How to Get MUCH Better at Piano Sight Reading

[@jazerleepiano]

Here are handy 🕘 Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:36 Tip Number 1 4:57 Tip Number 2 6:45 Tip Number 3 9:26 Tip Number 4 11:11 Tip Number 5

[@bikennembang4471]

I wana learn piano person to person from you brother can you help me outㅡ?

[@adrianthomas6244]

Great tips thank you very much, iam humbly speaking mostly self taught, and I managed today, to sight read the whole of the 2nd movement of the sonata in c major and a bit of the 3rd, and also the theme 1st variation with a little of rondo alla turka of k 331 mozart sonata in A major, it was patchy and I did do what you mentioned look up and down, I think I made myself dizzy 😵 lol, so I will definitely take these tips on board, I do have fortunately a ability to memorise what I play, which is what I done with sonata in C major 1 st movement, so that does help, being able to recite the pieces when I sight read them first, greetings from wales uk.

[@TheSteveGainesRockBand]

Jazer, Thanks so much for these videos. I've been sight reading for 5 years so I'm getting pretty good at it. You asked in the video for us to post any questions. Do you have a video that guides more advanced players in how to position their hands? I'm getting better at setting up my hands based on what notes I see in the next bar, but I could sure use some good tips. Thanks again.

[@cheryldavies2793]

🎉

[@henrychamatata6926]

Brother.......sorry can I have pdf resources on sight reading from initial grade😢😢

[@377559]

I have been following your advice for several months now - trying to play simple church style hymns without looking at the keys. It has done wonders for my sight reading! One other thing I have found helpful when trying to learn more difficult music involving leaps is to practice short passages with eyes closed. This is very tough at first, but it really forces me to get that spatial awareness on the keyboard that you were talking about. The way I think about is is to remember the famous blind pianists. If they can do it, then surely the rest of us can if we try hard enough. What is your opinion about this?

[@denisehill7769]

This worked for me too, the one thing that made me "see" the keyboard in my mind and stopped me nodding up and down and constantly losing my place. Having small hands helps me, as an octave is the limit of my stretch, but focusing on the feel of the hand position with the eyes closed has also made a huge difference.

[@Mutuli]

@377559 how long have you played the piano or organ for that matter.

[@377559]

@@Mutuli I studied piano when I was a teenager and have recently taken it up again after decades of neglect.

[@TheRobloxGamer12332]

This works for me too I can play music that I can’t play before now ❤❤❤

[@danamundy1187]

I totally agree with you!!! 👍👍💯

[@Feathers147]

I have been playing piano without being able to sight read anything for years. I have finally come to appreciate the value of music theory so I have a better understanding of exactly what I am composing. My sight reading has always been neglected because I suck at it, however this video has been the most helpful guidance that simply just speaks to me and I finally feel that I can learn this incredible talent by following all the tips you have clearly demonstrated. Thank you for your insights and instructions, this is a 10 out of 10 video 🙏👌👍👏👏👏

[@jazerleepiano]

I am glad my tutorials have been of help, John.

[@user-uf2ox2mh1m]

Thank you for a wonderful lesson ❤1-No looking down; 2-keep fingers close to keys 3-practice accurately at slow tempo so brain recognizes each correct note 4-scan ahead; review for challenging parts 5- review analyze for patterns, fingerings, structures, chords any others.

[@Mr.Cockney]

As a self learner and a typewriter for 40 years (that had to learn typewriting by myself with a “blind method” when I was a teenager) I smile at your video because you are bloody right! When I first looked at the keys of the piano, I immediately felt that I had to take the same approach as I was taught for typewriting. Magicians say that “hand is faster than eyes” and this is definitely true. The problem is (as it was to me when I first faced a typewriter) that you have to have FAITH in that concept. We humans are mostly visual and it is very difficult to asume that hand is infinitely faster and more secure than eyes. You have to learn a new skill and it is slower process, but when you go through this, you discover a new world. I also learnt that “black keys” (that also are the bête noire for beginners) are in fact our best friends, for this and other motives! Mr. Lee, thank you very much for your videos!

[@gloriaballard]

Oh my goodness!!!!!!! You are an incredible teacher!!! I’m self taught and have played for over a decade. Wish I had found you sooner, but so grateful to begin to learn correctly now. I am dedicated to learning better! You are life changing!

[@susankurpeski9704]

I have been playing the piano for many years and was always a poor sight reader. Your video has given me a lot of wonderful instruction . Thank you Jazer.

