# Sight-reading



## spacedout (Dec 17, 2007)

So, I'm pretty much a self-taught keys player - a couple of years of lessons when I was a kid, when I was introduced to playing by ear, and picking up stuff from listening/watching/practicing ever since. It's all good, but I've recently decided to teach myself to sight-read in order to give myself some more versatility (and to enable me to play stuff that I've never had the opportunity to hear). I've been able to decipher sheet music for a long time, but I'm now making a serious effort at learning to read fluently...

And it's embarassing how bad I am at this! I've got hold of a piano lesson book that covers grades 1-5, and my reading ability is somewhere around grade 2 at a stretch. It's pretty frustrating, because I'm playing stuff that is well below what I know I'm capable of, but it just takes so long to translate the notes. Timing is more ok, because I've learned to play drums with reading from the get-go, but the whole thing is pretty difficult at this stage.

Now, I know what the answer to this is: practice, practice & more practice! And I'm ok with that - I know this will most likely take a while until I have it down, but I'm prepared & willing to make the effort. I'm just wondering if there are any short cuts any of you guys know about that will make this a little bit quicker and easier?

Thanks!


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## torceador (Sep 8, 2010)

spacedout,

You've taken on a tough task. I was always an ear player until i tried to pick up synths in the 80's. The best time for learning sight reading is when you're young, and it's a proven fact it helps young people organize their brains. Once adult, you have a harder time learning.

Since you are somewhat already acccomplished on keys, it is hard to slow down to read AND play more elementary pieces without feeling childish, but you will learn if you can have simplified pieces that interest you.

In the 90's, there was a great program called Piano Discovery from Jump! Music that used MIDI to interface to a PC. It would present a piece on the screen, start a metronome and turn the note colors from black to purple as you played them. It would judge how many notes you played correctly, as well as how close to the beat you were. If your score was high enough, it would advance you to the next piece. If not, it would have you 'woodshed' it a few times and perhaps isolate a hand to get it right. You could 'perform' each piece with an orchestra of other MIDI instruments that gave you a little boost to keep going.

Piano Discovery is now long out of print, and I don't know of anything out there that combines its progressive teaching with monitoring that keeps you honest.

Peter Gannon at www.pgmusic.com has a lot of useful MIDI-based applications. They have a program called Power Tracks Pro Audio which is a really inexpensive sequencer program. With it, you can play a piece and have the sheet music displayed instantly. You can then rewind, set a tempo and play along, sight reading what you've just already played. That helps organize paper and music together in your mind. They also have some piano teaching software modules, but I don't have any experience with them and therefore can't give an opinion.

Good luck with your learning.

torceador


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## fitzwaddle (Aug 25, 2010)

I'm an erstwhile play-by-ear guitarist - never got the hang of reading music - I've tried a couple times, but I think like you, found having to play music well below my ability (and interest) made it hard to stick with the program. Plus 99 other hobbies. :huh:


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Is there really any need to be able to sight read once you get out of high school or college and the competitions they have? 

It’s certainly beneficial to be able to read if you’re a studio musician, but even there I don’t think they expect the musicians to be one-take perfect, do they? If you’re a professional musician, you’re getting paid to deliver your best product. Even an accomplished sight reader will most likely tell you that it’s impossible to deliver your best product on the first pass.

My wife has a shelf-full of vocal and piano sight reading awards from high school and college. So I asked her, "So - you can sit down and play the piece seeing it for the first time. But is that your best performance?" She said, "Vocals? Possibly. Piano? No way."

Regards,
Wayne


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## lsiberian (Mar 24, 2009)

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> Is there really any need to be able to sight read once you get out of high school or college and the competitions they have?
> 
> It’s certainly beneficial to be able to read if you’re a studio musician, but even there I don’t think they expect the musicians to be one-take perfect, do they? If you’re a professional musician, you’re getting paid to deliver your best product. Even an accomplished sight reader will most likely tell you that it’s impossible to deliver your best product on the first pass.
> 
> ...


As a singer I can tell you sight reading is immensely helpful in getting difficult transitions between notes and for verifying pitch. Mostly sight reading is helpful in training the ears more than anything. It is a terrific practice for students, but not as necessary in the real world. I am still an ear singer though.


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