How to Improve your Sight-Reading | Piano Tips

[@carolinea5792]

I want to add another great resource for improving sightreading: Basic 4-part hymns or short choral pieces in that same structure. You have 4 notes going at once so you have to focus on the intervals and note movement. Plus they are short, usually only one page, so you're able to add one song into your practice routine without any major disruptions. Obviously it's not complete for helping with sightreading, but it's a great resource. If you have an old hymnal laying around, or you see one at a second hand shop, go for it! They usually have hundreds of hymns packed in, and are reasonably priced if you decide to buy one. I can tell you from experience that when I play these kinds of songs I notice a marked difference in my sightreading within a couple of weeks.

[@solukhumbu911]

i love hymns and worship songs , do u have any recommendations thats readily available on amazon or something?

[@marcing5380]

@@solukhumbu911 A good work is the Sight-Reading & Harmony book from bachscholar - it is Bach chorals, each with 5 arrangements of increasing difficulty up until the original one. There's 150 of them so you'll most certainly train each key.

[@solukhumbu911]

@@marcing5380 thanks marcin! god bless

[@alisonbaxter7485]

I did the exact same thing and my playing and sight reading improved immensely, too! It seems that most hymns have a lot of flats and I became very good at sight reading music with multiple flats. I still have trouble playing pieces with a lot of sharps though.

[@wcheungmusic]

I personally recommend the "Joining the Dots" series of sight-reading books!

[@Piddeaux]

This is interesting. It's sort of how I've learned to play. I thought I was cheating by not having all the note names in my head. I've sort of used the lines and spaces as "land marks", if that makes sense.

[@alexgoriatchenkov]

1 million times agree with you, only one thing brake me about starting to Learning sight reading (talking ONLY about myself) --- it takes a lot , A LOT of time to learning and practice. But your way definitely is correct ! Thank you for great talking.

[@isabellalucia7820]

A great resource from Aussie pedagogue is Elyssa Milne’s “getting to grade P/1/2” series, which even comes with audio of you’re using it as a method book. It’s extremely progressive and very varied in style (and key signature!) which makes excellent sight reading if you’re a few grades higher or returning to piano as an adult.

[@leilakhammar4225]

This is the best explanation ever. Thank you

[@pianotips2623]

You're very welcome!

[@juliannadoyle8976]

Well presented to over come the difficulties in sight reading Thank you again 💐🕊

[@jmm-y4v]

Thank you for making this video. I was wanting to find out how to improve my sight reading and your video explained it perfectly:)

[@petergaudiomonte1080]

Learned something new thank you from South Carolina!

[@SherMusician]

I like this interval idea. Thank u

[@robertfoster6070]

The tip I have been given is be able to navigate the piano keys without looking at the keys. And completely focus on the sheet music.

[@rerehss]

Thank you for sharing this video

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

I finally bought Stefan's Level 2 Bundle and would encourage you to do the same. And you really need to listen up when he says to practice sightreading. I neglected it until 3 months ago, and had headaches from hitting too many walls. I have a teacher now, and when he threw a score in front of me, I was lost. But practicing every day has helped tremendously. Stefan also talked about the John Thompson Method Book. I had Faber and La Méthode Rose, and was doing OK. But when I started Thompson (in French) my teacher noticed a big improvement in my playing.

[@marathonrunner2590]

Thank you for providing a very clear and concise explanation of sight-reading. I think that beginner and intermediate pianists could gain a great deal of confidence and eliminate some fear that always happen when the topic of sight-reading shows up if they follow your advice. Best wishes for continued success..... Thanks.

[@Jim_Mundy]

This is kind of brilliant. I've watched a lot of sight reading videos and heard some of the same tips, but you've compressed it and illustrated it particularly well. Thank you. I look forward to other videos you have on your channel.

[@Mofidshima]

Very helpful! thank you 🙏🏻🎶🌷

[@Player6576_]

thank you!!!

[@SirWhiteRabbit-gr5so]

I find using stacked A-C-E's on the staves useful for sightreading.

[@rachaelsherry3662]

Thank you for taking the time to make this video it was really helpful. Sight reading is something that I have not focused on yet and its good to know that little and often is more effective than cramming once a week . Time to draw up a new piano practice schedule :)

[@Illuminous56]

I stopped playing after having kids and now I’m back to level 1 (relearning back with my kid and his lessons) but I love it!!! 💕💕 your videos are extremely thorough and at a perfect speed for me. Thank you. 🙏🏻

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Merci beaucoup for this. I started 4 months ago, and I had two method books. Faber and La Méthode Rose. I picked the MR since I needed to also learn in French if I was going to talk with people about music, since I saw right away at the music store that it was completely different. I had stalled out since I had used the books, but went onto You Tube and was too dispersed. So I went back to page one on each book and applied myself to using them, and also for the sight reading. What a difference. This is a great resource for me, and when the time comes, I'll be using these.

