Hallo,

my teacher kinda threw me a curveball yesterday by making me sightread. Of course i failed miserably. Whilst i have a couple resources at home, i am looking into really incorporating sight reading into my daily practice routine, there is just no other way around it.

So i am curious what kind of books you like. Sure there is stuff like Bartoks Mikrokosmos etc., but i am always on the lookout for more things. Maybe even something with a bit more structure, geared to really "teach" sightreading.

Thanks

Hi Matze, welcome to PW. I don't necessarily sit down and say I'm going to practice sight reading. I just find random pieces of music and try to play them, or parts within them. That by itself is probably the biggest reason why I can read much better than I could 5 years ago now. Just keep reading something new.

RCM has a sight reading and ear training book for each level. That has been useful as well.

You can sight read anything you want that is in the range of your current level or even above (within reasonable limits). There are plenty of books by level with a set of pieces. If you are a beginner, the Mozart Notenbucher would have plenty of easy ones and also more difficult.

I would recommend playing as many different varities of music as you can find. Have a favorite pop performer? Look for a book of his/her music. Play as much new music as possible in as many classical music periods as you can.

One thing to watch out for: READ the music, rather than MEMORIZING the music you play in your lessons. You get better at doing it by just reading music.

Don’t make it a chore! Just look for music that appears interesting and try it out. You may find it is something you really want to learn or maybe not... but you have tried it.

This is a great site to listen to new music, all performed by college professors

https://m.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed

My sight-reading and reading in general is poor. The resource I've found most helpful is Cory Hall's (Bach Scholar) Sight Reading and Harmony book. This is deliberately structured to teach sight-reading.

It has about 150 four-bar snippets of Bach chorales. Each is arranged into four levels of difficulty starting from one note in each hand, half and quarter notes only, up to two notes per hand with eighth notes included.

The beauty of this system is that it lets you pick exactly the right level so that it's hard enough that you are challenged but easy enough you can mostly do it without looking down at your hands. Getting this level right is really, really important to make progress.

If you are reasonable at reading to start with there may be better resources but I think this is really good for someone at a very basic level. It's counterpoint, too, so it doesn't easily stick in the memory, and you can go back to pieces you've played before and it's almost as if they are new.

I got my copy on Amazon but a PDF is also available.

Good sight readers didn't generally get good by "practicing" sight reading. They just played through a lot of music for enjoyment. Choose pieces that interest you at a level where you can have reasonable success. Don't be afraid to stop while sight reading if you have to. I don't recommend something like the Bartok because beyond the very easiest which will probably not be interesting musically, they contain a lot of meter changes and accidentals that make them difficult to read.

I'm not a great sight reader but I'm improving. The key concepts, in no particular order, are:

* Read from the bottom up (vertically from the bass clef up to the treble clef)

* Read ahead (the general movement or your eyes will be: move down and to the right, up, down and to the right, up, etc.). At first, you won't be able to read ahead at all but, over time, you will find that you are able to scan further and further ahead.

* Slow down! Play as slowly as necessary so that you can do the first two steps and make as few mistakes as possible.

* Look for patterns

* Count

* Keep going. Don't stop when you make a mistake

Equally important is to read music away from the piano and consciously spell out the notes, rhythms, chords, patterns, etc. I know that you know how to read music but you would be surprised at how many simple reading mistakes happen "in the heat of the moment" because you have misidentified a note or a rhythm.

Sight reading takes a LOT of concentration. If you are thinking about what you need to pick up at the store or about work or whatever then either clear your mind or do something else.

I used the RCM 4 Star sight reading books, which you can get for all the levels. They have short excerpts from classical music, and there is a wide variety. Much better than restricting yourself to Bach chorales or just using something you already have.

After I went through all those levels (over 4 years), I moved on to complete editions - like Haydn and Mozart sonatas and Scarlatti sonatas, and anthologies, like the Classics to Moderns, Music for Millions books.

The trick is to do it everyday for a few minutes. It doesn't take long to get better. Aim for accuracy, not speed, and don't stop or hesitate. Get the notes and rhythm right. Go as slow as you need to. Later, much later, you can worry about speed.

Sam

+1

You know, when I was a student and knew nothing about nothin', every new classical piece was a discovery, waiting to be discovered.