[@mchaelbarber7484]

I'm more than glad I've found probably the most gifted music teacher on the net who can really help people who struggle like I do. I watch you will no sound and follow your voice text.

[@littleemarshmallow]

I've been playing the piano for nine years now. Recently I found one of your videos and decided watching it. It turned out that I didn't do some things you said would help so I tried it out and found out that it actually really helped alot. I watched a few of your other videos too and learned very much from them. You pointed out things nobody told me before and thanks to you I finally managed to improve my playing again, since I was kinda stuck and not very motivated anymore, I just wasn't able to make a progress. Thanks to you and your videos I started to rediscover why I loved playing the piano so much. I really owe you one now. :) Thanks for making those videos and please keep it up! ❤

[@deadmanswife3625]

This is the FIRST time I ever heard anyone just say it STRAIGHT OUT. IT'S A MISTAKE TO LOOK AT YOUR HANDS. It makes perfect sense you'd NEVER look at your hands when you're learning to keyboard like a typewriter keyboard. You will NEVER gain any skill you HAVE to discipline yourself not to look. Thank you Jazer lee. you really taught me something this morning.

[@relicofgold]

Right. So by not looking at the keyboard you may not know if you're playing the correct note, repeating the error multiple times, having to eventually unlearn the error and relearn the correct way.

[@anthai1741]

I had some students that often forget which bars are coming. I assumed that they might not looking at the piece enough, they prefer looking at their hands while they’re playing. So I asked them to look more. After a while, they started move their heads up and down the sheet. But I found out that, They actually illustrated the movement of sight reading, they are not clearly understand what are they looking for on the music sheet. Thank you for the tips, I will try it by myself frist before teaching back to my students.

[@eugeniustheodidactus8890]

♥ I learned to TYPE in one semester of high-school and never looked down at a keyboard since. Why after 40 years of playing piano, did I just have the epiphany to approach _sight reading_ music in that way? ---------> Because you mentioned hand *positioning on the "G" ... not looking down!* Very similar to typing. Sight reading is a total separate thing to learn....discipline needed. Thank you so much!

[@richardly1543]

Sight reading C major is obvious/pretty straight forward. It's when you add sharps and flats where it gets more complicated. Cause it's not just a matter of reading intervals. You actually have to know exactly where your note is at all times to know where it should be flat/sharp or regular

[@SuddenUpdraft]

Thank you so much for the G advice. I have pretty strong muscle memory and have to be very careful to get fingering correct on the first couple of times and not hit wrong notes. For example, I’m 68 years old and took up piano 4 years ago after a 30 year hiatus. There were still bad habits that I had to unlearn. Now, my teacher encourages writing in the fingering, which is very helpful. It is difficult, however, to find your place once you look down.

[@andikasavana4539]

agreed. even we play our piano without using sheet paper, its important to playing without looking in our hand because we need to have a strong feeling about notes and its also good for teach our hearing sensitivity

[@jamesewanchook2276]

never look at your hands. that's the enemy of ear and body/ keyboard geography. I declare you are a very good teacher. Cheers from Vancouver.

[@freshaloevera]

Ive started learning the piano about two weeks ago and im starting to learn sightreading properly, i can easily learn a piece by memory by looking at the notes, memorizing them and play it with no problem, but i cant sightread immediately bc i still struggle with knowing what note it could be, i still also need to practice my knowledge of keys on the piano, really appreciate the tips right now

[@user-hu7ru5fk9d]

Tio number 1 has really helped me. Sight-reading is the part I struggle most on in an exam and my grade 5 exam is in a couple of days. I may be a little late but just by not looking at my hands has made a massive improvement. Thank you👍!

[@zhihong627]

The guy is very well spoken. Many years of careful learning and practicing. I'm watching his videos to learn speaking English as well.

[@sungvin]

My sight reading practice is: -> have multiple hundreds of sheet music pdfs in my google drive -> i can't learn them all -> i just sight read them for a few hours

[@angenalaschka5976]

hello everyone, hello Jazer Lee, I discovered your videos for the first time about "Musical Basics". There is so much truth in what you say. It feels so good how you describe exactly the problems that one knows as a piano learner, exactly the typical "classical" mistakes :-) , which happen to you, or the "waste of time" practicing "wrong". Your tips and solutions are worth their weight in gold and I often recall them when practicing. Thank you very much for that and also for how authentically and clearly you shared all this with us!

