronome has one purpose: to remind you that the beat goes on whether you're ready to play the next beat or not.  Do not correct wrong notes.  You have the option of leaving a note out, or an entire beat, while you "look ahead" and jump back in ON TIME.  Do not pause while you figure out what you should play.  You can do that when you're actually practicing the music, but sightreading is NOT practice.  Don't treat the two elements the same way.

2.  Look at a piece before you begin.  Identify the clefs and key signatures.  Look for patterns.  Look for tricky spots.  Most importantly, mentally review the rhythm.  Go for RHYTHM FIRST when you sight-read.  Who cares if you miss some notes?  Get the rhythm!

3.   Sightread at least 2-3 sessions per week of 10-20 minutes each to practice this skill.  Choose easier music and, at least, music you are not currently learning (or may never take the time to learn).  Method books from methods you haven't played before are good.  Many people recommend hymnals.  These are great provided you have any experience at all in playing hymns, which involves a lot of quick decisions as to whether or not the tenor voice should be played with the left hand or right thumb.

4.  As the first section implies, keep studying theory.  The more information you can identify immediately about the music, the better you will play.

5.  Keep working on technique.  You shouldn't have to practice a passage based on chords, scales and arpeggios where it is clearly one of those three and not some mix.  The better your technique, the better you will sight-read.

6.  Related to my first tip.  Give yourself permission to mess up.  Just play it with a carefree attitude.  You'll be surprised how much better it sounds even with mistakes if you just keep going.

7. Just in case you missed it between this and Part 1 in this series:  KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE MUSIC.  You can't read what you don't see.  Don't look at your hands at all except when jumping, and then learn to bounce your eyes down and back.  They should never settle for even a full second on the piano.

Here are 2 links that I would recommend for those wanting more detail.

http://pianosightreading.blogspot.com/  Be sure to check out the menu on the right of all posts so that you can follow in order.  I especially recommend posts number 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 28, 29 and 33.

Also, check out http://www.belmont.edu/music/PDFs/sightreading_tips.pdf for a more comprehensive list of what makes for good sight-reading.