Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Setback

I've had a rough week and feel like this might be a good opportunity to discuss some concerns. I've been playing for about 4 years, with a one year hiatus for a move, so a total of about three I suppose. With the help of a teacher, I did the Alfred's book 1 the first year, then worked on some Hanon and started playing jazz from lead sheets. From there, I began learning scales in all major keys, then all major, minor, and 7th chords and major arpeggio's. I have used this for work on lead sheets. I decided to try the first movement of Moonlight Sonata, and while it took a while (maybe I wasn't ready), I can now play it fairly well. From here I moved on to some of the shorter Chopin preludes and some Cherny exercises.

The problem, as I've expressed in threads in the past, is that I feel my sheet music reading is lacking. I tend to memorize the pieces I'm playing, not intentionally, but it just happens through repetition. This has allowed me to look down, which has prevented me from progressing to where I can play well without looking at my hands while limiting my sight reading.

I've recognized this to be an increasing problem over the past few months and in the past few weeks have really tried to avoid looking down. As this has occurred, my teacher gave me a book of Sonatinas, and I find it difficult to play the easiest one (Clementi Sonatina in C Major). I've gotten through the first two movements but only after probably two months. There are a lot of jumps in this, or so it seems to me. I can probably play them well if I look down, but I'm trying to avoid this and therefore even though I know it well by now, when I play without looking at the keys, I make mistakes that cause me to stumble.

This prompted my teacher to pick up a beginner's book, a children's book from decades ago, to practice. I was shocked that I couldn't sight read even Grade 1 pieces fluently on the first pass, leading to my bad week and discouragement. With a few minutes to study or practice these Grade 1 pieces, btw, I can play them without difficulty, but I've heard and my teacher pointed out that one should be able to fluently sight read 2 grades below your level, so I don't know where that puts me. I actually said out loud, to my teacher, maybe I'm just not cut out for piano.

I practice for about 1-2 hours, on average five days a week (less on busy work days, more on weekends) and try to at least touch the piano every day, beginning with scales or Cherny, then these Sonatinas and then some lead sheet or more fun stuff. I had been feeling pretty good about my playing, as I can play chords inverted chords, a little improvisation on basic jazz pieces, etc, until the realization set in that my reading is just not good.

I believe that the problem stems from multiple causes. Maybe I'm just not musically talented. Maybe I should have focused more on sight reading. Maybe my teacher should have recognized this issue a year or two ago and helped me correct it earlier. I believe that focusing on getting each piece to semi-polished level has caused me to spend way too much time on each piece, and prevented exposure to more sheet reading. I'm not trying to necessarily cast blame but wondering if I should make a change, or if I just need to recognize the problem, attack it with a lot of sight reading exercises, and get over it.

Sorry for the very long post / rant. Frustrated and disappointed with myself. Not even sure I should have put this out there but here it is.

Ummmm...what are you trying to achieve...do you have long-term goals...and what are they?
Is it a race toward a certain goal?

Unfortunately your predicament isn't uncommon. Technique often outstrips music reading ability. When I returned to piano a few years ago, I could play advanced pieces but reading -new- music was a painful chore.

My music reading and sight-reading has improved by leaps and bounds since then and there have been a lot helpful things a long the way, but the core of it has always been the same - daily reading practice of -new- material, at a slooowwww tempo (even slower than that), with a priority on accuracy over everything else.

It does work, but you gotta make sure you're actually practicing that skill and not something else.

See this.

http://www.bachscholar.com/sight-reading-harmony-pre-sale/

What is it you want to achieve?

Be good at jazz and playing from lead sheets, or sight-reading classical pieces?

If being good at sight-reading is your goal, then you have to sight-read lots and lots of simple music that's fully written-out. That's not the same thing as playing from lead sheets or improvising. There's nothing wrong with what you're currently doing, dabbling in this and that, but you'll just have to realize that you'll have to take longer to achieve something specific, compared to if you concentrated on that specific thing, and play everything while reading from the score, and don't learn/repeat every piece till they've become memorized.

As my teacher has explained to me, sight reading and playing music you have memorized through repetition and muscle memory are two very different skills and use different parts of the brain. The only way to become a better sight reader is to incorporate it into your everyday practice routine. Even if it’s just 5 minutes a day, find a new piece of music you’ve never seen (even if it’s at a very beginner level) and play through it the best you can. With technology, you can use apps to generate sight reading material at various levels. There are also some great books like Barkok’s Mikrokosmos. Simply playing through pieces you are learning and scales will not improve sight reading a great deal. However, I will say that learning chords in every key has helped me tremendously. Now when I see a group of notes together, I don’t see them as individual notes, but rather as chords that I instantly know how to play.

Good luck!

To me it seems that you had some difficulty with the jumps in Clementi Op. 36 no. 1 and are overreacting a bit.

Jumping from one place to another on the keyboard is a different issue from memory vs. reading.

Most pianists DO look at the keys to find a note when there's a big jump. That is, they read the notes, they look at the keys to find where to jump to, and they look back at the page to read the next notes.

Some people really like being able to jump without looking, but it's quite hard, and certainly not something you should beat yourself up for at this stage.

Can you describe your process for learning chords in every key. I am trying learn chords every key also and am not sure where to start.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

RaggedKeyPresser - good question. I don't have a particular long term goal, other than to improve, learn and have fun. The initial goal was "dementia prevention" through music / art, but I also love music and have my whole life.

mbpress - will check that site when I get a few more minutes thanks for the link

Bennevis - maybe you're right, maybe I will have to make a choice in goals for a while in order to attain a level of proficiency in one style or another; I have considered this option.

