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Hello,

I'm sorry to be a pain, but this keeps coming up for me. I've been practicing for about five months now and while I do seem to make progress, I still find difficulties with sight reading. Another user here recommended Sight Reading Factory, which I'm probably going to try.

I practice sight reading daily, however progress seems to come so slow, so slow that its hard to even tell If i'm getting better.

Any advice or tips from other beginners?

PS- I know you're supposed to look ahead, but it's hard to look ahead when I haven't mastered tactile sensitivity towards the keyboard. I'm currently using the Super Sight Reading Secrets program by Richman. I'm in the process of drill 1.

Thanks,
ryand90

haha i felt the same way. Then i noticed small things like being able to call a sixth, a fifth, a seventh an octave and get the hand position correct to support what I read. Ultimately tho, just keep going

I hate to put it like this:

. . . Sight-reading is _hard_ !

There's a lot of stuff going on:

. . . You must interpret the squiggles on the page;

. . . move your hands and fingers into the right position (preferably without looking!);

. . . hit the right notes (with the right velocity)

And you have to do that in "real time" -- no extra allowance, because the rhythm of the piece goes on, whether you hit the right notes or not!

So progress is likely to be slow!<g>

There's an old book I found useful, many years ago, that I think is still available (I checked Amazon -- it's there):

. . . "Guided Sight-Reading" -- Leonhard Deutsch

. CHarles

Do it more. You've only been at it five months. People don't get good at difficult tasks in only five months. It takes people YEARS to become competent at most musical instruments.

Go and sight read a bunch. When you're sick of it, do it again.

Hi

I had the same experience. Progress is so slow you don't even notice. 5 months playing is very little time really because it's something incredible difficult. People take years literally. If you look at the abrsm progression first year is 1 hand only 5-fingers position. Second year 2-hands five-fingers and only in year 3 you get some hand movement. My favourite books are improve your sight reading by paul harris because I follow abrsm structured grades and builds up gradually

It was probably myself who recommended The Sight Reading Factory, right now it is my program of choice. I have been sight reading diligently everyday for a year and sometimes feel I have made little progress until I look back. While my piano ability seems to have jumped light years this skill is unbearably slow to improve but of course the true fact is my expectations are too high. Often stated as akin to learning a new language if I were doing that I would only be muttering small sentences by now so why should I expect so much from my SR practice?

There are no short cuts to good sight reading but I also feel there is little good information (and I have a teacher) on the subject which in my case managed to trip me up from the start. SR was a primary goal of mine so I treated it like any other problem, from day one of piano I researched, studied and practiced it but was finding no real improvement. Where I went wrong was I thought SR and playing piano were two different things that could be isolated. I was so wrong, SR is dependent on so much more e.g.

1. ability to see patterns including chords and the inversions
2. weak fingers, lack of hand independance
3. lack of technique,
4. poor scale knowledge,
5. poor fingering knowledge
6. sound knowledge of theory
7. sound knowledge of rhythm

Of some note I found myself going wrong for a while thinking I just needed to get the notes right while sight reading, no I was very wrong I needed to get the rhythm right and then the note reading started to fall into place. Sweet06 is also correct in saying that interval recognition is a crucial step.

I also struggle with the Super Sight Reading Secret drills and while I think the method has some merit I don't like the "stay on this drill until you master it approach". The temptation to rush through the drills and get onto the Bach Chorales is too great. While the Chorales get a lot of votes for improving sight reading it is not for the complete beginner. I also learned this the hard way, spending too much time on difficult sight reading pieces and not getting any better. I have went back to much simpler works.

In summary SR is still one of my primary goals, but I have had to learn patience and some faith that if I continue on my present course it will improve more as a consequence of my overall piano skills improving. While I still practice SR everyday as a separate exercise it is just as important to be developing all those other skills. SR simple material is a must, you have to get proficient at reading simple material and very gradually add in more challenges.

As a bonus for reading to the end your gift is here here

Practicing piano for five months? or practicing sight reading?

You can only sightread what you can play at sight, meaning you already have all the skills necessary and there are no difficulties to work through.

That means you can only sightread a couple of levels, or more, below what you can learn to play. The pieces you work on for a lesson are likely to be 3 levels above your playing level.

So as a beginner, you're working on a level 1 piece, and you could theoretically sightread a -3 piece, but they don't exist.

You simply have to build your skills to an entry level before sightreading is going to work.

Now, it is possible to get to a high level of skill and NOT be able to sightread. But it isn't possible to sightread at a low level of skill.

TimR explained very well. It is frustrating as a beginner because there are almost no pieces below our current level. One just needs to acknowledge that and hang on, soon enough months will become years and our sight-reading practice will pay off.

Thank you all for your comments, very helpful. Tim R, you have an interesting point that at a beginning level it seems impossible to even have a chance at beginning to read at sight. I didn't think of it that way. I'm still going to practice, but I will keep this in mind when my confidence is low, which it sometimes is.

Earlofmar, thanks for the link and great response. I understand what you mean about Richman's book, however i'm in no hurry for chorales and am really only interested in playing pop music. I really do think I want to try sightreadingfactory as I like the leveled approach and the fact that it generates new music all the time. Do you think it has been a big factor towards your success?

Also, in terms of rhythm, I've been counting aloud each day, but does this eventually transfer to when I play? I'm not sure if its worth it, although I plan to stick to it.

I began the Sight Reading Factory about two months ago when I heard it now offered piano. Before that I was using SR exercise books, and another program called Presto Keys. My daily practice would consist of using the Presto Keys, "big note" books and any pdf material I had collected. I did notice improvement but what SRF did was instantly show me I was attempting material too hard for me. I needed to go back and get the basics right which I am doing now. The program is not the end of it though, a secret of SR is to read from a wide variety of music. So SRF is just one tool, I try to read other material I have at hand.

FWIW --

You might want to learn to play from "lead sheets" -- melody line is written out, with chord symbols.

That's a different skill from "sight reading" (where every note is written out). It requires a really good grasp of harmony (sight-reading doesn't), and therefore not suitable for absolute beginners. But it might work well if you have a solid guitar background.

. CHarles

Ha! Really?

repost from another thread where I mistakenly posted it....

You might try this book of exercises . I think it works well for a beginner... it gets progressively harder, and it is 98 pages (one of its main attractions). Once you are comfortable with these you will be ready for a little more movement of the hands.

It is not for any beginner. Sightreading polyphony well is much, much harder than most people think.

An added thought for Ryand90...

While exercises are good and you may need to plow through them, reading actual music is much better IMO.... because it has things like phrasing, a beginning, an ending, maybe a climax, etc., that are important parts of reading too. That said, it is really hard at first to find ENOUGH really easy material to read, so the exercises may be necessary.

It would not be crazy to try and find 15 books of elementary level songs for sight reading (that had different pieces). Library, garage sales, or purchase online are all possiblilities, depending on your circumstances.

Try reading this

http://www.anneku.com/works/sightreading_thesis_original.pdf

yea. i do notice that. I had to stop with my sight reading books as I was progressing to quickly thru them and ultimately ran out of material at my level. The two handed sight reading (not hand-offs) was really a brick wall for me. Perhaps when i gain more hand independence I'll be able to continue with that. I can read it, I can see what needs to happen. It just doesn't happen :P

To get the rhythm right you can try to sight read with a metronome. As slow as needed to keep on time

Talking about rhythm, I just got a cheap little ebook titled "Basic Timing for the Pianist". One hundred short exercises of all kinds, which one can also use as sight-reading material.