How to Improve Your Sight Reading
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
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Dr. John Mortensen explains how to improve your sight-reading. No tips, no tricks, just honest work over time! - เพลง
tip: switch music genres freely so that you are learning different rhythms, patterns etc
I was a memorizer and a poor sight reader until about age 50 when I just started sighreading more piano accompaniments to my cello students' pieces. I don't agree with you that later in life it's harder. Now that I'm in my 60's and have been practicing partimenti and historical improvisation for the past 2 years, my sight reading on piano has improved even more! It's as if I'm sight singing through my fingers. I now find myself sight-reading all the way through Bach fugues whereas before I used to give up after 10 bars or so.
I also do not agree that later in life is harder. Adults just have more talent in making excuses not to do the work and have no one threatening a spanking if they dont finish their work. Emotionally mature, disciplined adults should have more rapid progress than a child.
Thanks for the inspiration 😊
Agreed, thanks for the inspiration
TH-camr Rick Beato said he learned so many songs through his students who wanted to play certain songs. It's memorization, because I don't think he had the music. But, doing it over time increased his vocabulary greatly.
I think that the more you understand even basic music theory, the easier it is to sight read - if you understand the harmonic structure as you read through. There’s the V chord, the V7, etc.
I am not a good pianist by any means, but I have noticed that memorizers lack the spatial awareness that allows them to play without looking at the keyboard. Sight readers on the other hand have developed that skill.
Yes - I'm a memoriser and that is exactly my problem. Working on it!
That’s a skill that has always baffled me. I can play Ondine, Chopin etudes, Rachmaninoff, etc. but if I get carried away and close my eyes for even a second it’s over. Watching the pros close their eyes during Rach 3 is just such a foreign skill and concept to me.
@@taiteyard3567 Yes there are also world class blind pianists. Obviously they won't sight read but the development of spacial awareness can go so far.
@@taiteyard3567 I guess I am on a good path, I don't think I looked at the piano once in my recital haha.
When I was a child my piano teacher would cover my hands with another songbook to prevent me from looking at them. It forced me to get comfortable with the spacial awareness necessary to do sightreading!
💥 I play the piano for more than 35 years. I can compose, improvise, even learn several pieces of music, but I can't sight read. I began in music by listening. It was late, at 14, I studied classical music for 3 years, and I discovered Jazz. Since then, I mostly play jazz, but I have played several piano concertos, I studied about 60 Chopin's pieces, among several other composers, but I can't sight read. Even my music reading is poor. I need time to learn very slowly. But reading is proportional to the difficulty. I can almost sight read a Chopin's waltz, but when I sight read, I can't memorize anything. Looks like the brain is rewired in such a way that the circuits used to sight reading prevents memorizing. If I want to memorize a piece, I have to study it carefully, divide in chunks, and memorize by parts. Everybody has weakness, some in reading, some in listening, or composing, or improvising... We are never perfect like Franz Liszt ! 😅😅
Great lesson!!! I have been teaching piano for many years and yes, I have some students who are excellent at sight reading. One student sight read Gershwins Prelude No. 1 without even seeing it first. Too bad he didn't stick with his lessons.
For others, they are just lousy at their sight reading....why because they never learned their notes in the first time 😔.
Yesterday, I had a new 6 year old student who wants to play Jingle Bells at the Christmas Recital. Part of her lesson included these words: Right Hand , number 3 on E....read your notes...EEE, EEE, EGCDE....play!!!! She did pretty good!!!😄
Oh the adventures in being Miss Monique the Piano Teacher😊😢😂🎉
Great video! Another tool is to sight read more difficult stuff, but keeping it in tempo - however at a slower than full pace. That'll make you equipped to read more complex textures and find solutions to them, while of course not stopping. A part of this is also to try to the best of your ability to make it sound good - to make music. Don't settle for it being only "correct", but also trying to make music, even when sight reading at a slower pace.
Seems very doable; short 20 minute, easy pieces, not stopping, in rhythm. Hands together. No tricks or hacks. Nevertheless, encouraging. Thanks, Doc. Real value, as per usual.