GrooveOn - thanks for making me realize I'm not alone in this

CML Piano Learner - agree, maybe they are different skills, and maybe I don't need both?

hreichgott - I can do better when I look down but I've really tried to avoid it as I've seen the limitations it has created; maybe a balance will be better.

I guess I'm learning by trying to accomplish a lot of things, including the scales / chords, technique, sight reading, lead sheets, and different styles. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can comfortably chew. I guess having a full time job precludes the hours of practice I really need to do it all but I was hoping to improve a little in all these areas. I really was just shocked at how limited I am with this particular skill and it really threw me.

I use "Scale Skills" by Keith Snell. I'm currently in Level 4 of 10. After introducing each scale (in every key), he gives triads of the scale, broken chords, chord progressions, and arpeggios. There is also a chord chart in the back of the book (at least in the level 4 book there is) where he goes over diminished chords, augmented, etc. etc.

Are these 4 years with one teacher, or 4 years with perhaps two teachers with the move in between? If the latter, how long with the present teacher?

I'm somewhat bothered by your teacher's response to the problem with the Clementi to be that of giving you a beginners book. There is nothing specific to the problem about this. A book, or a piece for that matter, doesn't teach and doesn't solve problems. If you're given a grade 1 book and find you have trouble reading the music, all that does is devastate the student - it doesn't help in any way.

There are probably multiple things as you say.

About the Clementi itself: If you are trying to read the music without ever looking down, that is not realistic or how it is done. Is your teacher advising you about reading, and if so, what, about this aspect?
2. Clementi: Have you been taught how to approach the piece, and practising it? Analyze and find the sections; the musical form. How to structure your practice over days and each day. How to handle problem areas. (jumping to a grade 1 book does not solve any specific problem in the Clementi!)

Reading:
It is simplistic to tell a student that you learn to read by taking simple music, "read through" every day, and magically you become better at reading. There are skills under the skills. For example: recognizing a note on a score, and how is it being recognized. Being able to associate a note in the score with the piano key. If you see a notehead on the bottom line of the treble clef, does your hand automatically zip to the white key to the left of the two blacks right in front of you? Or do you say "E", then "which key on the piano is called E", and then there is a whole pile of E's. ...... Someone teaching you should be figuring out what you can and cannot do, and then go from there. If not, you as a student have to do it, I guess.

It is not uncommon to be all over the place in abilities, or discover things have been missing for a long time, even while you were building strengths in other areas. I've even been told by professional musicians that they came to some such realizations late in their development. Once you identify something, you work on it to fix it. Finding out what that is, and how to fix it, is a job in itself, but rewarding. I had to go after quite a few things and am still working on some, since I was originally self-taught as a child. Ironically, just about the first thing that was given to me from a relative's books were the sonatinas, with that Clementi.

Keystring, you're over-analyzing things, as well as over-complicating things.

The OP isn't a beginner and has participated in many threads about note reading, sight-reading and memorizing in the past. I think we can safely assume that he knows how to sight-read, just that he can't do it as well as he thinks he should be able to at his stage of learning.

Sometimes - in fact, very often -, the solution (if one wants to use it) is really just as straightforward as spending time just doing it.

And managing expectations......

Your situation sounds similar to mine when I was starting out. I decided I really wanted to be a good sight reader more than I wanted to play jazz so that's what I focused on, reading A LOT of music, pretty much always looking at the music and not at the keys. It takes a long time, and you just have to stick with it and not get discouraged. That's all I can add to the discussion.

I decided from the first days (first I wanted to improvise but decided it was more difficult) to learn to read because I wouldn't want to memorize, and that's what I've been doing. My typewriting experience led me to always try to play without looking, but then I realized some moves would take me very long. I'm still at the same phase, at low level, and one day decided I could look now and then at the score, but it's not really working well because I am either playing slow and a piece I already know some or I have to stop for a bit...

In general, I think people who are not dedicating to reading are playing higher level pieces so their technique is better. I've tried some pieces a bit more difficult, but I mostly prefer to learn the ones in method books, in which the next piece is challenging enough for me.

One day I realized anything we learn at the piano is good...there are so many things to learn. All those things you've been practicing must be really useful, and you can improve reading whenever you decide you want to.

CMB13: This topic seems to be mixing 2 separate skills ......Playing while looking at the music AND Being able to play something while looking at the music for the first time ever.

Those are 2 entirely different things. It sounds like you have difficulty PLAYING WHILE LOOKING AT THE MUSIC. If that is the case, the solution is simple .... you just have to start doing it. Find a level (you already have) where you can begin to have success PLAYING WHILE LOOKING AT THE MUSIC (regardless of the level) and just start working from there. Forget about the SIGHT-READING (playing while looking at the music for the very first time). That needs to be left for years later when you have mastered the skill of PLAYING WHILE LOOKING AT THE MUSIC and have been doing it successfully for a couple of years.

Your main problem seems to be that feel like you (or someone else) did the wrong things and that is why you cannot progress to where you want to be.\

Forget about all that and just start working on PLAYING WHILE LOOKING AT THE MUSIC and a year or more from now ... things will be much better.

Trying to find a quick solution or jumping to another teacher or another genre will not help with that.

You just need to start doing it and not worry about what you should have done.

Good Luck to you.

Identifying a weakness and addressing it isn't really a setback. It isn't the greatest feeling in the world, but it is how we improve.

