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Earlofmar, whew, good to know my meory's not slipping!

I'll let you know what I think. I'm kind of ticked off because I had a Barnes & Noble gift card and splurged on "express" shipping, and they're schedule to arrive a full week after I placed my order. I should have stuck with Amazon or SheetMusicPlus, I would already have them. grrr.

You can also consider getting "Super sight-reading secrets" by Howard Richman. He has many drills and exercises which directly facilitate improvement of sight reading. I highly recommend it.

Spare a thought for us antipodeans, I have to wait four to six weeks sometimes for books from the US.

I have the book but cannot get into the drills. Any of them that you find particularity helpful?

Yes, very helpful. Especially the Basic drills and the Keyboard orientation drills. I can find my way across the keyboard without looking at the keys. This is not done by touch. This is done by a sense of how far the keys are spaced. This is absolutely essential for one who wants to be a proficient sight reader.

The drills are fairly tedious, especially the rhythm separate and pitch separate drills. I make sure to do them twice a day for 5 minutes each. Now, they don't feel tedious anymore.

I've already seen progress in the short time since I started doing them regularly.

He states right in the beginning that the basics could take a person anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. I think that time frame is acceptable to me.

OMG this book! I bought when we were still living in Japan, which was a big deal because, first I think it was out of print (or something??) and then I had to order it and get it sent to me etc. And then I never used. Then, I decided I should probably use it, but I couldn't find it. So I bought another copy. Which I used a little bit but got out of the habit. Then, maybe a year ago I found the original book, so I now have 2 copies!!

Maybe I'll take a look at it again, I remember the orientation drills seemed beneficial but I didn't do much beyond that. And I think I originally set the book aside because I wanted to play things that were actual pieces, not drills or exercises (that's why I ordered all the classics books, which are supposed to be arrived tomorrow!)

Anyway, Noobpianist90 thanks for reminding me of the Richman book. Maybe I'll use a little more this time.

BTW, have we totally lost the OP?

The major problem with the Richman book is its organization. It's quite painful. I suggest reading the book once completely before beginning the exercises and drills. Also, he suggests doing the exercises for only about 5 minutes a day. This is completely manageable.

Most Efficient Process to Learning to Sightread

Sight-reading was something that didn't come very naturally to me, I grew up memorizing everything or playing by ear, so when I had to learn as an adult it was extremely frustrating and difficult. Here's the best way to do it IMO.

Get a Sight-Reading Method Book
You NEED something with a logical progression when your learning, trust me, otherwise its going to be either so easy it won't help you at all, or so difficult you'll quit out of frustration. I personally used "Improve Your Sight-reading" but any company's system should do. I've heard good things about "4 Star Sight-reading" as well.

For each exercise in the book, use the following system:

1. Prepare the exercise
Go through this checklist:
1. What key is the piece in?
2. What is the time signature?
3. Scan through the piece and look for repeated patterns.
4. Scan for any tough rhythms and clap through them
DO THIS EVERY TIME! It'll seem pointless sometimes but you have to get in the habit of doing this, it helps a ton.

2. First time through: Normal Sight-reading
Do this SLOW. As in, pick a tempo you think would be easier and than go even slower than you think you need to. Accuracy is wayyy more important than speed. If you're having to stop and start you're going too fast.

3. Second time through: Sight read without looking at hands
A big part of Sight-reading is learning to feel your way around the keyboard. If you watch any great sight-reader, they hardly ever take their eyes off of the music. You have to get used to feeling intervals by feeling the space between your fingers and finding jumps by feeling out black keys. So second time through don't take your eyes off of the music.

4. Third time through: Read the chords
Reading chords instead of notes is the equivalent of reading words instead of individual letters. So the third time, go through and before each chord change, say out loud (saying it out loud discourages you from cheating). Don't worry too much about it if you can't figure one or two out. Sometimes it's just a weird chromatic chord.

Anyways, this is the best method I've found to improve your sight-reading, but at the end of the day, it still just takes consistent practice over a long period of time. Don't beat yourself up about it, just keep doing this procedure and results will come.

Hope this helps,

-Zach Evans

Good tips Zach. Only, in step 4) I think you mean "phrases", not "chords".

You might want to see a neuro-opthalmologist, to check whether it's a retina or optic nerve issue. I have a slight amount of optic nerve damage in one eye, it's detectable, but doesn't impair the way I live at all.

If there's nothing wrong with your eyes, then the issue is just that the human brain doesn't work in parallel mode, it's a serial processor. You have to be able to see the notes in the two staves one at a time, figure out what to do, and all just before you actually need to do it -- in other words, reading ahead.