Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How long till one can sight read decently?

Dear Hyena,

Actually it depends how you work with sight reading. Sight reading is a complex of many different elements that all need to work well to be a sight reader.
Often people are practicing and practicing and hope that sight reading will get better by itself.

So the knowledge and approach is the decider I would say.

Here is a video about sight reading I made a few years ago where I talk a little bit about the approach.
https://youtu.be/XVUgJR-P_cI

Hope it gives some ideas.

Best wishes,
Jaak

Thanks for all the replies so far! Been a great help

I've been trying to do the easy grade 1 pieces first. Funny how they're quite good at teaching technique. Most of these pieces can be played with the fingers keeping on the same spot, so it teaches you to play quite efficiently!

I became a pretty good sight reader because of one key skill I have: laziness. I love to play piano, but practice, not so much. So, over they years, I've bought huge amounts of music that I like and muddled through. As time passed, the "muddling" got better and better. Now I'm a pretty decent sight reader!

I would note that the music I now play is pop/Great American Songbook stuff. And part of sight-reading this music is learning how to leave stuff out that's too hard to play without practice. I can look at music as see what's essential and what isn't. I think if you're attempting to sight read classical, you are probably going more for attempting to play all the notes.

Of course sight reading is a skill, and it 's possible to learn sight reading your way. But I don't think many good sight readers did it that way. And it doesn't mean your way is the most efficient or enjoyable. Most of the good sight readers practiced sight reading a lot but not in the formal way you describe. Most of all they didn't think of it as practicing sight reading. They were mostly sight reading great music by great composers and not the very less than great music by minor composers in some of the sight reading courses. That seems very boring to me. i think most excellent sight readers actually were engaged in sight reading for much longer periods than those who formally 'practiced' it.

It's inconceivable to me that you don't think theory is relevant to sight reading. Theory allows you to recognize chords so that every single note doesn't have to be read.

My experience mirrors that of most experienced pianists - we developed good sight-reading skills simply by doing a lot sight-reading of real classical music. Everything from kiddie music by the child Wolfie to music composed by adult composers (Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Kabalevsky, Bartók etc) for children to learn, to pieces with no concession to difficulties.

Back when I was a student in high school, those of us learning musical instruments played a lot of music purely for fun: sight-reading whatever we could get our hands on (and not just the music specifically composed for our instruments), and also playing by ear. (That was the only way we could get to play pop tunes, as pop music wasn't published as piano arrangements then, and even if it was, we couldn't afford to buy them, whereas classical music was easily available to borrow from the school music library.) And occasionally playing with others, sight-reading through duets etc. Coupled with singing in the choir, we all made the most of the opportunities that we got to make music, in any form. After all, music was for enjoyment, not just for study (though we also all did ABRSM exams) - unlike the academic stuff we had to do.......

It stands to reason - the more you do something for enjoyment, the better you get at it, without even thinking of 'practicing' it. That was how I improved my English (my fourth language, which I started learning from scratch - i.e. with the Western alphabet -, aged ten). As soon as I was able to read whole words, I borrowed books from the library to read - starting with children's books by Enid Blyton, with a dictionary by my side. My grasp of English (and all its rules of grammar, punctuation, etc) improved rapidly - I got through at least a couple of books per week, often more. On weekends, I could sit down and read a whole book from start to finish in one afternoon. And it was all for enjoyment.

I most certainly didn't improve my English by studying books on grammar, or by memorizing words from a dictionary page by page. In the same way, I improved my sight-reading by reading through lots of good classical music, not by doing sight-reading exercises or practicing sight-reading using "sight-reading books" which contain no real music. The joy of discovery (finding nice tunes, interesting harmonies etc) was what got me (and my fellow music students) into doing lots of sight-reading - and of course, when I found a piece that I really loved, I'd go on to learn it properly, to play for pleasure. I never thought about the 'grade' of the music I was sight-reading - nothing was off-limits. If a piece was teeming with notes, I might tentatively try it out by just playing the melody and the main accompaniment notes - in other words, simplifying at sight. Which is what good sight-readers have to do occasionally......

These days, you can get all that stuff for free on IMSLP.

Dear Bennevis,

Yes, I agree with what you said here. But!!
Just as most people are not great pianists by nature, the same is with sight reading.

