Struggling with Sight Reading? Here's Help!

In the "old" days, people used to have to read maps to travel around the country. Maps were rather large, had small print, and were hard to understand unless you knew what all of the different symbols meant. 

It's similar when we try to sight read a piece of music for the first time! 

There's one or more pages of paper in front of us with numerous markings that are letters, numbers, and notes, with funny lines and sometimes little tiny notes as well. 

Music truly is a language on its own and once you begin to know and understand this language, the sooner you'll be able to pick up a piece of music and easily be able to navigate through all of the notes, lines and symbols the first time you play it; this is exactly what sight reading is. 

Lay the Foundation First

Laying the Foundation just means that you spend time in the beginning learning the basics of reading music and playing the piano.

• Learn what your notes are, where they are on the keyboard as well as in your music, and become comfortable playing them on your piano. 
• Learn what Time Signatures and Key Signatures are and what important information they give us for each piece. 
• Learn how to count the different note values in your music. 
• Learn what different symbols mean for how you play the notes and whether they need to be loud or soft.

Once you have these basic elements accomplished, you then want to move into playing scales and finger exercises. 

• Start first with an easy scale. Put into practice what you have already learned, by being aware of the key signature of your scale and what type of notes you are playing, (quarter notes, half notes, etc). 
• Next start learning an easy piano finger exercise. There will be more information on these pages of music, then there were for your scales, which is why it's good to start with a scale first. Keep reading all of the page of music, not just the notes. Notice if there are any other markings that tell you how loudly to play, or that certain notes are to be played with accents or any type of special effects. 
• Keep doing this each day, even if its for a short amount of time. 

Remember, that to really learn and absorb the language of music, you need to apply yourself as many days out of each week as possible to reinforce what you've learned. This will definitely prepare a solid foundation for you to move into sight reading next. 

Now let's sight read!

OK;  you've learned the "basics"... it's time to try your hands at sight reading.

What this means, is that you are going to play through a piece of music that you have never played before!

Yes, you can do it and here's how! You're already prepared because you know how to decipher all the symbols on the map, or music. If you have any apprehension about this, go back and review whatever you need to, and it's a good idea to do this often anyway. 

• Find an easy piece, with a key signature you know and are comfortable playing in.
• First, make a mental read-through of the piece. Notice everything, not just the notes. Focus on any places where rhythms change, maybe and extra sharp is put in front of a note, and include rests, because they are a part of the music as well. 
• Now, start at the beginning, and play to the end. It's that simple.  
• Oh, did you make a mistake? Great! :) You're going to...so expect to (at least for most of us) in the beginning. 
• If it's too hard to sight read through with both hands at the same time, take one hand at a time...that's fine! The point is not to practice here really...but to make yourself get used to 'reading' and 'playing' music at the same time. Keep that as your goal at first...success is when you do it, not do it perfectly. 
• Once you're comfortable doing one hand, then try both hands together. Make sure to pick a piece that is appropriate for your playing level, and don't try something too hard. 
• Continue to mentally and physically play through new music each day, and add in some sight reading time to your practice schedule. 

That is the "basics" of sight reading!

The most important things to remember when it comes to sight reading are:
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• Learn your music reading and piano playing basics to begin with. This way you wont' feel like you're trying to get through a maze!
• Then start trying to play new music that is level appropriate for where you are individually.
• Keep it simple by using one hand only at first; alternating between the two so both adapt to this way of playing. Then, combine both hands together. 
• Incorporate sight reading into your everyday practicing. With anything...the more we do it, the better we become at it! 

Stay Tuned to LessonsOnTheWeb to learn much more and achieve your dreams of playing the piano!

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