At that time, there were no computers (not even pocket calculators - hard to believe, I know). Everything was done with elbow grease and grey cells. I used a lot of both, regularly visiting the school music library and carting off big volumes of piano music (followed soon after by piano reductions of concertos, symphonies, operas, not forgetting Lieder......) - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms: piano sonatas, shorter pieces, sets of pieces etc - stuffing them into my rucksack and then (trying to) play them after school in a practice room in the school's music department.

It was just fun, every time I discovered a new tune, an interesting harmony, a funny rhythm - and all by myself, with no help even from the school cat (though there were no cats in my school). Did it matter that I was stumbling frequently trying to read the mass of notes, let alone trying to play them? Not in the least. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as Goethe once said (or maybe he didn't). Imagine hearing a tune like this for the first time, and you're actually playing it yourself, with your own fair hands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxGGyB0xZk

You can't stop, and you want to know what comes next, and then after that, and you keep going......

That's why you should sight-read good real music, by real good composers, instead of 'practicing' sight-reading, which sounds like a chore, like brushing your teeth, as opposed to tasting and eating a box of chocolate varieties (assuming you like chocolate).

Like this chocolate ganache:

https://ks4.imslp.net/files/imglnks...gendzeit_Nr.9_Weihnachtstraum_Schott.pdf

It's probably too tricky for you to sight-read both hands together at your present level, but just play the first few bars of the LH part and see if you can resist going on......

The book I always recommend for all classical students to use - for sight-reading as well as finding attractive new pieces to learn - is this, which should be within your current standard:

https://www.amazon.de/Easy-Classics-Moderns-Music-Millions/dp/0825640172

And don't forget there's lots more free stuff on IMSLP

I think you don't really mean sight reading. It's just reading. You get better at reading just by reading a lot. And if you are a good reader, you'll be able to play through music you haven't seen before. Sight reading is something else.

I use sight reading factory: www.sightreadingfactory.com

It is a internet app. Choose: level1-8, all keys, all common times, 8 bar or more, and it assembles a new set of bars when ever you want. Never play the same score twice, unless you want to, but that is not sight reading but more like memorizing.

Interesting how many different views there are about what sight reading really is. As one music teacher told me, she was an expert at sight reading, because before her lessons she did no practice at all and everything she played during the lesson was sight reading!

If you are doing it for your music teacher then ask her what she thinks it is and what books would be best for her expectations. Have her teach you how to sight read, after all that is her job!

On the other hand if you are doing it for a graded music exam, then learn how to sight read for the exam.

Don’t feel bad about failing miserably, it was you first time! You should feel great, you survived and now you know an area that you can improve on.

If you do anything long enough, then you will get really good at it.

How do (some) piano teachers teach these days? I often wonder when visiting the Piano Teachers Forum, when teachers 'accidentally' discover their students can't even read music, let alone sight-read, after a few years of lessons - even though they've had those students since day 1 (and therefore have no-one to blame but themselves for what happened).

All my four teachers made me sight-read through every piece I learnt with them, from about three months of lessons onwards, when I'd learnt the basics of music notation. In other words, even if I never sight-read stuff on my own, I'd still have sight-read several hundreds of pieces over the years, all of them in front of my teachers. They could see how good (or bad) I was at sight-reading, every time they put a new piece on the music rest and commanded me to "Play!", and they could also see where my reading problems were (- rhythm? accidentals? key signatures?) I didn't get to choose what I wanted to learn. They choose all the pieces for me, and I then had to play them myself to find out how the music sounded. None of them ever played the pieces for me until I'd learnt them, and was ready to finish with them. (No internet then, therefore no YT).

And all my fellow music students (on any musical instrument, not just piano) had the same experience, with their own teachers. Was it because we all did music exams, of which sight-reading was an important part - or was it just that all their teachers knew how to teach?

Since I myself started teaching piano (this year), that's also the way I teach. No student of mine will ever lack reading skills. (If they don't want to learn to read music, they can go elsewhere......I don't teach piano for my living.)

I never took an exam —- didn’t know they existed😉 but I developed good reading and then sight-reading skills. We sight-read duets during my theory lesson. There was no faking reading ability when doing that

Thanks a lot for all these suggestions, i do have a couple sightreading books at home, so i get myself going work on them. Just gotta sit down and actually do it, haha. In regards to "what does your teacher actually do?", well, lessons aren't that long (45min) and we have a lot to talk about. But i think there will be more sightreading in the future. I just prefer to use that time to discuss actual difficulties i had with my pieces than doing "practice" in a lesson.