Great pianists tend to naturally have several things that are also necessary in good sight reading. They tend to have a good mental imagination of music (which is very important in sight reading), they must have a very good coordination as well (which is again very important in sight reading) and a good inner hearing (which is very important in sight reading).

So talent in piano playing in general overlaps a lot with being a good sight reading. But that does not mean that sight reading can not be learned and harnessed consciously. Just as practice in any field needs intelligence, the same is with sight reading.

If you do something just intuitively or add knowledge to intuition, which way is better? Sight reading consists of about 15 different steps and many of them are inevitable parts of the chain. If you are bad at one skill, the whole chain of actions will collapse. Often people even are not really aware of the week part in it. I have seen students change drastically after changing the attitude and approach to sight reading.

Best wishes,
Jaak

I think those people who advocate "just doing it" forget that reading music does not come as easily for everyone. You people remind me of those folks who tell little kids to swim or ride a bicycle by just doing it. "What do you mean you can't? Just look at me! It's easy!". Maybe for you it's easy but don't forget that other people have different strengths and abilities and may not be able to "just do it" without practicing in small steps.

My music reading skills are weak and I'm trying to improve them. On the other hand I memorize music very easily and quickly, both muscle memory and musical structure. I never needed to practice it and never needed to conciously memorize anything. I just did. But I realize that this is not easy for everyone and I abstain from giving advice in memorization threads because I simply can't relate in terms of my experiences.

There's a continuum of sight reading, the highest level is being able to read complex grand staff stuff and get it all right. Very few can do that.

If you learn to read lead sheets -- a single note treble staff melody line and alphanumeric chords -- you can get pretty good at sight reading lead sheets. From there, you can do what Bennevis says "simplifying at sight" -- pick out the melody line and some of the chords.

As an adult beginner (just a random guy who started in his 40s), I'm more concerned with reading music more efficiently than being able to sight read on spot. I'll never be put into that situation (except the 4 bar RCM quiz). I won't be quitting my day job to play piano. I'm almost certain I wouldn't be able to make enough money to afford piano lessons ;0. Therefore I have the luxury of practicing it. I do however read and play a wide variety of stuff, probably more than my teacher would like. Some of the stuff I don't even tell her about. I just like to try to play random stuff. I have a bunch of mother's old books from the 50s, christmas carols, etc, - even that I browse through periodically and try to play.

I think the approach has helped to learn pieces faster, reading is easier - certainly easier than it was at this time last year. Of course there is a place for polishing pieces, and I work on those too (e.g., RCM exam, etc.). But if someone told me I could only work on a handful of pieces a year, and all had to be done to perfection, I'd hang myself.

I think you make a very important point. For most non professionals, the ability to get the notes, rhythms, etc. correct after a few read throughs is probably more important than how well they can sight read music, .i.e play it the first time. The two skills are certainly related however.

I think you may be partly correct here. But I wouldn't assume that those advocating "just do a lot of it" started out as excellent or even good sight readers. I think there is a long learning curve for sight reading even for those who are very good at it at this point in their lives.

It's difficult to relate one's own learning experiences to those of others - especially as we're living in a different age, and time. The manner in which some of us experienced pianists say things in ABF often give the impression that everything came easily to us.

So, let me just dispel that illusion, from my own experience:
I progressed at the rate of one ABRSM grade a year. For those unfamiliar with the ABRSM, Für Elise is about Grade 5, Rondo alla turca is Grade 7. How does that compare with the rate of your own progress on piano?

When I was 'practicing' sight-reading (i.e. trying out new pieces for myself), at Grade 1 (one year into lessons), I was having to count the interval between each and every single note (& looking back & forth between my hands and the music score) to play a piece with chords of two notes other than thirds, like Schumann's 'Soldier's March', and playing at a snail's pace with lots of stutters. Does that sound like it was easy for me?

What were the advantages I had that you probably don't? Well, I had zero expectations - I didn't know anything about piano music or piano playing when I started lessons, and knew nothing about what was possible or achievable on the piano. And every new piece I laid my eyes on was a new discovery (and therefore irresistible) and the only way I could find out what the music sounded like was to try to play it. (No internet in those days). No matter how slowly, or how laborious the process. But it was fun all the way - chunks of wrong/missing notes were brushed aside; after all, there was no-one telling me I couldn't do this or that, or that what I was doing was wrong. I wasn't 'practicing' anything, just having an enjoyable time.

