Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Improving you sight reading (Paul Harris) Questions

I have the Improving your sight reading Paul harris grade 2 book and i wanted to know do i keep playing the melodic exercises until i can play it without mistakes ,It tells you how to prepare pieces but doesn't say if to play it once and move on to the next so i am not sure how to use this book

Even though playing a piece the second time isn't sight reading, I think it's very beneficial because reading skill(how well you play at piece whether it's the first or second or third time...) is closely related to sight reading skill. You could also play a piece once and then come back to it a week later and that would be very close to sight reading the piece.

I always thought it was sight reading if you don't learn or memorize it?

Sight reading means the first time you play the piece.

I used to call it "read-playing" but no one else calls it that...

Anyway, "true" sightreading should be a piece you've never seen or played before.

But there is great benefit from playing a piece that you have to *read* in order to play. This does improve your reading skills. Of course, if you do this with the same piece for long enough, at a certain point, you're no longer reading the music so much as following along with it and using it as a visual cue for your memory.

But if you work on the same piece and then move on, you can still benefit from that in terms of sightreading and reading skills. I have recently started doing this, I work on one new piece per week, the piece is at the level I would use for sightreading practice (so below my current level and usually only about 1 page long). But instead of really only playing it once, I play it once (or twice) a day for that whole week before moving on. I've only been doing it for a while, but I feel like it's really a beneficial approach.

I use the Paul Harris book religiously. I really struggled with my sight reading until I got these books. What I find helpful is, to work through it one stage at a time. From the start, then once I've completed the book I'll pick random stages at a time. For instance, I'll play all of stage 8 (both pages) and leave it at that for the day. The next day I'll play all of stage 9. I'll keep doing this until I can read each one efficiently. Then I'll move on to the next book.

I've noticed a HUGE improvement in my sight reading. There's a reason his books are damm popular.

Good luck

whether it is sight reading or not is really immaterial. IYSR books are full of gems which will enable you to find, and by repeating exercises, get over your weakness's. I found them very beneficial for problems I used to have with rhythm reading. I have a collection of exercises that I would review regularly to try to improve my rhythm reading skill and it really helped. In preparing for exams I will go through four of five of the books cover to cover several times over a period of months to get myself ready.

That sounds like a really smart approach!!

I have a similar approach. Every day I play some of the exercises. If I have the feeling I can play it better I just play the exercise again, sometimes even without stopping. I’m not afraid I will memorise the exercise this way. I feel it helps me to improve when I have a chance to correct myself the second time around. It’s also much more satisfying to be able to play it correct and a bit more musically. The next day though I just do the following exercises without looking back.
At some point I feel the book gets to difficult, and I’m struggling to much. At that point I just go back half a book and start over. I think I have gone over every exercise three times this way in several months. The moment I go back to previous material can be very motivating. Because you realise you improved! Things you struggled with aren’t so bad anymore.