PS, bennevis, love that Schubert piece, hes my favorite composer, just recently finished one of his Impromptus (D899/1). Really great! <3

Matze, I like Schubert too. I find it's good reading practice to play the piano accompaniment to Schubert's Lieder.

If the music one is sight reading is not something one enjoys, then sight reading becomes a chore. That's why I would never recommend those sight reading app with random musical selections. If you like to play classical, sight read music by the great composers, not second or third rate composers. If you like non classical, sight read good arrangements at a level appropriate for your skill.

Yeah, i can imagine, i'm not very picky when it comes to music (except atonal), as long as its classical. I don't even pick the pieces i work on.

But if it also sounds nice, then sightreading is that much sweeter i can imagine Thats what i like about Bach, it sounds good even when played slow. Got that Sightreading + Harmony book for that very reason

I considered that book. It is expensive!!

It also only includes Bach, which is not as ideal as playing s variety of music.

Well, I don’t think anyone is suggesting it’s the only sightreading one should do. At the end of the day it’s about learning the mechanics of reading and playing and the exact genre or composer is less important.

It seems to me that the pieces in the book are deliberately selected for rhythmic simplicity, so that the focus is on pitch. There are no dotted notes or rests, for example. Some might complain that this is a limitation. Personally I have no difficulty with rhythm - note pitch recognition is what I struggle with. So I value a resource that isolates and drills that problem.

Because the pieces are counterpoint, the voices move all over the place in a non-obvious manner. You have to read every note of all voices, every time. You can’t cheat by seeing a couple of chords and kind of switching the left hand onto autopilot like you tend to do with other genres.

Strikes me that if you could read this type of music you could read anything.(Excepting more complex rhythms, which is a whole other story.)

The other good thing about it is that four bars per piece is a nice achievable amount per practice session. You can tick one off complete every day for a small amount of effort.

Definitely true, and since it only includes chorales this makes it IMO boring as well. The best thing is to choose a variety of music you enjoy playing. Most of the best sight readers never "practiced sight" reading.

I have found the Paul Harris series of books Improve Your Sight Reading to be invaluable. They are just small exercises and each book is graded to gradually introduce new concepts. I particularly found the clapping exercises beneficial in helping me to improve my rhythm.

Actually, i bought that exact series, earlofmar. Currently working through book 2, planning on getting all of them

I agree this is a good resource and i've been using Bach Scholar (within Piano Marvel) for a while with great success. I am having a bit of a hard time getting pass level three though. I think I am ok enough to move on, but the test is so inconsistent. Next time i take it i'm quite sure i'll pass, but it goes from easy quarter notes to long chopped up scales. Still working at it.

BachScholar’s book is terrific. I share Josh’s Wright’s opinion that it is probably the best sight-reading resource available. And since it’s Bach, even the easier levels sound beautiful and dignified. I use the PDF version on my iPad via the forScore app and spend 15 minutes every morning practicing sight reading. Been doing this for over a year now.

I should mention that if one does the exercises as suggested in the book it will take several years to get through it. It’s not a silver bullet. But it does offer a system that provides consistent incremental improvement over time. Bach Chorales are a great learning tool for this since in their full form (upper levels) there are 4 voices moving independently of each other, which makes sight reading quite challenging, at least for beginners like me.

https://youtu.be/-Hq-ADTtJlI

IMHO: Here are some of the reasons I would venture to other sight reading pieces. Keep the BachScholar if it works for you, but add other styles:
- add pieces with arpeggios
- add pieces with more triads and quads
- add pieces with jumps
- add pieces with varied rhythms and time signature

The goal of sight reading is that it builds your mental library of different rhythms, patterns and styles , making every subsequent time you see that quad, that arpeggio or that run, your recognition is quick. You can’t do that if you stick to one style.

If you can play schubert impromptu then I assume you are reasonably experienced? They are all around grade 8 or actl diploma level so I'm sure your sight reading must be at a reasonable level. It would be strange to be playing sight reading very easy from Paul harris book 2.