I recall once staying with my uncle's family for two weeks during the school vacation. His four children were all younger than me, but had started learning when they were six. (I started at ten.) They had several music books of various levels of difficulty, from beginner to late-intermediate. It was like a treasure trove to me - here was lots of new stuff I'd never seen or heard before. I was then at Grade 3, the oldest of my cousins was at Grade 5. During those two weeks, I spent almost all my leisure time sight-reading (or trying to sight-read) through all the volumes they had. With the more difficult pieces, the oldest cousin (who was two years younger than me) helped me out by playing the LH part, while I played the RH part, sometimes using both hands to do so. We had a lot of fun 'duetting' in that way, laughing at our wrong notes and the resulting clashing harmonies, our inability to synchronize our playing properly (because we were both 'stuttering') etc. That was our 'play time'.

All through my student days as a teenager, and even to this day, I regarded, and still regard sight-reading unfamiliar music in the same way - an enjoyable process of discovery......though of course, I'm a lot better at it these days.


And you have one over me (and my fellow music students) on this.

None of us ever tried to memorize any piece. We left that to professionals.......

I’m no expert by any means as I’m a beginner but I practice reading daily. No matter what it is I attempt to figure it out. Keep at it and you will do fine with a little time. Best to you, mb

You have to keep up your sight reading skills, no more than 2 levels below your current repertoire. It is a concurrent development of many skills, including intervallic reading, keyboard topography, and rhythm.

You need to be able to read notes both vertically and horizontally. You need to be able to play without looking at your hands constantly. You need to know the distance from one key to another. And you need some deep understanding of theory, in particular tertian tonality that's common in Western music.

None of my students memorize music easily until I teach them how to do it.

The reason: I teach them to read music from day one, and they all think it is the most natural thing in the world to play with music. So for them memorization is an extra step.

You will find in general that players who read music effortlessly spend a lot more time playing with scores, even more true for players who collaborate.

Memorizing is no more automatic than reading, although obviously if you have photographic memory, you don't have to memorize. You simply see the score in your mind.

Teachers definitely have a big influence on how their students learn - especially by example.

All four of my teachers played everything from the score, except on the rare occasions when they were playing by ear. All four of them, when they wanted me to start learning a new piece, would plonk the score on the music rest and ask me to play it, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to sight-read music I'd never heard or seen before. (That was probably the way their teachers taught them too.) It became quite automatic for me to glance at the key and time signature, the tempo/mood indication, then skim through the score to look for any unusual features like a change in key or time signature or tempo or clef, and big leaps and recurring patterns of notes, dynamics etc. Then play all the way through from start to finish, without correcting any mistakes.

After all, in my English class at school, we didn't memorize any text. We just needed to read fluently, and understand what we read. In English Literature, we might have to memorize the odd verse of a poem or play (to this day, I still remember The course of true love never did run smooth from A Midsummer Night's Dream), which I likened to memorizing scales & arpeggios, which are essential for so many aspects of learning and technique. But that was about it.

Sight-reading music was what everyone who played music did, just as everyone could read English. (Everyone who gave a speech when I was in high school read from a script, including the Headmaster.) Memorizing music on the other hand, was for 'specialists' (soloists) and 'special occasions' (solo piano recitals). Otherwise, we all played (& sang) - and performed - from the music.

I can't imagine being able to memorize music more easily than to sight-read it - that would be akin to being able to memorize a poem more easily than to read it aloud for the first time.

I always enjoy reading your posts .

I enjoy your insightful posts too, bennevis, but I still think there are people who naturally read well and those who naturally memorize well. My teacher always taught me from the sheet music from the very beginning too but I still don't find it easy or natural. I have never been taught how to memorize and yet find it very easy. People are different.

I think as beginner adults we start to play things far more difficult than our current ability and so to memorize is faster and easier, rather than reading and playing. Most children probably start from the beginning. If I had started 35+ years ago as a kid, it would probably be a lot easier to read music right now ;0 I try to get a little better at it over time by playing easier stuff.

Everyone's innate ability is different. As a child I could sight-read everything that was in my ability to play but didn't memorise anything. A cousin of mine at the age of 5 was the complete opposite. He had only to hear something and he could play it.

But practice at anything will improve whatever it is you are practising even if it takes a long time. So time and patience and you will get there, even if you can't reach the standard of some of us, whilst I continue to struggle/practise with memorising.