[@jazerleepiano]

Hello Angena! You're quite welcome!

[@angenalaschka5976]

@@jazerleepiano Thank you!

[@_Stay]

my father refuses to take me to piano lessons and insists I can learn anything on youtube 😅 your videos have helped point out small mistakes I didn't know I was making, and help guide me without a teacher 🙂 learning things the "proper" way always feels more right to me, so I've always preferred learning with sheet music. despite this it's hard without proper guidance, and I always end up using one of those videos where it just shows you the keys. I think watching your videos will help me learn sheet music better, and help my playing in the future. 😁

[@jamesewanchook2276]

I've been a professional musician for 50 years. I went through the same thing with my dad. This Jazer fellow will not fail you. Use this fellow's videos to find a great local teacher who will guide and inspire you. Cheers and good luck form Vancouver.

[@_Stay]

@@jamesewanchook2276 thank you!

[@felicityatkinson]

Your way of explaining is amazing. Really interesting and logical. I’ve been teaching piano for 33 and I love to watch your videos and often take new teaching tips from them.

[@markshoub7335]

Incredibly clear and useful tips for developing skills over time. Much appreciated!

[@nancywebb1845]

I loved the idea of finding 3 black keys then playing g then finding the next group without looking. I get frustrated because i lose my place as I'm constantly looking back and forth on a new piece or even one I'm working to learn. This was great. A question: I try to scan ahead but sometimes lose my place. Is there a way to both scan and play the notes you're supposed to be playing?

[@elissahunt]

It comes down to practice. As you get better with sight reading, you can remember the bar you're playing as you look ahead to the next. Seeing the patterns also helps a lot. If a two bar run is really just a scale (and you've practiced your scales so you know them inside and out) it's easy to look ahead to the third bar while your brain automatically plays the scale.

[@cesca6829]

Not looking at your hands is exactly the same advice you get when learning to touch-type. To me it feels like it's using the same bit of the brain. My neighbour said the same only she'd learn piano first. Always good tips as ever from Jazer.

[@lyndasoar4345]

Yes... Back in the day our teacher would put a vinyl record on to play, which would keep to so many beats per minute, as a speedbuilder exercise, Earthshattering to hear 30+ manual typewriters striking in unison...

[@cesca6829]

@@lyndasoar4345 Oh yes, the days of "A sad lad had a jaffa salad" and "Home keys!"

[@lyndasoar4345]

... home keys ... 'qwerty' keyboard typewriter shaped piano (adapted to 'cdefgab') ... would make learning so much easier ... :( - me: trying to overcome the fact that my fingers are too short to reach lower/upper octaves without relinquishing 'home key middle c' area... :) ... ... indeed, Jazar has some v interesting approaches & presents them for us learners in a fab manner!

[@cesca6829]

@@lyndasoar4345 No piano music so far has done the equivalent of touch typing a capital P on a manual to my little fingers, and am grateful for that!

[@dominiqueterosier3590]

You’re really great Jazer, it’s a real pleasure to watch your videos!

[@joelee7853]

This is a great video, Jazer. Your videos are great as they give tips as to how to help my 8 y/o son practice. Thank you. Your tip about finding the G is awesome. I have suggested to my son to just "trust your fingers" and read the music. Hopefully he will "get" this part. Also, I completely agree with the spatial awareness. It is almost like if someone was to ask you (without a keyboard), how far apart are your thumb and baby finger if you wanted to play 1-5, and you would not be very far off from the actual distance..

[@chandanapieris7473]

Jazer, you were right man, dont look at your hands! What a revelation!

[@richarpadilla1891]

Awesome tutorial about sight reading, i've been playing piano for several years and i wanna show my respect for you Jazer, you are a very good piano teacher ! I'll give you a 💯

[@jazerleepiano]

Thanks, mate! 🤓

[@jfmoore67]

I love your videos. Have you done or could you do one on fingerings? I find that with sight reading, especially, trying to figure out the fingerings if they aren't in the music is the thing that gets me all tied up. Are there basic rules to determining fingerings? Should you notate them before you start or just feel your way? Often the music will give you a few fingerings and then it's like you just have to figure it out from there. Some guidance would be really helpful.

[@jazerleepiano]

All your questions can be answered by my piano tutorial videos. Try watching "Play with Two Hands" lesson and "Simple Exercise for Finger Independence on the Piano" lesson.