Thanks, Dr. Mortensen, for an excellent topic well presented. One disagreement, however: there are indeed “shortcuts,” but as you say, these won’t sidestep the necessary work and dedication. But once we obtain some basic technique, we can begin to make some educated guesses. You hinted at these. Conventional patterns, like scales or Alberti bass, group notes together in recognizable patterns, and those patterns themselves often repeat. A careful glance at the page offers a head start before playing. Every good sight reader does this. If we begin to look for the patterns, we are no longer limited to reading one note at a time, just as in language, we read not individual letters, but groups of them.
@scmager Yes. I agree that there are certain techniques one can learn to employ in the process. I think the thrust of Dr Mortensen's argument is that musicians eventually pick up all these things through steady practice.
Everything in this video is so spot on! Once I started teaching children the basics of music reading (and of course, I was repeating these basics 10x a week between all the students) I definitely started noticing that my sight reading improved. Now I'll read minuets and sonatine on my own for fun between students when before I'd struggle to read pop music on sight.
Great example of "If you want to learn something, teach it."
Thank you for this video. I have watched many videos about sight reading but your video is an eye opener for someone who is willing to get better than sight reading..I will surely use all your strategies with myself and my students. Thank you Sir! Really appreciate your advice.
💥 You are very right. Being a good memorizer or a good sight reader, deoends on what kind of experience you had at the beginning of studying. In order to be a good reader, you need to read a ton of things, every day, and don't stop on mistakes, keep the tempo, and don't look at the keys. In order to do that, study scales and arpeggios, blindfold. 🎉❤
I picked up the series of a Line a Day and my reading has been improving a lot. I spend about 10 minutes a day.
Hello I'm new to your videos, but I am delighted to have found this. You were saying a lot of things I needed to hear ...and act upon. The time commitment is most valuable statement. I dedicate a minimum of 45 minutes per day to language learning - I need to make a similar firm commitment to improving my sight reading. Thanks for your very clear advice.
Hi Adrian, I'm curious on the way in which you practice language learning. I'm currently working on my improv and I find that, however I listen large amount of baroque and classical music, my improv are not in style. Do you have a specific routine or specific exercice that you can share with me ?
PS : Sorry for my Bad english...
Great video and great channel! I'm an undergraduate music student studying jazz piano, but I have to take a Basic Keyboard Skills class for the degree. I am a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE reader. Never been good. I'm taking the class right now, in fact, and the instructor is having us sight-read very easy material. It's mostly hymns with only the soprano and bass voices. I'm finding that just by doing that, my reading has improved dramatically. I've even started to be able to read four-voice stuff. By the end of the semester, I need to be able to sight-read a four-voice hymn (that's the final exam), and already I'm very confident that I'll get to that point, at the pace things are going.
Would you be willing to discuss the pros and cons of reading versus memorizing…and or situations where one is better or even imperative? Thanks for your videos 🙂❤🙏🏼
I read 15 minutes, about every other day sometimes 5 days in a week, sometimes 3. And even after I couldn't play after injury for a couple years, reading was easier. I mean WAY easier. Unfortunately I don't get to practice until real late and I play an acoustic only and I live in an apartment building. So I don't get to play as much as I would like when I do get to play, but when I play regularly, reading gets easier.
Great advice especially putting in the time plus choose easy pieces with repeated phrases and chords and make it fun pieces at first.
Gosh! Super helpful. Loved this!
Thanks for the guidance, Lehrmeister!
I was searching info about this this morning, thanks
Love your videos, brilliant as usual. Thank you so much for sharing and inspiring all of us.
This is gold, and tackles my issue straight on. Going to start this tomorrow - save this video and see what improvements have been achieved 6 months from now 😊. Subscribe clicked.
I agree with playing all the way through, but in my experience, you have to develop the feel of where things are spatially on the keyboard without looking. I think practicing pieces repeatedly helps with that. So, both forms of practice have been important in my experience.
Wonderful video, thanks!. My continuity has improved by 1000% since I began playing keys on a band!. Now I just can't try again if I fail. Show must go on! 😅
As an adult re-learner, this video provides a helpful framework! I might add that I've found it has helped to play/practice repertoire in many different keys, in order to be able to sightread well in those keys. For instance, sightreading in G-flat major and even F-sharp major are okay now, but C-sharp major is like 😱My keyboard skills professor also had us "sight-transpose" in class, which then makes regular sightreading feel so much easier in comparison!