Keystring - yes, same teacher as it was a relatively local move, one town away. The reason for the break was packing, unpacking, renovation, etc. And yes, I felt it was a little demoralizing at this point. Nonetheless if I can use this book as a sight reading practice book, I suppose it's okay. And yes, I have trying to play it without looking down at all. My teacher doesn't really go over analyzing the piece in such a way, but through this forum, i have been learning to analyze, see mini scales / arpeggios in the piece, notice when the jump is a full octave, etc, and it does help. The big movements (eg going down a full octave or more) are where I run into trouble without looking. Again, I can play it much more easily if I look.

If I see an E on the bottom line of the treble clef, I think "e" and head to the e up from the middle c, but I do still think it. I can pretty much rapidly get to any key on either clef, but have more trouble with notes above the treble clef or below the bass clef, although I am starting to get them. Without looking though is where I run into trouble. I'm trying to know the intervals, say if I'm on a G, getting to the next E is a sixth away, and being able to feel this without looking, but it is a little slow.

Bennevis, you're correct that I have mentioned this before, and have thought about starting this thread before, but didn't bother until after this lesson yesterday put a nail in the coffin for me!

I guess managing expectations will be necessary, but I feel I should be better at this by now. Thanks, Don, I see your point about the two separate skills. I think I need improvement in both, but I understand the suggestion of playing while looking at the music should come first, without worrying about sight reading for the first time. It seems that others have suggested, maybe in other threads, working on sight reading every day also. I think I may need a balance, seeing and playing a lot from sheet music and I think I also shouldn't spend too much time polishing anything, unless it is something I really like and want to add to a more permanent repertoire.

There is a good business tool you can use to figure out what you need to do in order to improve your current situation: SWOT analysis. I employ it often in different life situations because it helps me find constructive solutions within a bigger picture instead of just brewing in my emotional reactive response. I actually go ahead and draw the table and list all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats relevant to the problem/setback in question, and develop my course from there. Maybe you can try it?

Ok, here is my experience on how I learned notes during my very first week with a teacher. I had the grand staff drawn on a sheet of paper with whole notes on lines and spaces. Then I was shown on the keyboard where each note goes. No note names were written. And then I had to play simple music in treble clef then the same music in bass clef by using this cheat sheet without thinking about note names. Now when I see a note I first go to its location and then think 'oh, it's e', or don't even think anything.

I'm at the elementary stage and will be for a long time so feel free to disregard but I thought I would share just in case 🤓

I found from reading your posts our experience has been very similar, I have been playing four and a half years though. I don't think you bit off more than you can chew as the nature of our apprenticeship in piano means we need to have a lot of skills under our belts just to play Jingle Bells. I have also been disappointed in how my sight reading has progressed, despite considerable practice in that area. I don't worry about it anymore it is going at a glacial rate of improvement but I am content it is at least moving forward.

I used to deliberately memorise all my pieces until I realised I was not memorising all the detail, and even missed some notes which was incredibly hard to fix. I realised I was leaning more on muscle memory which was also probably why I was making so many mistakes. I also had this thing where I needed to watch my hands and could not lift my eyes and know where to go. This all happened while I had teachers to guide me so I am not exactly happy with that.

One day I decided to go cold turkey with a brand new piece. I would not look at my hands (except for jumps) and read the score every time I sat down with the piece. It was slow going to be sure and I could not remember anything from day to day, but over a much longer period than I was used to I did memorise the piece, but this time I could do it without looking at my hands. I haven't really looked back since then because every now and again I would find another reason why this made sense. For instance one day I found my fingertips could feel when they were in the right spot between two black keys for a certain chord change, or I would know where I was because I could feel my finger butting up against a black key.

The biggest change in deciding just to follow the score was I had to learn a lot slower. When I started to make too many errors I would go even slower or just go single handed for a while. This has really high lighted where the weak spots in the my playing are but also the benefit of slow, targeted and thoughtful practice. Eventually I learn the piece without the need to watch the score, but I feel my method has really ingrained the piece by this stage. I might at this stage start watching my hand again but I can also lift my eyes and confidently know I won't falter.

Just so I expose all my faults: when it came to sight reading I approached it wrong. Again my teacher let me down by not teaching me to count or do any rhythm work with me. I thought it was just note reading but you have to be able to comprehend instantly the rhythm you are going to play the notes in. If you don't do it already make sure you get in some clapping exercises.

I had to laugh when I first read the poster's concerns.

I been doin' the same for over 60 years. why should it be a concern if you getting a result anyway? Yes, it'd be darned nice to be able to pick up a piece o' music and sight read it; until recently my eyes would never permit me to see the thing properly in the first place, so it was down to repetition and memory. i even found it hard to read lead sheets. Or even see which note I shouldn't have been looking at . . . .!
I could have done better, no doubt. Couldn't we all?

Don't let such a small thing spoil the fun. Very few of us are ever going to be concert pianists. Or even professionals. Very few of us actually care . . .

I think you're expecting to be able to do what professionals don't do - play big jumps without looking.

Have a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1kDjex4u_c

This piece has big jumps in both hands. Watch how the pianist switches her gaze depending on which hand is having to jump. BTW, I play this piece, and I look at my hands pretty much the same way while playing it. Obviously, she (and I) play it from memory - this is one of those pieces where you'd have trouble sight-reading without looking at your hands.

You shouldn't feel that you should be able to perform big jumps without looking at your hands. You know where your hand and finger(s) need to get to when you see the notes on the score. You just need to get more familiar with seeing whole groups of notes (chords, arpeggios, scales, straightforward patterns of notes etc) so that you're reading several notes all at once, and knowing where they are, as fast as you can currently read single notes. Then it's just a matter of getting your hands to the right position so that your fingers can play the chord(s) or sequence of notes. Familiarity with anything can only be achieved by lots of practice, and you have to become familiar with the easier patterns (such as the stuff you get in Clementi sonatinas) before you can get to grips with the more difficult ones.