[@A_Random_Pianist]

I’m trying to sightread Mozart sonata 16. This is really help me out! Great video! And it’s just perfect that you use as example also (thanks for the fingering technique😊)

[@vinitakuma]

Thank you for your tips on sight reading. They are very useful!

[@tarjena]

I had suspected that not looking at the keys during sightreading may be the answer, so have just been experimenting with the idea for a while now and woooow - with patience and time I may actually get better😄 Thank you, Jazer, you have no idea how precious your explanations are to us!🙂 As for the questions - I am struggling right now with passages. Especially with those involving both white and black keys and larger stretch in the hand. My thumb is lazy and I keep making accent on the first note and rush the second and third/fourth finger. When practicing slowly I've also noticed that my whole hand tends to be too slow.⬇️ My question is: how exactly do I move my thumb and elbow? This is the cause of me being stuck a little in the progress😔

[@jazerleepiano]

Try doing the chord very, very slowly at first. Then when you get it right, try doing it correctly 5 times. If you make a mistake , you need to do it again and do it slowly again. This will teach your thumb and elbow the much needed "muscle memory". Try that and let me know how you do.

[@jadef1531]

Thank you so much I always thought I was dumb and unable to read music but it turns out keeping eyes on the sheet may help This fills me with hope again

[@nate-ox5lw]

how u giving all these insanely helpful lessons for free this is awesome

[@NellyAver]

What amazing pieces of advice you gave here! I have a concert in which I perform some extremely hard piece, so next time when I practice it I will be reflecting my "behaviour" with the music sheets and hopefully finally will be able to even enjoy this process!

[@nellekx]

i played piano for five years as a teenager but had no real motivation. I would write the letter names under each note to make it easier to memorize, which I now realize is a terrible way to learn. As an adult wanting to revisit piano and learn the proper way, I find your videos very helpful!

[@ginnerzapata5909]

I used to play some piano when i was a kid, i have a kind good ear and i learnt some music teory, so i was able to "scan the piece" and put some arpegiated chords on the left hand and make it sound "good". But know i want to actually read the pieces, thanks for this video, i practiced one hour more o less while pausing and trying to apply the steps and i can see the difference, got a lot of mistakes due to bad spacial awareness, but it actually surprised me how well i could read/practice at 50bpm. Thanks a lot, subscribed.

[@inky006]

I've been practicing for at least 15 years and I still have to look at my hands. I will try these tips and finally learn to keep my eyes on the music.

[@mikehayden7691]

There was a great video about, i think (its been a long time) daniel beliovski playing piano and had tech to track his eye positioning throught a passage. Its fascinating. Dude was my theory/aural skills prof at MSU for two years before the school decided to part ways with him. Absolutely prolific piano player in my personal estimation. Regardless, its worth a view.

[@Jam-tc6js]

I like how he says "songs and pieces" instead of only saying "songs" or "pieces"

[@barbbaker579]

I have taught myself by rote one (and pretty much only one) tune: the first movement of Moonlight Sonata. I can't read music. I got someone to write the letters on the score and the letters next to the lines and spaces, mark the sharps in red, drove myself potty and after just over a year of practicing it bit by bit every day I could remember it all. This was about 20 years ago. And it sounded pretty good, even though I say so myself (though I do tinker a bit with how I interpret the piece and convince myself that when he was on his own, Beethoven would play it just like I prefer to play it!!!! Ha!) Then I moved house about a million times, didn't practice, forgot most of it, started over. Just moved again and for the third time started over about 2 months ago. I'm 71 now and finding it more difficult to remember. I know I rely on memory and muscle memory alone. I'm more likely to be accurate if I play very fast and don't think at all, but that's no way to play - though it cheers me up if I make fewer mistakes. If I get something wrong 4 lines in, half way through or whenever, it takes me ages to find it on the score, if at all. On a good day, I do almost all of it right, apart from the last line, which I generally mess up every time. After all these years and all that effort it is ludicrous that I can only point to middle C and say 'ah, that's middle C!' Point to any other note and I don't have a clue. I can look at the sheet music and kind of know the FACE and EDBDF (though still forget the bass clef thingies and often find myself, even now, counting down, CBAGF...). But I have never been able to look at where the note is on the sheet music and know which note it actually is on the piano. That's been the biggest problem throughout. Even if I quickly work out what the name of the note is eg D, I can't translate that to the piano without the stickers I use to help. Anyway, I've looked at zillions of KZbin instruction videos. Jazer Lee's videos are by far the best I've ever seen. And I laughed throughout this one as Jazer pinpointed all the wrong things I do, not least the advice to not start with a tune that might be way out of my depth! To be honest, I think it's probably too late for me to change how I play Moonlight but I scrambled around today and found a 'first steps in piano' type book and tried the method in Jazer's video re not looking at the notes as I play. My goodness! Instantly, instantly, I thought 'this could work for me - why the hell didn't I think about doing it like this from the start?' Luckily, I can 'pick out' any tune if I put my mind to it (but one note at a time, I can't imagine being able to play chords as well if they're any more complicated thatnMoonlight's relatively easy two-finger chords!!) but at least I have a sort of feel for the distance between notes which might help me. But this video from the incredible Jazer Lee is like a miracle really. Maybe I can learn to play the piano properly after all. Thank you JL!