As an amateur pianist who is working on improving his reading ability, I'll just add that for I guess most of us amateurs it's often impossible to play any kind of music in tempo, at least in the beginning stage. Therefore, my advice to all my fellow colleagues is to focus on playing very slowly and perfectly correctly!
Think before each note / chord, try not looking at your hands if not necessary, to develop tactile feeling where you are on the keyboard, position fingers correctly and play, and continue. It's often very frustrating process, but if you manage to go through that frustration and keep doing this at least 20min each day, you'll definitely feel progress in some relatively short time.
Everything you said completely resonates! I was a not-so-great reader and got through 2 years of music school before my professor realized that I was learning so much by ear. 😂 And then teaching years later made me such a better reader. Thank you for talking about this.
If you take the Standard Assessment of Sight Reading test, you can get an objective measurement of where your sight reading level is at, and it correlates to the level of music you should be reading from. If you get a score of 800, you should read tons of music level 8 and below (in Piano Marvel's leveling system, not ABRSM or anything else)
Lately I have been so frustrated at myself for never learning to sight read. I've been dreading the idea of having to return to lullaby's and child's songs in order to learn to sightread, but there is no other way. I'll have to suck it up and hopefully if I keep it going it will make it easier for me to go through the actual pieces that I like!
I learned 'naturally', taught myself to play, worked out how sheet music worked, then worked out how to interpret the notes from the music to the keyboard at a young age (six/seven?), but never learned to sight read, because as I learned the song, I just naturally remembered it and I had natural finger skill and could play stuff waaaaay beyond my reading ability, and never wanted to play simple boring stuff. I tried this, trying to learn to sight-read, so hard (as an adult) years later to remedy this, but you need a TONN of sheet music, and while I had some, I just couldn't get enough simple children's sheet music so that I didn't end up repeating the same pieces over and over again. My sight-reading was almost non-existent and there is only so much beginner children's pieces, lol!! 😥
I just love to read I leave specially easy pieces.Vocalizs are good for this.
Merci.
One of my former supervisors said, to get the paycheck, one must first put in the time.
Buying music to sight read for bours and hours of work is an expensive luxury
You know that everything your learn in music from practice, performance, technic or theory., there is a skillset to learn. Sight-reading is no different. What is different about it in music does not require music to read nor a piano to practice on. It has to do with the realm of muscle-memory. What do I mean about muscle-memory? The ability to reproduce a particular movement without conscious thought, acquired as a result of frequent repetition of that movement. The ability to repeat a specific muscular movement with improved efficiency and accuracy that is acquired through practice and repetition. A form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition. The ability to move a part of your body without thinking about it, learned by repeating the movement many times. Keep this in mind playing the correct keys, and moving the finger(s), hand(s), with arm movement(s) from one side to the other side of the keyboard when reading notes and without looking at the keys.
i would add the greatest readers where the greatest memorisers also. You memorise through reading the score even when away from the piano.
Great video!! 100% AGREED!!
QUESTION:
WHAT IF YOU CANNOT PHYSICALLY SEE THE PAGE!!
I am needing to learn how to "sightread" Braille music, but obviously you cannot play and read keyboard Hands Together while reading Braille music!!
I learned that excelant music readers in Braille learned how to "SightSING" then, when they can sightsing well, memorize their keyboard music.
Any comments about this??
I once heard a really fantastic harpsichord player who did not have sight. He told me that he gets MIDI files of his pieces with the hands as separate channels. He listens to each hand alone and memorizes. The advantage is that he can play the recording at any speed, hands separate or together.
@@cedarvillemusic
This is neat!
I dont have good ears though to learn a whole piece like that. Any advice for that? I went University and got nothing out of my ear-training and sight-singing classes.
It's like video games. Start at a really easy level, get the dopamine hit, and keep progressing slowly. How to get addicted to sight reading 😋
When muscle-memory is understood then the skillset can be taught on the keyboard.
I am learning how to play the Piano,I welcome any feedback, techniques. Thank you so much!!
Hey John, Your suggestions are all very clear, but what about the tempo of the pieces?
Should we go straight for the intended tempo or is slower just fine?
As slow as you need to go and still play accurately. I tell my students to start at 50% speed.