If you started as a complete beginner with a teacher, and the teacher didn't teach you to count beats, I'd say there's something amiss.

But if you started first as a self-learner for a while before getting a teacher, I suspect that teacher might have made several assumptions, right or wrong - including that if you can read notes, you already know note values and be able to count beats. (After all, note values are part of the notes). Teachers generally don't want their adult students to think they're dumbing down, whereas with child students, they're more likely to assume they know nothing, unless proven otherwise.

Personally, I believe that every beginner (who wants to achieve more than just become a casual player) should start off on the right footing, and have a good teacher right from the start who will teach them the basics from scratch, including counting beats aloud (1 and 2 and 3 and.....) on every piece until note values & rhythm etc become second nature.

So what ** IS ** your teacher teaching you as she has you go through the piece?
Are you being taught, and are the problems you are now encountering after four years with this teacher at least in part due to what you have not been taught?

But do you get that very often adults who start lessons, don't get that from their teachers? It is a big problem!

Here's another hand raised as having some of the same challenges.

For the big jumps, you will need to take a quick look. What takes practice (at least for me) is finding your place again in the score. That is something that can be practiced. You can also make a mark on the score that will help you land back in the right place.

As a practical matter, the thing that has helped me the most is playing Bach, the Two-Part Inventions and the French Suites. There are no large jumps, but your fingers work their way up and down several octaves. You have to find your way around the keyboard (with your eyes on the score). Both hands get a workout. My teacher is a firm believer in the powers of Bach and now I'm a believer as well.

Thanks forum, I'm feeling a lot better now. I did some of the beginner Grade 1 selections tonight and while I can't read them quickly I can read them. After two passes on each it got better. Keystring raises good hard questions for me. My teacher is an excellent player and a nice guy, but I've been feeling that I might not be learning everything I can. I'm glad to see others look at the jumps, maybe I'm taking the sight reading without looking too far. Peterws, stubble and earlofmar have experienced similar issues. (Misery loves company). I touched on the Bach Ana Magdalnla book once but didn't love it - maybe since I'm a little farther along I'll go back to it. (Does that count as Bach?)

Peraspera I don't know what SWOT analysis is but maybe I'll look it up. I am a little past having to write the note names down; this is more of a play music in multiple octaves without looking issue.

Malkin thanks for the perspective. I should take this as an opportunity rather than a setback. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

I don't think writing note names down on the sheet helps you one bit with learning to read music better. You need to learn to associate the notes on the staff with the keys on the piano, but if you write the note names down you'll just be reading the letters. It's a huge crutch, in my opinion.

nope, it was less than stellar teaching. Of my first teacher I requested to be taught counting, rhythm values and all the general basics as I had no experience and had just started piano. Perhaps she didn't take me seriously but she tossed my request of by saying there was nothing wrong with my sense of timing. One of the early signals I guess this wasn't the teacher for me, and I moved on to a recent conservatory graduate and again made the same request. I have no real excuse why the second teacher didn't immediately start me on remedial exercises, but she didn't, and before I knew it two years had gone by at which point I again changed teachers (to my current teacher).

I am not bitter about this as I got on with other areas of my piano journey in those two years. Then with the help of the third teacher I turned my attention to the problem and although not easy, in terms of "piano time" it was just a glitch and I was soon back on track.

I didn't see anyone suggesting to write the note names down. If you are refering to my post then you'll see that I had to do just the opposite. No names down, zero, just staves and ledgers with notes without names and expectation to play these notes in all octaves. Very basic, but I'm doing stuff right now that you guys all forgotten you did or maybe you didn't (like counting for some) so I'm just reminding 😊

The OP did mention that if he sees a note head on the first line he first thinks the note name, then about middle c and then goes to the key, but he still thinks the note name and its location reference.. I described the excercise that taught me not to have this intermediate step.

I don't see it either now, but I could've sworn that OP said something along those lines in his last post. Maybe it was edited, maybe I'm mixing things up in different threads, or maybe I'm just going crazy.

I wasn't referring to you, it was meant as a reaction to OP (or someone else in another thread...) saying that they didn't want to start writing note names under the notes again (or something along those lines).

No need to worry about that. Most of us here are at least a little bit crazy.

We are all here a little crazy 😊 discussing the details of piano playing, but we all want to be helpful to each other🍻🎹

I thought I saw that also but it wasn't I who suggested it. I am well beyond that...

Welp, that's weird. At least we can all agree that it is a bad idea to do so, which is good!

Looking at the keys throughout the whole piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzcsArJYYfs#t=54.845268

Why use the notation, if you can play without it?

For sure.
Like training one's photographic memory.
I don't recall seeing anybody talking about that.
I find that my photographic memory has improved a lot since I started with classical piano.
I form a visual image from the score of every piece I go through.

E.g. in the one I'm working on now, I see an image of the A section 16 bars, a repeat...followed by the B section, and the same thing.
And I see where the different ingredients in each section occur, and what they are.
After a while, I link them to an auditory image.

Now that's just cheating! Nice gift to have though!

I wonder the same thing, and wonder way some suggest always looking at the music. When I first learn a piece, I have to look at the music, otherwise, I won't learn it I'm not really any good at playing by ear or watching someone else play something. But I do look at the music and less on my hands in the beginning. Eventually, though, I just seem to remember it, and then gravitate towards looking at my hands or off into space. I suppose I don't see anything wrong with that.

