Tackling Sight Reading

Hi everyone,

In todays post I will be talking about tackling sight reading.

Sight reading is a skill within music that needs to be developed over time. In some cases, learners can get it straight away; but more often than not, it doesn't naturally come to others - and thats okay. There's no right or wrong way to develop your sight reading skills, but all I can say is just keep working at it, and it will happen.

Scales and Arpeggios

Before you even tackle sight reading make sure that you have practiced a few scales and arpeggios, just to warm up and familiarise yourself with the scales and arpeggios that you are working on.

Keep it Simple

If your just starting out developing your sight reading, please keep it simple to begin with. If you are learning a one octave G Major scale, then choose a sight reading exercise that also has the one octave G Major scale. 

Graded Sight Reading

If you are doing sight reading as part of your graded music exams, then start sight reading one to two grades below the grade that you are working on. This will enable you to gradually build up your sight reading skills up to the grade that you are working on over a period of time. By doing it this way, you also won't get as much of a shock, as if you would jumping straight in to the grade that you are working on.

You Can Always Go Back

If you aren't happy you can always take it back to basics and start again at a lower grade. There's nothing wrong in taking things back slightly to help you to progress a little further. Sight reading can be tricky to grasp and understand, especially in the beginner stages of learning a musical instrument. You can go back as many times as you want throughout your musical journey. You might also want to reinforce an unusual time signature or a more advanced key signature.

The 30 Second Rule

Don't throw yourself into this straightaway. For some exam boards, as part of their sight reading element of the exam; they will ask you to look at a piece of music that you have never seen before, and look at it for 30 seconds before they will then ask you to play that piece of music. 

Once you have become more familiar with doing sight reading, you can have a go at reading a new piece of music for 30 seconds and then have a go at playing it. Just to give you a feel of what it would be like during the exam, and get yourself more comfortable with the exam sight reading process.

Sight Reading Books

- Trinity Sight Reading (Initial - Grade 2)

- Trinity Sight Reading (Grades 3 - 5)

- Trinity Sight Reading (Grades 6 - 8)

- Improve Your Sight Reading (Grades 1 - 3)

- Improve Your Sight Reading (Grades 4 - 5)

- Improve Your Sight Reading (Grades 6 - 8)

- Schott Sight Reading Book One

- Schott Sight Reading Book Two

- ABRSM Sight Reading (Grades 1 - 5)

- ABRSM Sight Reading (Grades 6 - 8)

* The 'Improve Your Sight Reading' books by Paul Harris varies in the number of books, depending on the instrument you are learning. In some cases, its one book per grade.