How to improve at sight reading
How to improve at sight reading
Any musician can vouch for the importance of sight reading - this technique allows you to improvise playing a piece without the need for any prior practice. As you can imagine, this can greatly benefit performance and broaden your repertoire.
However, improving sight reading can take time. Here are some tips on how you can better sightread:
Expand your musical horizons
Sight-reading is intended to prepare you for all kinds of pieces that might come your way. The whole point of it is to give you the skills necessary to improvise music of all genres. As such, it’s best to keep that in mind when you’re practicing and to avoid limiting your sight-reading learning journey to one single music genre. This will also ensure that you’re more comfortable playing different rhythms and scores.
Get better at the basics
Before you delve straight into learning how to sight-read, make sure that you have mastered all of the basics of piano playing. From knowing your scales to understanding time signatures, these are all aspects of music that you need to be really familiar with if you wish to move on to learning how to successfully sight read. Don’t jump straight into something that’s harder if you don’t feel confident about the basics.
Feel free to use markings
Don’t be afraid to leave marks on your music sheets. They’re an essential part of learning and can help you finally grasp those instances in a piece that might cause you trouble. Even professional musicians do it - there is nothing to be ashamed of. If this helps you, then keep it up!
Try to avoid looking at your hands
In every pianist’s musical journey, comes a time when you need to rely less on looking at your hands and move your focus to the music. This is fundamental when it comes to sight-reading, as your eyes need to be fully concentrated on the notes that you are discovering for the first time. A good way to practice this is to start by playing your scales without looking at your hands, closing your eyes, or focusing somewhere else entirely. This skill will allow you to better prepare for every new note that’s coming up in the piece you sight-read.
Start slow and steady
Like with everything else you learn in music, it’s best to start slow. Keep your tempo manageable and avoid the temptation of delving straight into playing a fast piece. The latter would only encourage mistakes rather than aid your sight-reading.
These are just some of the tips you can try out when you’re starting out with sight-reading. This skill might seem complicated to grasp at the beginning since it does require musicians to get out of their comfort zone and embrace the music with little to no preparation. However, it also unlocks the potential of being able to freely jam with other musicians whenever you like and to expand your repertoire to music you might have never considered playing before. Ultimately, take your time with learning sight-reading and enjoy the benefits that mastering this practice can bring.