I agree here. A couple of points I want to make:

1) Reading is a skill, not a talent. Anyone can improve upon a skill.
2) Frustrations like this are common, but don't ever think that you're just not "meant" to learn this thing, or you're not good enough. You just haven't figured it out *yet*
3) Music notation is a means to an end. The end is to get to play the piece of music. If it gets you there, it's done the job. If getting there is burdensome, then you need to develop that skill to make it easier.
4) Being able to eventually play without the music is really a good skill
5) When people say you should look at the music and not your hands, it is specific advice for a specific purpose: you need to get used to reading and feeling your fingers move to the right notes so you don't have to "watch" your fingers play all the time. But this advice may not be helpful for someone who is trying to memorize a piece. So it all depends on the situation

This is a really good question, on many levels. The first thing that comes to mind is that the memorizing isn't a problem. In fact, your ability to "unintentionally" memorize from repetition is a blessing! Don't worry about looking down when you play pieces from memory. Everyone does it, from Bill Evans to Horowitz.

But at the same time, get a few books of VERY easy piano music and simply sightread a few pages every day. No repetition. Once through each page and then on tot he next. Like you're reading the newspaper. If reading hands together is too hard, then read one hand at a time. Then, once you're played through the whole book, go back and read it again with hands together.

As professional musician, I find that I actually go through long periods when I don't seem to be "improving." But personally, I've never cared about this, even when I couldn't play very well as a teenager. If you love sitting down and playing music, it really doesn't matter if the music is simple of complex. Just enjoy it every day, as you seem to be doing on some level, and you can't help but improve over time. It sounds like you're very musical, btw. These things happen to everyone, at all levels. Even many experienced players don't like their own playing and I think this is a big tragedy. Pianists can look to folk musicians, like guitarists, in this regard. They learn a few chords and immediately start having the time of their life, jamming with their friends and learning tons of simple songs. Any more advanced techniques they learn will build upon this, and they get a more solid foundation that many pianists do, since we're often programmed to continually play more and more difficult music, every day of our lives. At some point, this becomes impossible! We pianists need to enjoy and play the "simple" stuff more, which will prepare us to learn more advanced things. Playing simple music is like doing yoga or stretching. No professional athlete would ever go out onto the field to compete if they weren't limber. But many pianists try to play Chopin or John Coltrane without also playing easier music and at some point their forward process stops. Thanks for posing this question here; it really go me thinking! And best of luck with your piano playing

Thanks for the insight Morodiene. I really just hit a low point this week with this lesson and it was a culmination of a few weeks of frustation over the realization that I'm not great at sightreading (on the first try of a new piece), but I've regrouped, and short of this sightreading skill, I really am quite pleased with where I am overall. I know that I can play pretty nicely given time to practice and learn and the ability to look down on occasion, so I'll just make a point of working on improving the sightreading without making it kill me enjoyment of the instrument. I think I just needed a little perspective.

Thanks, Ron, for the well thought out response. Maybe that's what I'll use that Children's book for. I definitely do enjoy playing, every day!

It really, really helps sight-reading if you love music and have a great curiosity for it - just like some people love reading books, and will likely have more than one novel on the go at any one time, and get through several books a month. I remember being on a mountaineering expedition where one climber in the team read the whole of Anna Karenina in less than a week - all of it in between strenuous climbing, eating and sleeping.......

I attribute my rapid improvement in sight-reading skills (from Grade 2 onwards) to my love of classical music and nice tunes and interesting harmonies, such that once I could read music well enough, I'd happily spend a lot of my free time - when not practicing - just playing (or trying to play) any music score I had access to. When I visited my piano-playing cousins back in my home country, I'd play through every piece in the books they used (having already gone through all my own books). When I went to boarding school in the UK, and had unlimited access to the hundreds of volumes of music scores in the school music library, it was like a treasure trove - I could just borrow volume after volume, and sight-read piece after piece. I didn't restrict myself to piano music either: I had a violinist friend (of similar standard) who had the same curiosity, and we sight-read a lot of the violin-and-piano repertoire together. It didn't matter how well we played it - the fun was in the discovery. In the same way, I also sight-read vocal and orchestral music on the piano, as best I could.

Or to put it another way, if you sight-read through lots of music purely for fun, you'll find your sight-reading skills improve by leaps and bounds. And it's so easy these days to print off lots of free stuff from IMSLP........

I call that taking a detour through the alphabet. It slows you down. Instead, try to recognize the interval between the note you just played and the next, both on the paper and on the piano. Don't think of thirds or fifths or whatever, learn to see a distance on the paper and do it with your fingers.

Also recognize that when you're sight reading, your choice of fingerings will be less than the most efficient. So, it can only be done with much simpler stuff than you can do from preparation and memory.

Ya, there's really no need to actually read most of the notes you play. It should be recognition of the line or space on the staff and knowing which key that corresponds to without thinking the note name. Reading intervals is another aspect where you're not reading the note, but just identifying if the note goes up, down or repeats from the previous note, and then how far up or down. It's really a combination of these two things that occupy the majority of music reading.

Once in a while, if you have a note that comes out of nowhere or is on a ledger line you're not accustomed to playing, then you may have to actually read the letter name.

But all of this is a process. After the time you've spent playing, however, you may be ready to move into this kind of reading.

I believe I actually do this. I can read by intervals, play fluently within the grand staff. I may have understated my level, when asked about whether I see an E, say "that's an E" and go hunting for it. I don't do anything remotely close to that.

Where I may slow down is when way north of the treble clef (maybe above the G) or south of the bass clef (but I'm getting okay all the way to the C 2 lines below), and when there are jumps in finger position. The jumps in finger position may be the area I need to work the most now, without looking (much). Also the sight reading when seeing something for the first time with both hands got me.

