Piano Sight Reading Basics | Start Building Your Music Reading Skill

[@FlexLessons]

One clarification...while it is normal for your sight reading ability to lag behind your maximum reading ability, problems will arise when this disparity is too large. It is important that your sight reading ability and your ability to study music move up somewhat proportionally.

[@KyleHohn]

To read the correct notes, Students only need to focus on line and spaces. At an elementary level: even though it’s important from a theory/memorization perspective, knowing the letters/solfège, or even saying the intervals is secondary to knowing if you’re playing line notes or space notes. Try having a student say “line” “space” and it’s hilarious how quickly they become proficient readers. That said, as you explained, counting is actually more important. My sight-reading protocol is a 3 step process: 1) Clap and count the piece. (Or tap 2-handedly if applicable). 2) Point to each note and say line and space for each note. 3) Play and Count

[@FlexLessons]

For what it’s worth, I also bring these things up regularly, just not specifically part of this system. It sounds like our approaches are similar! Thank you for sharing this!

[@watchingyoutube7330]

Hi. Thank you for the video. Have you ever been exposed to Paul Harris' books entitled "Improve your sight reading?" If so, do you have an opinion on how they compare to Hannah Smith's approach?

[@FlexLessons]

I have not been exposed but I did take a quick look. From what I can tell, the Hannah Smith approach is more consistent (stays in 5 finger position) with a much larger number of exercises. This approach builds a specific kind of instinct. Training would need to continue after this, and for that I might recommend an approach such as the Bachscholar Sight Reading and Harmony Book. As for the Paul Harris, this approach seems highly targeted at specific skills, which is also totally fine. I think with sight reading, you want to make sure you have a very large number of things to practice and that you play at a much higher level than what you are practicing with. Any book that satisfies that will work.

[@keys6]

I have been using the Paul.Harris books as recommended by my teacher and my sight reading and counting out loud (teacher calls it counting practice) has improved dramatically! I love the books...each line plays a little melody and some are very nice!