[@JackBeddows]

Do you ever work with a teacher?

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

@@JackBeddows I started 2 months ago. I'll go by spurts, using the teacher for a couple months and then going on my own.

[@oneirdaathnaram1376]

Thank you so much for your very precious tips, which you offer here to anyone so generously. I appreciate the kind of authenticity in your video. A. from southeastern Switzerland.

[@hoodpianogirl]

is this london? that studio space looks really nice facing the river, also thanks for the tips!

[@jessp9137]

Thanks!

[@pianotips2623]

Thanks Jess!

[@imke3379]

Great tips! I have a question about the Piano Adventures sightreading books. I'm currently following Faber's Adult Piano Adventures All-in-One course book and I'm using the sigthreading books from the accelerated PA course as supplementary material. However, I never know at what tempo to do the sightreading exercises. Obviously, if I go slower then they're easier, but I want to make sure I'm at the right level. Is there a guideline on what tempo to do these exercises?

[@japaneseimmersion-yq6rf]

Great job!!

[@emmaatkinson4334]

I have settled on Paul Harris as the book I use. One of the things he does not explain is when it's one ready to move on to the next exercise and when to move on to the next stage. Do you have a rule of thumb on target tempo and accuracy or does it not really matter? Tip. I remember short pieces by ear rather easily, so coming at music as I would a fresh piece means not playing it for a month or months. My workaround was to create a very long list of random exercise numbers for the ABRSM sight-reading exercise books. I use this in addition to the Paul Harris books. It's actually quite hard to make the numbers random enough that you don't end up playing the same exercises too close together.

[@santoshgujar5237]

Thank you, Sir, 🙏🌺😇

[@mozartrn1]

Thanks for this teaching!

[@1969leebee]

Thx

[@richardzuraski579]

I can sight read the treble and bass clefs separately, but I am stymied by the grand staff. My eyes just can’t take in the entirety of the combined staffs. Any advice?

[@lalehhassan9076]

Hi. Thank you for a very useful video. How is sight reading different than learning a new lesson? Am I allowed to take my time to study a sight reading piece before trying to play it or must I be able to play it immediately? Should I play it again and again until I can play it correctly or is it only a one time test?

[@mike_98058]

Great, helpful videos. I am learning a lot from them, but stumble when you talk about all those '-ichs'. I'm used to eighths, quarters,halves, etc. Not terribly important, I can usually see what note values your are talking about. I'll include your note value terms into my foreign language studies. Thank God your using A,B,C. etc!

[@indraneeratnayaka5106]

Thank you so much for this video...

[@jacksonamaral329]

Good.

[@tomarmstrong1281]

It would be good to have had some suggestions as to what is available, or even not available on line.

[@UntukMerekaErni0316]

I do not know easy to forgot😮

[@deericcio3379]

Ok, so I am not sight reading , I am learning to read music . I have only been playing 10 months , I was using Hal Lenard easy play , but finally decided to get serious and am doing level 1 adult Alfred book with workbook , 1/3 thru . I haven’t played my “ repertoire’ of easy songs in a week now so imbedded in my learning exercises

[@Maryroselan]

How's the progress going? I started my sight reading journey as well a month ago

[@emaldonadog]

But, a question for a almost absolute begginer. How these sight-reading books are spected to use? Because I tryied to "sing" the notes of some exercices and I'm not abble to do that. I only can identify the sound of each note when I play it in my piano. But, this is to practice piano. Then, what would be the diferences between to read "improve your sight-reading" and my "it's never to late to play piano" from pam wedgwood, when I need to read the better I can each exercices? Please, help this sixty yo first year autodidact. Thank you very much.

[@JonFairhurst]

One thing good sight readers ignore is that many of us have poor eye control. As a kid, I couldn’t hit a baseball to save my life because my eyes don’t track the ball well. I learned the basics of sight reading (Twinkle) at five, played brass in grade and middle school, leaned violin as an adult and played in a community orchestra, and I’m now taking piano lessons as an adult. I can read the music in non-real-time and memorize music, but sight reading is beyond me. I can tell myself to track the music, bar by bar over 16 measures, and maybe one in a hundred times, I will have kept my eyes tracking the music until the end. Frankly, when I lose visual concentration, I have no idea where my eye go. Do the get stuck in place? Do they just drift? Do they jump to a random spot on the page? I have no idea!!! It’s as if my visual cortex shuts down and though my eyes are facing the page, I’m effectively blind. My brain focuses only on the sound and fingers. The sheet music disappears. Then, when I feel I’m getting lost, my eyes wake up, and I look for an anchor point on the page to try to catch back up. The tips in the video are great, but if the eyes can’t stay active and track the music, there’s too big a gap. Frankly, the “just do it” line pisses me off. It’s like a pro baseball player telling me to just hit the ball, when my eyes can’t even track it. That kind of coaching is worthless. What I - and many of us - need is training of the eyes to stay active, move linearly, and not jump around, stop or drift. I think it’s trainable, but it’s a fundamental skill that many music teachers aren’t even aware of. Are there good methods for training this? I find that “bouncing ball” computer programs don’t help much, because it trains us to look at the moving object. With sheet music, nothing moves. We need self direction. Without good eye tracking, we can learn to read music, but we can never learn sight reading. And I know that I am not alone.