Yes, the ludicrous ledger lines problem. It doesn't slow me down, it stops me dead. I find it easier if the editor uses an 8va or 15ma to get back into familiar territory.

The more you play pieces with ledger lines in them, the easier they get to read. I'm pretty good up to about 3 ledger lines (or the space above 3), but beyond that I sometimes need to think a little. If there's enough context, then intervallic reading really comes in handy with ledger lines.

So what exactly are you unhappy about with your reading? Or is it that you don't sight read well (play a piece up to tempo as best as you can, first time through)?

Guess what - I've got a few pieces which have lots of high & low notes printed on ledger lines, and they do my head in when they go above three.

I just write the note names down next to the notes.......

Morodiene- Yes that was it - when presented with the task of sight reading a new piece first time through it was slow and it was a grade 1 piece in a children's book. After running through the page twice I had no problem. I've done a few more pages and may be getting better. As I mentioned in another post above, I've heard and my teacher reiterated that I should be able to fluently sight read 2 grades below my current level which I would have thought was getting close to 4-5, athough I haven't gone through a formal correculum.

Adding to this was the quest to play without looking down, which probably compounded the suffering. I'm going to continue to try to improve on this without obsessing about it - i.e. I'll look during jumps and position changes if I have to as suggested.

I need to regain perspective. I think I'm probably doing more than I anticipated when I began, and my initial reason to play (aside from my love of music) was to learn a new skill, one very different than my current skill set, as a "dementia prevention" regimen. My mother suffered from early dementia and I'm doing things very differently so as to try to minimize the risk or impact, but that's an entirely different topic. Regardless I need to just play and be happy and not put so much pressure on goals and levels, as I tend to be goal oriented and driven and so inquisitive as to possibly spread myself thin.

I know - TMI.

Bennevis - I suppose I have written in very low or high notes also - at my level why not?

Not at all! It gives insight into what's going on, so thanks for sharing.

Perspective is pretty tough for me too. I get on an idea and pretty much obsess about it until it's done. Which is great for tasks that have a discrete beginning and ending, but open-ended ones really do me in. Finding a balance is very helpful between goals and realizing that slow and steady wins the "race".

True up to a point, but music reading (as well as memorizing) can be affected by rather common cognitive disabilities. So if someone hits a wall and cannot improve, lets not jump into conclusion that only more practice is needed. Sometimes the wall really is there and cannot be broken

But on the other hand only time and quality practice will tell how far one can go.

I still think someone with cognitive issues can improve. I've taught autistic children, and they improve, but it does have to be approached differently, and they progress at a much different rate. And nothing I said meant there aren't limits to what any person can do, because obviously there are. But with being able to read, anyone can do it if they have eyes and aren't brain dead. Does that sound better?

"Regardless I need to just play and be happy and not put so much pressure on goals and levels, as I tend to be goal oriented and driven and so inquisitive as to possibly spread myself thin."

Exactly. A question that came in my mind while reading this topic is: do you want to learn sight reading or do you want to learn to play the piano? I sometimes have the impression quite a few people are focusing on specific skills, as a goal of its own, while imho the focus should always be on the actual piano playing. If you focus on the music and the joy of it any skill will come to you in time. In the end it is, or should be, about the music.

Concerning reading and naming notes: when you read this post, did you ever think 'I am reading an R, an e, a g, an a, an r, a d etc. before you actually read the word Regardless? I am sure you didn't. You just read what was there without thinking about the letters. How did you get this far? By practicing. As a kid you did start with reading letter by letter but now you can read without thinking about it. If you keep on reading music long enough you will be able to read it at one time without thinking about the name of every single note: you will simply read it. And all it takes is practice. In fact, practice isn't the right word, really: all you have to do is keep on playing music and in time it will become easier and easier.

When I started to play the piano again a few months ago I had to figure out every note on the bass clef before I could play it, specially the lower ones: now I simply hit the right key as soon as I see a specific note. It all simply takes time.

Imho the best thing you should do in order to progress is to ENJOY what you are doing. A least that's how it works for me.

Even if they can somewhat improve they cannot necessarily get fluent enough to play or sight read even easier music without breaks and other problems. Processing simply takes too long and is too error prone.

Autism is a completely dfferent level and is not often missed these days. I am talking about problems such as dyslexia (which seems to be the only type commonly known) that seemingly normal people with no other brain deficits have. It's something you don't often know you have unless discovered by a professional because you have never experienced a normal brain to compare with and one can have a unique combination of issues. . One can learn to read but never reads as fluently as an average person. Success in studies is more about learning how to compensate. Other people cannot handle numbers and some people cannot handle visual information such as notation. Because the problem is in the less conscious and normally automatized functions on the brain, not intelligence or "skill", it's hard to improve after a certain point and this can severely limit playing with music. Many people don't even know why they cannot do things as others can. I have heard from others with similar problems and almost everyone says their teacher never understood why they had problems or could do anything to help.This is the only reason I bring this up, to spread knowledge.

When I started playing piano I was working at a school for kids with autism and the experience informed my thinking about playing.

1. Because a skill is hard for you and easy for someone else does not mean you cannot learn it.

2. It is possible to thoroughly enjoy activities at which one does not excel.

3. It is perfectly acceptable to demonstrate skills at a level of incomplete mastery.

1. There¨s a difference between hard and impossible to master.Some skills or rather abilities just cannot be learned "well enough" by everyone, What is well enough is of course a matter of definition.