8:30 that’s just a hypothesis which I don’t find convincing. Playing something 2/3/4 times in a row could still be useful and we just don’t know. “Don’t know” is the right answer, not that you must go over to the next piece. I mean first time reading is memorizing, too 😅
One thing I struggle with when it comes to sight reading is finding enough sheet music that is at an appropriate level for me! Any good book recommendations for various levels of sight reading?
There are a number of websites that offer unlimited amount of generated music at all sight-reading levels.
Does it matter if I am just reading the interval and not the notes?
Do you have recommendations for sight-reading material available for free? (IMSLP) I sight-read at a relatively high level but not as good as I'd like. Music around the level of Mozart sonata slow movements.
I could sight read well from a young age…which made me less inclined to practice a lot. I’m sure my teacher never knew😂😂😂
Here I was hoping to get some sight-reading "secrets" LOL
Well, I can sight read 30 times the same piece. I can't memorize a single note, I can't play even the first bar without the paper. So, it's like always the first time. Perhaps my brain is rewired differently. 😮😮
So there is "One Magical Trick, That Will Improve Your Sight Reading (you won't believe step 2)": Learn not to look at your hands!
When I thought I wanted to be a jazz pianist, I made a "practice schema", where I would play IIm V I's in all different keys (a minor third down, a major third up, repeat). Gradually, I'd increase the metronome's speed, and switch the schema to something else, but the important part is, that at first the system was too complicated for me to memorise, so I had to keep my eyes on the paper. I didn't play any music from score in this period, but when I got interested in some piece half a year later, to my amazement - my sight reading had improved drastically. I haven't kept my sight reading active, so I'm still not good, and probably worse than then, but I thought I'd share my experience.
Oh, and there is no step 2, besides "what Dr. Mortensen said". Still, I might add the warning that the musical style of what you are playing will influence which styles you become comfortable in reading. You won't become as good of a sight reader for music of the Late Romantic period by sight reading Baroque as you would practicing you sight reading music from the Late Romantic period , and none of these would make Modernist works as competent than practicing from that period. Your hands will learn the grammar of the period you've practiced, so to speak, so specialise or keep your diet varied depending on your goals!
How much do you think sight reading is helped by knowing music theory? I feel as though, to improve my sight reading I should learn theory, that it is as important as the reading practice itself. Do you agree? Thanks
I much prefer to play by ear and come up with my own interpretation than to read and play someone else's work! Especially when my teacher tells me I have to play it exactly to the T! That ain't playing in my opinion!
There’s a problem. Not enough easy music to go about. Play everyday 20min, 1 times per piece, after 1 month, I can’t find easy pieces to play
I disagree with the tips and tricks point. Sometimes shortcuts are necessary, especially as a professional collaborative pianist. Granted, these are careful shortcuts, tricks that rearrange the distribution of notes to better show the intention (and maybe lessen the amount of work required to be good at a particularly challenging section).
The same applies with sight-reading--when pressured to execute something on sight, on the fly, in rhythm with other people, one really HAS to know how to adapt the score to execute things in the moment that may take a great deal of practice otherwise. The point of being good at sight-reading is identifying the intention of the piece, and then giving a facsimile of it that generally shows the rhythm, harmony, balance, etc. In short, the best trick in sight-reading is developing good instincts--when this is accomplished, everything else becomes clear! So do your theory homework 😂😂😂
We get dumber and slower? I don't agree. We get out of the habit of learning, that's all. Most of us. It's all nurture, not nature. I still learn fast as an older person. I got a top class science degree in my mid-50s. Many comments from profs and professional staff comparing me to the typical slower older student who fails. Maybe most people get "dumber and slower" but it's because they're dealing with life and don't have curiosity for learning. So, what you say may be statistically true, but as with your basic statement that it's not innate - it's nurture, not nature.
Sad truth, we just get dumber over time. 😭
Always thought hands separately was a bad idea, but I didn't know any better. When I tried hands together from the start of a new piece eventually, it was like someone switched on the light! Why is piano taught like that? It wastes so much time....
I agree so much with your views. Jump in with both hands always. On any new piece you learn. Its rubbish to practise both hands separately. Both together from the start always. Shape the piece then if you need to split it later to analyse it in specific bars.
When I sight-read, I end up not remembering what I played (unless I make a mistake which sticks in my memory). Is it normal to not remember, it is like driving and not remembering the drive at all, after arriving.