Powerful Tips on Developing Your Sight Reading Technique

Sight reading is one of the best tools you can learn to use in your piano playing as you advance. It’s amazing how much we use sight reading in our playing and how much it actually helps us to play piano better!

To understand what sight reading is we just have to accept that it is what it says it is: reading by sight instead of from practicing. Whenever we play through a piece or an etude that we have never played before, we are sight reading.
Whenever we start a new piece, it is when we read through the piece all the way through instead of stopping to fix something that we are sight reading.  It is after that, that we begin the practicing process to learn it thoroughly. Once you have your sight reading skills sharpened, you will be able to play through a lot more music the first time without having to stop and figure things out (practicing) and it will be correct!

If you are ready to incorporate sight reading into your piano playing, these tips are the best ones to apply to this process to help you master the skills needed at the fastest pace.
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1. Sight read every day.  We all know at this point that the more we do something, the easier it becomes and the better we get at it. Try starting your practicing with a focus on bettering your sight reading skills at the beginning of each session so you can put your best energy and attention there.
2. Start with something that is below your current level. This is important because it won’t be overwhelming trying to read new notes or new key signatures…you will already be comfortable with those things and will be able to read through a lot easier. Also, if it helps you, feel free to play one hand at a time until you are more secure reading through a new piece with both hands.
3. Slow down so you won’t make too many mistakes. Mistakes are expected when we first start sight reading, but to help minimize those mistakes it really helps to start out slower than you think you should be playing and then you’ll make a lot fewer mistakes. The ultimate goal is to be able to sight read through the first time with no mistakes.
4. Focus on these specific 3 things first:  Notes, then rhythm, then articulations, dynamics and phrasing. Take one thing at a time. What we mean here is that while you don’t disregard the rhythms and notations in the music about the musicality aspects of the piece, you simply put most of your attention on playing the right notes in the right key signature as best you can, without stopping because you didn’t play soft, or didn’t play an accent where noted in the music. Again, you will eventually be able to focus on all of these at one time when you sight read, but when first starting out and developing this tool, take the notes first, then pay attention mostly to the rhythm, and then add in the musical aspects to complete the piece.

Finding music to sight read through is actually easy. You can always pull out something from your own music library that you’ve never played before – but remember not to pick something that is over your current level, or it might be a bit frustrating. Pick something easy to start with.

You could also play from a Hymnal Book, a popular music song book, or anything that you can find that is on hand to read through.

There are also some very good and valuable resources online that you can utilize that are designed specifically to help with sight reading. I show you these online sites and provide links to them in the following video as well as going over at the keyboard these same tips to improve your sight reading skills. Make sure to give these online sights a try as they will offer new music and ongoing resources for your own growth. 

If you like my tips and lessons, you will love the courses over on my website. Whether you are a beginner looking to get a solid foundation to build on or you are looking to take you existing skills to that next level, the online music courses on my website https://www.pianolessonsontheweb.com will help you do just that.