2. Sometimes yes, but it can get quite tiresome when you keep falling flat again and again no matter what you do

3. Of course but not always enjoyable and not everyone wants to,

IMO, it is wishful thinking that focusing on "the music and the joy of it any skill will come to you in time." Yes, the actual piano playing is the goal, but you don't get there by wishing or wanting it to happen (sadly ). You have to break it down into various skills, which, when taken together, result in the actual piano playing. And you don't have to enjoy every minute of it, either. This would actually be highly unlikely, in a pursuit that involves practicing for years on end (and then you discover that there's never really an end to it at all ). Enjoyment is necessary but not sufficient.

On balance, yes, of course you should enjoy the endeavor and get a sense of satisfaction from making music, but there will be ups and downs. It happens and we get through it.

Outo: I appreciate that you are trying to bring awareness of these issues, but we aren't talking about mastery of anything here. All I've said is improvement, and same with malkin, whereas you seem to want to focus on mastering things. Maybe that's your goal, and that's fine - you may or may not encounter limitations in that respect.

But I don't think the OP's issues are about mastering, but simply wanting that aspect of his playing to improve. I don't know the OP well enough to say whether he's got a cognitive disorder that would limit his ability to move beyond where he is in his sight reading, but I gather from what he's said that it's more of a matter of not knowing how to progress. And if there were cognitive issues, not any two problems are treated the same way, and even within the same disorder one approach may work for one and not the other. In which case, you try a bunch of different ways to see what works and what doesn't.

So whether the OP has these problems or not, it sounds like the skill of sightreading hasn't really been developed in him to even know if he's reached his limit. Doesn't it make sense to first try before assuming you can't improve?

Are you expressing this on behalf of others or is this how you feel about your own piano journey?
If I felt that way, I would surely find another way to pass the time.

Still catching up to responses.
cmb13, thank you for responding.

You have identified something right there. The way you are getting at written notes from score to piano is inefficient and indirect, and this is one element that is slowing down your reading. One skill you want is that when you see the notehead on that bottom line, your hand zooms automatically to the white key in front of you to the right of the two black keys, that whole experienced being "E". When the traffic light turns red, your foot goes to the brakes as you anticipate stopping, all as one thing. It should be that automatic, and this is one skill you want to build.

You have identified specific weak areas, such as notes above the treble clef. Target each weakness, set a goal for it, and then find a way to practice in short bursts while you have maximum focus each day. Over a number of days that E (for example) will always be there for you.

Intervals: For simpler music notes touching adjacent lines or spaces are a third = a skipped key - this can become automatic. A third is also when you play a closed position chord: CEG - the distance between your middle finger and the outer fingers. A 2nd is side by side. A 5th is the span of your thumb and index in closed position ... a 5th is also: note on a line, skipped line, note on the next line up (find E & B on a staff to see what I'm talking about). Move this out of an intellectual thinking calculating space, into a child-like thinking. G to E - that's your fifth and one up. Hopscotch.

If a teacher were teaching this, then she would have you try one thing, you discover it. Then another, you discover it. I'm writing it all in a bunch of words so it looks complicated.

The reason I asked is because if after 4 years with this teacher you have holes in some skills, it is possible that her approach contributed to those holes, and future approaches would still contribute to the same holes. "If you keep planting cabbages, you won't get roses - you'll get more cabbages." The part that bothered me is that when you had problems with the piece, your teacher simply pulled out a beginner book for "reading" -- no approach to it, no specific thing to focus on - the book will do the trick - and that may have been the original approach too.

Then in some areas you are not getting the help you should. Really good teachers are rare, so students do have to compensate for shortcomings and find things on their own. That's the sad truth.
https://www.teoria.com/
Have a look at "musical form", and then "sonata form". When I was a child, about the only music books I had was a ragged old 1907 book of sonatinas passed on from my grandmother. All of the first ones were Clementi. This composer writes in a very formulaic, simple, simplistic style. If you can find the patterns, it will make this music a lot easier to handle. A sonatina commonly has a movement in "sonata allegro form" and in "rondo" form. There is a lot of predictability to it. It's like when someone tells a "knock knock" joke, you can predict some of what he will say, because "Who's there?" is always in there.

Duplicate.

Keystring - thanks for your help. I like that Teoria site - the exercises are good and i may work on them. I am actually okay with intervals of seconds and thirds but might try to work on getting forths, fifths and sixths to flow more easily.

The teacher did review the Sonata form with me but did not specifically review certain passages within a piece in terms of what I am encountering and how to approach it at any given bar. Once I have somewhat leaned it but have difficulty with a section he does tend to go over it. I agree with the cabbages analogy though. What is nice is that due to time constraints I only take a lesson every two weeks and he comes to my home - I'm not sure who's common that is but it's a plus that factors in. I have a very busy work schedule and two teenagers (although lately they're more than happy to spend time without me lol). He's also a good guy and genuinely interested in my progress, but I suspect he plays better than teaches. Tough decisions.

I am traveling (just saw Beegie Adair in NYC at Birdland) but will try your suggestions and those above when I return. I suspect time and acknowledging and facing this problem will help.

Regarding other posters comments - no learning disability. No such excuse. Not yet, anyway. I do suppose that learning and intelligence, however, range across a broad spectrum, as may music skills in general and even specific skills such as eye hand coordination, time keeping, reading, comprehension and analytical ability, creativity etc. All can be taught and improved but all start and end at different points for different people. I know more or less where I stand with each - probably above average analytically, only average musically and creatively, above average work ethic limited by time constraints, well above average curiosity, etc.

I never meant to imply that the OP has such issues or should not work on sight-reading. I wanted to add another insight to your excellent post, which seemed more like general information or set of rules on learning than an answer to OP's specific question.

But since it is practically impossible for us mortals to really master anything about the piano, are we not talking about the same thing, improvement? Some aspects of playing one can easily improve further, others not so much after a certain point. It's an individual thing and methods alone do not dictate the results.