[@jazerleepiano]

I am so happy that it is working for you. Keep at it and I am so proud of your progress.

[@adriandrake4208]

Hi Jazer, I’ve been learning for 3 years now, and its still so daunting to me. Encourage me with one tip! Thanks Jazer, the best teacher out there

[@Jaguar106-sl3ls]

Great video, and really well explained, and also demonstrated standard errors with negative examples. I would like to have a piano teacher like you! Unfortunately, I'm very bad at sight reading, but I'll try to follow your 5 tips. I've heard and read a lot about sightreading. There are other aspects too. For example: "Practice vertical notes (chords) better, less horizontal notes", true? Or: "Practice chorales instead of Mozart or Beethoven pieces (Bach Scholar)", true? What do you start with? Immediately with dynamic, or first without dynamics, etc. Whatever, I think your video helps more than many others to get better at reading music. As I said, brilliant video. 👌

[@AndreaRuizCa]

omgg thank you sooo much!!!! I was h aving trouble on how to practice sight reading and I am about to go to the piano and practice these :D thanks

[@Frostweather]

Thanks for helping us find the G

[@lospopularos]

"Not to look at your hands." Brilliant! Thank you!

[@kenbrady119]

11:51 "A piece is never made up of random notes". I can infer that you don't sight-read John Cage much :) Thanks for the great tips!

[@jomammammaa]

1 dont play while looking at your fingers, practice spatial awareness 2 keep finger closer to piano to find the next notes more easily 3 play at a slower pace where you'll have 99 percent of notes right (can have pauses), such that your brain can process the notes fully 4 scan ahead: find repeats, patterns, melodies and master the ability to sight read 1 bar forward 5 focus on patterns and structures (same content as 4)

[@user-cj8so9hu4y]

This lesson is so helpful. I’ve been trying to teach myself for several years and what you shared in this lesson is exactly what I do. I lose my place in the music while I’m looking down at the keys. Thank-you for sharing these helpful tips.

[@IslandArt61]

Thanks so much for this. I have been recognizing many of the things you point out, but only after weeks of trying to solve something that doesn't feel right. Then you lay it out in a 10 minute video that would have saved me so much time If I'd watched it long ago. Dang!

[@elenad3786]

Now I understand why pianoplayers put their fingers between the black patterns....thank you, this helps a lot!

[@yahyakhazbak4713]

its jazer lee u are telling us the rules how to read well i was doing it but im watching u to change my self

[@Kaitzu]

just what I needed! been trying to learn how to sight read for awhile so this will definitely help!

[@roxanamckinnon6473]

I wish I could have you being my teacher. Your teaching is really incredibly inspiring.

[@jazerleepiano]

Thank you for the kind words.

[@garreth4137]

I'm so grateful for your videos! Learning piano with a combination of a weekly session with a teacher and lots of your videos throughout the week makes learning piano very, very enjoyable and manageable :)

[@mchaelbarber7484]

This is something that will make a difference - Thankyou!!

[@deterdinghenry3592]

Great! Concise, short, powerful... ¡Thanks!

[@rob-in-the-marsh5311]

I wish you had been my piano teacher from the beginning. When I think of all the rubbish advice I had been given when I started to learn, and which I had to pay for. The time I lost.

[@pianocoachingconceptkanal1290]

Thank you for your great support!

[@alexandrakitenge4493]

Ohhh my God, your vídeos are so helpful. You can be proud of yourself as a teacher, and I'm proud to have you as my teacher. ❤❤❤.