I have noticed most adults memorising so this might be the problem. Those of us who never memorise probably have better sight reading as we always read scores. It probably a reflection of poor score reading skills if you struggle to sight read and it's much lower than your playing abilities.

The exam board books gives a few bar example of music and for the first few grades I think this is ok. I did paul harris books until grade 6. Surely book 2 paul harris is very easy, only grade 2 standard?

I think maybe you can get too advanced for this and at your level you can just play different music. I have never played bach carole's or bartok.

Some pieces are sight readable for an intermediate level pianist. I found schubert easy to sight read as it has patterns so why not get a book of schubert. I have one and like to play through them. Often skipping the complex parts!

You could try the other impromptu - the second D899 is scales, the third voice projection and the last rapid right hand passages. You can pick a few bars from this which is fun.

i progressed relatively fast (haven't been playing for two years yet) due to me doing lots of music prior to that (played bass and guitar in bands for 18 years), so i know how to practice, i know how to analyze the structure of a given piece and i am good at memorizing (craming 60+ songs into your head for performance does that). And all of this without former education, couldn't read a single note prior to starting piano in january 2019.

All of that comes together to my sight reading being pretty bad compared to what my repertoire looks like to the point its embarassing. So yeah, that level 2 book is appropiate for me, sadly. Just normal reading is fine though, if i can take my time, there isn't much issue. But pattern recognition and playing under pressure is whats causing me issues

Sightread means different things in different cultures. In Italian (and IIRC French), it is "first sight reading", so it's like reading a book for yourself, perhaps silently. In British, you can skim the material without the instrument before attempting to play. In the part of the USA I've been exposed to, you can play it 7 times and it's the 7th which tells how did it go (perfect = song was too easy, still struggling = song too hard, ok'ish = right level).

These are related, but separate skills, think of reading a book for yourself (first sight), versus reading an announcement to a large group of people (option to skim it before), versus proper public speaking, which verge towards performance, without being fully like that.

In any case, both for language and for music, the very basics is the same: be able to identify AUTOMATICALLY the basic building blocks and AUTOMATICALLY MERGE them into higher level constructs. While you are reading this sentence, you do not "see" the individual letters, and if you are decently good not even the individual words: you get the sentences! Same should be for music but sadly seldom is.

The best way to achieve that BASIC skill I mentioned at the previous paragraph is the same for music and for English: get some "stories", become emotionally attached to them, have somebody read them over and over to you, and then attempt to read them over and over yourself. It works great for both adults and kids, but usually adults can't stand it. Cute furry bear doing funny things, anybody? If you can stand it, you will learn (both a language you don't currently read or music). Ask me how I know it...

Since I suspect you will not be able to stand it, the second best option is to give it some "unnatural" structure, instead of focusing on the meaning and on the emotion as I wrote in the previous paragraph. For that, this book really gets it right and has helped me a lot: https://www.richmanmusicschool.com/products/super-sight-reading-secrets it used to have a printed version https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K2WJGMI/ which you may find in your local libray.

The book is pretty short on exercises (it describes how they should be, but does not give many), and especially lame on the rhythmic part. For rhythm, I used this other book, which is also short on exercises, but is fantastic for the explanation: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1575605155 -- if you struggle even a little bit about rhythm (while reading or not), this book will help a lot.

With these two resources, any random sight reading series you can find on the internet, e.g. Paul Harris' Improve Your Sight-reading! series will be good enough, besides a couple of missing exercises.... For the rhythm one, you can just ignore the pitch of the "random sight reading book" and play only the rhythm. For the pitch, I wrote myself an Android app (which I did not release publicly, at least not yet), but now I digress....

Best of luck!

The fact that there are four voices is no different from reading any chord with four voices. One does not read the voices independently just because they form a nice melodic line. It's not as if one has to read, for example, the alto line independently when reading the music.

It's good that this book apparently works for you or at least it works better than whatever approach to sight reading, if any, you used before. But I don't think it's particularly desirable for several reasons:
1. There is no rhythmic variety at all to the chorales so that part of sight reading is not developed.
2. I think many people would become incredibly bored sight reading such a limited variety of music even if partly by one of the greatest composers. Bach only wrote the harmonization not the actual hymns. The book is far more limited in scope than sight reading even just the easiest works by Bach, for example. So I think any benefit is limited.
3. Because the focus is so limited, I think any real general sight reading improvement will be limited. One will mostly get much better at sight reading Bach Chorales. I don't think any sight reading improvement will be as great as if one read a much larger variety of music.