But I do admit that my goal has always been to master whatever I do

In this specific case I expressed my views because I am interested in adult learning and things related to it and like to discuss them. Piano learning as an adult is an excellent way to find out more about how one learns and how problems encountered in other learning may present themselves in learning to play.

Surely I could find another way to pass my time (which there is never enough to pass) but I just happen to love piano music too much. Besides the challenge to find ways to compensate for whatever limitations one may have can be really motivating.

A lot of good stuff here.

Maybe one of the issues is "how do we learn", and, equally important, "how do we learn efficiently". There was a comment on another thread - was it Keselo's "Nothing is too Easy"? that spoke about the way children learn - lots of trial and error, experimenting with different solutions, lots of integrating (not by design, its just what they do) mental processes and physical processes. There was more to it than that, but that's what I remember most.

One personal example of the benefit of integrating mental and physical processes, and the benefit that might come from adding a physical dimension to what seems like a 100% mental process: the benefit that speech therapy can bring to a dyslexic child. Why would speech therapy help - I'll leave it to the experts to explain exactly, but as a parent, what i saw was different processes - eyes, ears, sound processing - that had been working at vastly different speeds, being brought into synchronization by adding a physical component - the production of the sound. In this particular case, the kid's visual processing was way ahead of anything else, and there was just a total confusion - the eyes might have already been a line ahead while the brain was still trying to process visual input that had come in a few nanoseconds earlier. In the case of bringing together the sound, the note as written on the page, and the key on the piano, there might be a similar need to synchronize.

I think there have been some good suggestions throughout this thread that speak to the need to synchronize the inputs and the processing. I loved the idea of exploring all aspects of the E-ness of E. Taking the time to read (not sight-read, with all the confusion that we have on what we mean by sight reading or prima vista or all the rest of it - just reading) - through pieces, or even 3-4 measure stretches that sound good to us, and thus will keep our attention - sounds like a good plan, assuming that the student is taking the time to really explore the interaction between what he/she sees on the paper, the sound that comes out of the piano, and what the student did to make that happen, And a further assumption - that the student believes that this process will lead over time to the goal he/she has in mind.

I think it will (and that kind of approach seems to have worked for several posters here). If we think through things that we learned - whether as children or adults - it's a never ending process of slow steps followed by faster steps followed by running. The weakness of the adult learner may not be in all that stuff about plasticity of mind. It might actually be that we have forgotten what it felt like to not know something, and then know it.

I still think that's best. But good lord does it take longer than the time an adult has available, or thinks they have available! So, if you're feeling bad or like you're not making progress - maybe go out and watch a baby learning to walk. Not only will it put a smile on your face, it will remind you of what we're trying to do at the piano!

I'd say the most important thing about learning anything new is sheer straightforward 'practicing' - and time. Without those two, nothing else matters.

One thing about children is that they're willing to keep repeating the same thing again and again - until they get it right. That's how they learn to speak (Ma ma, Pa pa......probably the first 'words' that all babies learn first. And they'll keep repeating the same words again and again and again until they get it right); that's how they learn to walk. And so on. There are no short cuts to those. It's really just spending time doing it, i.e. practice, practice, practice. (Like the old chestnut about "How does one get to Carnegie Hall? Answer - Practice, practice, practice."). "Failure" is a term that never enters toddlers' minds. Of course, some learn a lot faster than others. Some children can walk at 8 months. Others may take 18 months (like I did - so my mother told me). But they all learn. In contrast, some adults are too quick to throw in the towel, just because they can't achieve what they expect to achieve in a certain time period, or else they keep looking for a 'quicker' method, or 'more efficient' method.

I remember once reading about someone's description of hearing the great Sviatoslav Richter (probably the greatest pianist of the last century) practicing in his home. He was repeating the same short but difficult passage again and again ad nauseam, with hardly any variation, at a slow speed. Seemingly for hours. That's how he can throw off something like this with ease:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0abaVG2KWM

It put my own frustration about my inability to play the rapid thirds at the beginning of Beethoven's Sonata Op.2/3 (which I was learning at the time) into perspective. I just hadn't been patient enough and practicing it long enough to be able to speed it up. Just because I could play the rest of the movement fast didn't mean that I should be able to play those thirds at the same speed so easily. Technique - and its acquisition - just doesn't work like that.

Efficient learning is practicing the things you find difficult, not those you can already do easily. Children enjoy challenges and will keep repeating something - like kicking a ball and hitting a target - until they achieve it. They don't think: "I should be able to hit it within 10 shots, or I am useless, and might as well give up". It just takes as long as it takes. Or as many tries.

Completely agree that there is no substitute for time spent doing the thing we want to do!

Spending the time I have on the hard parts makes a lot more sense than spending it on the parts that are already working. It's the most efficient use of the time I have, and it has the best chance of letting me come away from the piano thinking that I have mastered something - maybe a small part of the process, but a mastery none the less.

My own goal is to spend the time - but not spend the time banging my head against the wall when there is a perfectly good open door 15 feet to the side! I think that means, as you say, abandoning the idea that it should work within x amount of tries or give up. But also reminding myself to try a lot of different ways, so as not to miss the "open door".

The good thing about this thread is the number of different suggestions on how to get to where the OP wants to be, which, if I understood it correctly, is to be able to make a more direct connection between the notes on the page and when and where the fingers go on the keyboard.

Does what take longer? The thing is there is no finish so whether you are just learning to walk, are jogging now, running, or can even sprint occasionally, we are all in the same marathon and there is no end. The winners are the ones enjoying the day the most.