How to get better at sight-reading
Read a lot of music you have never seen, every day, and make it easier than the pieces you are working on. Ten minutes of new pages a day does more than an hour once a week. Before each piece, take 30 seconds to check the key, the time signature and the hardest rhythm. Then play it once at a slow, steady tempo and do not stop, even when you miss notes.
- Volume beats difficulty: choose music a level or two easier than your current pieces.
- Keeping the beat matters more than playing every note. Skip a note rather than stop.
- Keep your eyes a beat or two ahead of what you are playing.
- Check yourself after the read, never in the middle of it.
Why easy music, and why no stopping
Sight-reading is mostly pattern recognition. Fluent readers do not read one note at a time. They see a scale going up, a rhythm they have played a hundred times, a jump of a fifth, and they play the shape. You build that library of shapes by seeing thousands of them, and you see the most of them in music easy enough to get through.
Not stopping is the other half. Teachers, directors and audition judges all care more about a steady beat with a few wrong notes than about right notes with gaps between them. Every time you stop to fix something in practice, you train yourself to stop.
What to look at before you play
Lessons and auditions usually give you a short look before you start. Use it in this order:
- Key signature. Say which notes are sharp or flat. If you are unsure, how to read key signatures has the two-second method.
- Time signature and tempo. Feel the beat before you start, and pick a tempo you can hold through the hardest measure.
- The hardest rhythm. Find it and count it once in your head.
- Accidentals and key changes. Notice sharps, flats and naturals that are not in the key signature.
- The road map. Repeats, first and second endings, D.C. or D.S. Know where you are going before you get there. The marks are in sheet music symbols explained.
- Dynamics and articulation. Loud or soft at the start, slurred or separated.
A 10-minute routine
- Pick something new, one minuteOlder method books, easy duet books, hymn books, and parts written for other instruments in your clef and range all work. You will need a lot of pages, so cheap and plentiful beats perfect.
- Look it over, thirty secondsRun through the list above.
- Count the rhythm, one minuteTap or clap the first line while counting out loud. Rhythm is where most sight-reading falls apart.
- Play it once, three minutesMetronome on, slow tempo, no stopping. If you miss something, let it go and catch the next beat.
- Check it, three minutesNow look back. Circle the measures where the beat broke, play each of them once slowly, and hear how the page should have sounded.
- Stop thereDo not polish it. Tomorrow’s page is a new one. Polishing turns sight-reading into learning a piece.
Keep a count of the pages you have read. When most of them go by without a break in the beat, move up a level.
Common mistakes
- Reading music that is too hard. Every read becomes a struggle, and you learn to stop. Go easier.
- Rereading the same piece. The second time is not sight-reading any more. It is memory.
- Starting too fast. Set the tempo by the hardest measure, not the first one.
- Looking down. Pianists especially: every glance at the keys costs you your place on the page.
- Listening first. Hearing a recording before you read turns the exercise into playing by ear. Listen after.
Check yourself after
The check step only works if you know what the page should have sounded like. A teacher can tell you. On your own, Sheetly can: once you have finished your read, photograph the page, press play and follow along. Wherever it sounds different from what you just played is what to look at again. Loop that measure, slow it down, and count it until the two match.
Find out what the page should have sounded like.
Photograph it after your read, press play, then loop and slow down the measures you missed. Free to download on iPhone and iPad.
Free to download · iPhone and iPad · Android on the way
Questions
How long does it take to get better at sight-reading?
It depends more on how many new pages you read than on how many weeks pass. With about ten minutes a day of new, easy music, many players find they stop less often within a few weeks. Reading once a week, or only reading hard music, is much slower.
Should you listen to a piece before sight-reading it?
Not when you are practicing sight-reading. Hearing it first lets your ear do the reading, so the reading skill does not improve. Listen afterward to check what you played. When you are learning a piece rather than practicing reading, hearing it first is fine and often helps.
What is the most important thing in sight-reading?
Keeping a steady beat. A sight-read with a steady pulse and a few wrong notes sounds like music; one with every note right and pauses in between does not. That is why the rule is to keep going and skip notes rather than stop.
What music should I use to practice sight-reading?
Music one or two levels easier than what you are working on: older method books, easy duets, hymn books, and parts for other instruments in your clef and range. You need many pages, so plenty of easy material is better than a few hard pieces.