[@asyaandreeva2193]

Thank you! Very good advice!

[@jazz1376]

you’re literally my piano teacher. tysm for your tutorials and tips!

[@suzanneroyce9300]

Can’t believe I missed this video last month, it addresses an area where I really struggle, thank you.

[@b-jscott]

You have such an incredible ability to teach the piano. Thanks you for all your wonderful videos ❣️🎼🎹

[@ademusayoalabi-ji7kv]

Love this Lesson Thanks you sir for this Lesson

[@solidgoldbeeper]

first tip helped me SO much. thank you

[@osnapitzkindle]

Thanks! Do you have any books for sight reading to suggest? Like a sequence of increasingly harder pieces that are designed/chosen for this purpose. Also I think a video where you list the important patterns would help a lot (I didn’t now the name of this Alberti bass, knowing it has a name certainly gives me more tools!)

[@jazerleepiano]

I would suggest finding any gospel or hymn chord book and start from there. The simple repeating chords will help augment your sight reading skills like it did for mine.

[@danielbunag612]

Thank you so much Sir Jazer Lee, for this piano tutorial video....

[@marshwetland3808]

Thanks for the sight reading tips. Think I really need to work on my Brown Scale Book, ie technique - but gonna look for some tips in your channel to add to that. I *never* did it because it's "boring". Gonna apply the don't-look spatial approach as soon as I get the basic fingering and whatnot from the book, and then aim to memorize all that. Wish I hadn't left piano for 30 years...but that's life, unfortunately.

[@p3rrypm]

This is why I hate apps like Simply Piano. Horrible pacing for beginners.

[@MusicCave-du2wj]

Thank you Jazer😸 you are the kind of teacher I wish I had! Many of my students need to see this video😛 not looking at their hands constantly is exactly what I’m trying to get them to do too! And I tried your tip ( tapping the beats on my student’s shoulder) with my student who used to struggle with counting and it worked!

[@jazerleepiano]

Yay! I'm glad it worked for your student as well.

[@oliviamou60]

Tips: 1. NEVER look at hands while playing (minimal) 2. Fingers stay as close to keyboard to feel it 3. Play at a speed where u get 99% of notes correct (99 correct, 1 incorrect). Better to pause the music to digest it rather than gamble it. Better to hit correct notes so u can play well in the next measure. 4. Scan ahead: left hand core patterns, specific right hand melodies, scaling up and down. Look ahead for the next bar - you might be sight reading smth. Too difficult if u cannot read 1/2, 1,2 bars ahead 5. Focus on patterns and structures. Are there any thing you can repeat? Example: Alberti base

[@SquareMahogany]

Thank you! I’m relearning piano and you’ve helped a lot

[@busraozdemir4676]

Your videos are just what I am looking for. They are really helpful for me. Thank you.

[@gerryforte2193]

Great advice and I can relate to every single one. It’s reassuring to realize I’m not the only one 🎵🎵

[@sandrafrancis3631]

Thanks for the good and encouraging tips.

[@piano9051]

2:14 'This one is a three black key group ............. the next one is PROBABLY a two black key group'. Hahaha - what kind of random key configuration does your regular piano have ! It would be wonderful to sight read without looking down - similar to learning to touch type. The main reason I keep looking down is to keep track of/figure out where my fingers are. Guess I need to step back a bit and use some simpler sheet music.

[@testynet]

great idea ... you are a good teacher, can understand psychology in learning

[@CendySweet]

Video này đã thay đổi tôi rất nhiều. Cảm ơn bạn 🥰🥰🥰🥰

[@pansylim6254]

U r absolutely right. I also told my students the same thing

[@johnb.5201]

Before starting this do a quick check: Can you read out loud a text from a book 📚? Sounds easy, but it needs the same skills read ahead of the text you speak, only few people can do this. Obviously this is one of the basics what we should learn as a child.

[@P.S.-dv3du]

Can you explain how to choose a good keyboard in terms of great sound and other technical features?

[@jazerleepiano]

I actually did a video on this. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ap3MYWiBe52SaNU

[@julicrestani]

Thank you so much for all your tips. It has helped me a lot. I decided to return to the piano after 20 years no play. It has been difficult for me, but I am enjoying the path. And your videos are helping me so much. Thank you!❤

[@jazerleepiano]

You are quite welcome, Juli. And I am glad you came back to the piano.