I respectfully disagree.

The book is inexpensive, much less than a single piano lesson. For something as important as learning how to sight read people could do far worse than to buy a copy to see if it works for themselves. I don’t think they can do better.

It’s also a great way to become comfortable playing in many different key signatures, something that can be intimidating to beginners at first.

And there is a lot of variety to the note values: sixteenths, eights, quarters notes, half notes, dotted notes etc.

I wouldn’t think people would get so easily bored with Bach unless they dislike some of the greatest music ever composed.

OK, but
1. Bach didn't compose this music; he just harmonized the melodies. They are IMO far less interesting than his real compositions.
2. What you describe as variety to the note values is still far less complex the rhythms in most music.
3. The key signatures have far less variety than much of the piano literature.

For someone near the beginning of learning piano, the very simplified and restricted type of music in this book might be very good and maybe you are in that category. But I don't think this kind of book makes much sense beyond the first one of two years of study on average. I also agree with you that, for the price, one is not taking a big chance. I do suspect the are sight reading books geared towards beginners that have a lot more variety in them.

Have you bought and used the book yourself?

I generally don’t dismiss things out of hand unless I have first hand experience trying it for myself.

Del Vento, regarding the meaning of sight reading, the way my teacher has me sight read is very different from just reading. She emphasizes interpretation and grasping the character of the piece. It is similar to actors doing what they call a "cold reading" in an audition, where you do a scene with a script you've not seen before. A cold reading is not a test of whether you can read. Literacy is expected.

What is being tested is the ability to quickly understand the scene and get into character on the spot, and it shows how you think. Many adults can immediately do animal voices when reading to a child, without having read the book before. That's because the content is simple.

Most of the online discussion about sight reading is really about reading. A deficiency in reading music is easily revealed when a person has not had time to decipher notation in advance. But revealing poor reading skills is not the purpose of sight reading. Several people have remarked that they never had to be taught sight reading. That's because getting the notes right is just reading fluently, you don't have to study "sight reading" as a separate subject for that.

Most, like myself, who don't think one should "practice" sight reading, say that because they think most good sight readers got that way just by playing a lot of music for pleasure. Sight reading musically as opposed to just reading the notes and rhythms like a midi comes more and more naturally as one's musical ability develops. The purpose of sight reading is not to reveal poor reading skills or poor anything.

Sight reading means playing the music with the score for the first time. It has nothing to do with how well one does that with respect to the notes/rhythms/tempo or how musical one's performance is or whether one stops sometimes. When people use the term "reading" they generally mean playing with the score whether it's the first time or100th time although if they are talking about the first time they usually say "sight reading". The phrase "prima vista sight reading" is redundant. I have never heard anyone make the distinction you gave in your post between "reading" and "sight reading" although it's good that your teacher encourages you to play musically all the time.

I’m sorry but you are making an assumption about how others were taught and how they were judged on sight reading. I was expected not to just know the notes and rhythm, but to play it musically and with a suitable interpretation of the music. All at sight. I ‘learned to sightread’ by playing a ton of different kinds of music. My teacher evaluated how I was doing by playing duets. She never said ‘I want to evaluate your sight reading’; she always said ‘let’s play a duet together’ and would drag out something totally new. If I did not play musically she would say “let’s start over; when you play together you should be playing it based on the dynamics and the interpretation of the peace as well as the notes and rhythm’.

This did not take special training.

I agree with what you guys say about BachScholar. What Everyone is saying.

It should be one tool. My journey has been the combination of many tools - I'm about one year in.

I use Piano Marvel Technique and Method, Alfred's (on book 2), and I'm using Bach Scholar. I also work on songs in the library. (BTW I mostly just did the end of book songs on book 1. It would have taken much longer otherwise)

I think BachScholar is just a tool to be combined with other tools. It's good for predictable but consistent practice. For level 3, it's quite boring some times. Level 4 is much better (hands combined) but for strictly learning where the notes are and building that immediate memory, it has helped. But there isn't much beyond this very basic building of the muscle to help you find the notes.

I think it's useful still, after taking all of this into account.