[@AllisonOverton-k6r]

You are definitely not alone in this. I can also read music in non-real time, but despite having achieved diploma level (piano), I still can't sight read. The way you describe your inability to track the music mirrors my experience exactly, and no amount of practicing sight reading seems to make any difference. I find it easy to memorise music, but now that I am getting older, (60's) I find it takes more effort than it used to to memorise a new piece of music. I wish someone would publish some research on this, because I believe there is a neurological reason that some people simply can't master this skill.

[@SrKAtaide]

Would it be possible to get these Harris books in a single volume, instead of these several slim books?

[@JohnMcGFrance]

I’m just starting to learn piano after many years of classical guitar and flute playing. I can read the treble clef quite well but the bass clef is driving me mad and then reading both together up is even worse! I’m sure it’ll improve with regular practice, but it’s so frustrating.

[@Elazarko]

is there a beginner book you can suggest where the lines and notes are MUCH BIGGER? So it's easier to get used to?

[@pianotips2623]

the piano adventures sight-reading books have really big notes

[@yonathanmbedule492]

How can I get those books

[@conniechoi4166]

謝謝！

[@pianotips2623]

thank you!

[@pianoismyeverything]

Damnnn ty

[@DanielLearnsPiano]

As a player that is around an ABRSM grade 2-3 level, I find that the biggest issue is finding enough content. I have both ABRSM specimen books for my grade, but there are only 45 exercises in each. Paul Harris' books are OK, but again they could really do with 5x as much content in them. Otherwise, you inevitably have to repeat the exercises which defeats the point.

[@PassionPno]

What about ABRSM's Joining The Dots? You can also try books from other exam boards like Trinity, LCM, RCM, AMEB etc. You can also check out Bach Scholar's sight-reading books based on Bach's chorales, Keith Snell's Sight Reading books and many more. There are tons of resources out there.

[@pianotips2623]

True, but from my experience, if you play through a book and then rest it for a week or two, you won't remember much of it so even if you repeat it, it will be quite effective.

[@merlynakkara8093]

Looking for help...i want to learn to play and sight read. Wanted to know if you could help

[@pianotips2623]

Hi, yes, do you mean help through lessons or just advice?

[@TheSunIsMyDestroyer]

i feel like i'll be really good at sight reading if i actually know how to read

[@mtsanri]

Great tips! Especially the book recommendations. I need to improve my sight reading. I have some landmark notes that I can identify immediately, but others I tell by intervals in relation to these landmark notes. Do you think it's ok if it stays that way or should I be able to tell every single note straight away?

[@pianotips2623]

Recognising intervals is better, the more music you read, the more notes you'll recognise instantly

[@JackBeddows]

Is the answer to sight read? :) Jk! Good video.

[@pianotips2623]

Indeed, the more the better but not mindlessly.

[@christopherrobertson7723]

All songs are pieces of music, but not all pieces of music are songs.

[@axeleast8632]

'The Song of Hiawatha' is not a piece of music.

[@christopherrobertson7723]

@@axeleast8632 A song can be any poem before it is set to music. A Song Without Words is a Musical Form, usually a piano piece. Human language and speech have distinct Pitch and Rhythm. Melody is part of spoken language. Mood is conveyed through Tone and Style of presentation. The human body itself is a musical instrument. Man made musical instruments are tools, extensions of our bodies and manifestations of our imaginations and musical intentions.

[@axeleast8632]

@@christopherrobertson7723 Thank you. How would you classify the "Song of Solomon"?

[@christopherrobertson7723]

@@axeleast8632 The Song of Solomon along with the, Odyssey, the Iliad, the Book of Psalms, Beowulf, we’re sung. Greek Plays had Choruses and the Catholic High Mass is still sung in Latin. These are all part of the Oral Tradition, which accommodated the non-literate population. A simple phrase, even a single word can have a wide range in meanings, depending on the music in the voice. Therefore, Music is more Basic than any human Language. People who are unable to converse are exceedingly able to share a Musical experience….but you already knew that!

[@axeleast8632]

@@christopherrobertson7723 Are you suggesting that I am unable to converse?

[@cassio2999]

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