[@albertmajor1841]

How do I get the piece I just listened to? Greetings

[@BakaBaki0]

Even as a beginner? I just can't imagine doing this with Gymnopédie No.1 as an example, because there are big jumps

[@maxlou5448]

Hello, i love the way you're explaining stuffs, you're my favourite piano teacher of youtube, and i'm glad to see you more active on YT this month! Thx a lot!

[@jazerleepiano]

Hi Max, I am glad to be back. 🤓

[@emmanuelmengot9061]

Thank do much for these tips. I have learnt a lot from this video Sir. More grace

[@Aethiral]

For tip 2, I don’t think it looks boring at all, I love watching hands on the piano because they basically dance 😌

[@jasonstewart_ky]

These are always immediate "likes" for me. JL never disappoints.

[@audreyschley8517]

I memorized GBD. I am also a tactical player. With these notes memorized, I can find every other note by feel

[@kennyhaughan9605]

Brilliant! Thanks for your help, I’ll put into practice tomorrow

[@richard135b7]

A Masterclass on sight reading. Thank you!

[@santodomingo1605]

Sight-reading is something that is very much neglected by many tutees, alas. One of the best works for developing sound rhythmic recognition and recognition of intervals up to and including a perfect fifth is the primo part of the sonatinas for piano duet, Jugenfreuden Opus 163, by Diabelli. The secondo part, meanwhile, is ideal for tutees who have mastered harmony up to and including the dominant seventh in all inversions in all keys. This encourages one to simply recognise and follow the harmonic rhythm instead of studying all those dots on the page and processing them one by one. As well as simple chords and their inversions it’s also necessary to be able to play them by doubling the lowest note in each inversion so that thumb and little finger are an octave apart. These used to be included in the ABRSM Grade 2 piano syllabus, played as broken chords but have been dropped recently which is a shame. When I see such chords, arpeggiated or otherwise, my hand just plays automatically and I don’t have to think about it. Generally my eye-hand span is very large unless playing atonal music. Playing something at sight like a Chopin Waltz, for example, is much more challenging due to constant large leaps and more advanced harmony, but good practise for the L.H. Starting with the L.H I teach tutees to use the little finger to find keys by first feeling for the raised black keys until such time as that can be dispensed. For example one could play the opening theme of that Mozart sonata using just the little finger in a low register and then repeat it using the little finger of the R.H in a high register, again using the black keys to develop a kinaesthetic sense whereby (eventually) your own body proprioception is projected onto the entire range of piano keys. Score-reading is excellent practise for the more advanced player (playing in three, four or more staves makes reading two staves rather simple by comparison) and there are some good series promoting it - as is learning to read figured bass and improvise over it. I think, perhaps, that my piano sight-reading is quite good because I studied the pipe organ, reading three staves instead of two. I must have taught something right as after decades as a rehearsal pianist for a choral society (Novello piano reductions can be both tricky to read at sight and often poorly transcribed) my place has been taken over by an old tutee and an excellent prima vista player as my own eyesight is not so good anymore. I'm also trying to persuade him to take my place in grade examinations where a pianist is required as an accompanist. What I still find tricky are atonal pieces. Allen Forte (amongst others) have included all possible chord combinations (here called sets) in normal form using integer notation which I’ve never really incorporated as a pianist.

[@maryfrey]

Thanks for this! Welcome back... I've missed your videos.

[@claudedupras2492]

Often, when I was learning,I was adding notes to the songs, and my teacher realized that I wasn't reading but playing by ear. So the tip was to read the songs away from the piano, like reading a book.

[@user-ng7hz7ow6s]

Such great tips for sight reading! So glad I found your site! 🎹

[@donlarson4460]

Wow! you are really good... all of these lessons are truly resonating with me and I can see my playing improving... thanks!

[@23ritik]

Can you please make a video on -> 1. reality of piano competitions 2. How to become a famous concert pianist and have a wonderful career. 3. Are there any age limit for a successfull concert career. I am 23 yrs old beginner 4. Are piano competitions worth it??

[@377559]

Since you are a 23 year old beginner I would not suggest you get involved in piano competitions. Watching people years younger than you play difficult pieces effortlessly may be too discouraging right now. I suggested that you just focus on yr own development until you reach technical proficiency.

[@MrFingolfin]

Min 10:17 you LOOK AT THE PIANO 😂😂😂😂 Thanks for the lessons, you are really inspiring me to learn playing piano!!

[@georgewilliams258]

You have really helped me. Thanks