Completely agree.


Reading Skills and Sight-Reading Skills are the same skills.

You just have to be much better at it in order to be good at Sight-Reading.

When you are reading music, you should be doing more than recognizing that "This note on the page means I press this key down".

That is a very low level of reading skill.

You also need skill at recognizing groups of notes that form a DbMinor chord so you can immediately play that DbMinor chord instead of thinking separately of the notes Db,F,Ab .... and other things like that.

Actually practicing sight-reading should probably include more than just playing piece after piece which you have never seen before.

It probably should contain "hints" from a qualified instructor as to how you could have done better had you known that certain portions of the score were made up of "chords" and could have been played easier with that knowledge.

And then .... the next piece should contain those same elements to give you an opportunity to practice what you just learned.

Playing random sheets of music is probably less effective.

Of course, any reading helps you get better even if it is presented in a less effective format.

So, if you like to "Sight-Read" .... knock yourself out ... It all helps to improve you skill at playing piano.



BTW .....I am curious about how necessary it is to actually become a good sight-reader.

I would like to see a "show of hands" of how many users have actually been REQUIRED to do sight-reading AT A PROFESSIONAL LEVEL in the last 3 months. I am guessing ... NONE.

I will define REQUIRED to do sight-reading as .....

You were not given access to the notation more than 15 minutes prior to the "GIG".

I think in the sight reading in the exam I got to play through it once in the preparation time and then the second was for the exam. The debate into what is sight reading and what is reading I thought was a little pointless especially as I always had two goes even in the exam!

OP i think the paul harris series is helpful. You learn lots of skills - rhythms to clap, sight reading examples and then one example for the lesson with a few theory questions. I think anything else is not needed.

I think if you are sight reading at a low standard like grade 2 then probably you need these method books. I think the only other resources you need is a book with sight reading examples for the grade you are doing but really that is more than enough.

Not in the last three months, of course, since we are in a pandemic... but I was forced to sight-read an unknown hymn at a funeral. I had the name ahead of time but the score i pulled from a hymnal was not remotely related to what was sung ... except for the title

Well, as trying as that might have been ....

I am not clear on why you consider that sight-reading ?

If what was notated for that music in the hymnal was not what the congregation was singing ...
What were you "reading" ?

What I was reading was a version I had never seen before but had to immediately play
What I had prepared for was completely different.

The skills are related but not the same. It's certainly possible to be more skilled at one than the other. Sight reading refers to the first time one reads the score. Pianist A might be able to sight read better than pianist B, but pianist B might have more of the piece down after playing it x times vs. pianist A playing it x times.

Unless one is a professional or enjoys playing chamber music without preparing ahead of time, I think reading skill is more important than sight reading skill. I'd rather be able to get most of the notes and rhythms correct after several run throughs of piece and am not as concerned how well I read through it the first time.

I think we are saying the same thing. At least we agree on the ideas. You explain it better.

Hi! Yes I was actually thinking of you when in my post I said some have remarked that this did not take special training. You supplied more details here that I think may help others.

You do not happen to remember the name of that hymn, do you ?

Yes , this little light of mine’
I knew one version as a child— not remotely close to what was sung at the funeral

I think Paul Harris has two sets of books:
1) Improve Your Sight Reading Level 1A-8A
2) Improve Your Sight Reading Grrade 1-6

Do you know if there is a difference?

I have the Bach Scholar book referenced in this thread and have finished level 3. But the snippets of the hymns that it is based on seem so dated.

Poor old Bach. Even when he was alive he got stick for his music being old-fashioned. Three hundred years later it's still happening. :D:D

When it comes to sight-reading, you need to be reading a new piece everyday or at least every other day. There are repertoire pieces I'm working on up to 5m. Within a week I'd learn the notes sufficiently and tend to rely on memory. There will be pieces you're working on and pieces you know nothing about just for reading exercise.

1 book I used for reading before is a beginner's book on Jazz & Rock. I'm used to listening to Classical pieces. The L & R parts in the book are easy and repetitive. The "melodies" in the book isn't all that familiar so I can practice reading. Another book in my collection is the Reader's Digest book full of church hymns and old musicals with easy L accompaniment.

Here are 2 books my teacher recommended at the intermediate level. The first book has simple exercises with a 1 page repertoire piece after.