Teach Yourself to Play Piano: How to Improve Sight-Reading Music

This article assumes you already know how to read music. It is geared toward pianists, but the principles outlined should apply to all musicians. If you want to learn the basics of how to read music, visit the links section of this article (or click on the words before this phrase). If you live in or near Charlotte, NC and you want piano lessons, check out my piano studio website in the links below.

Set up a process that you follow every time before you start playing your instrument. I'll list some of the important steps to go through. You may require more or fewer steps in your pre-playing routine, but the point is to establish a routine. This routine is part of your practice session. Practicing the pre-playing routine is just as important as the playing itself. The point is to practice mindfully, so as to make the most efficient use of your time. Mindless practice, whether you're working on repertoire or sight-reading, grooves in bad habits-you might as well not be practicing.

1. Take note of the time signature and key signature. This is an obvious point, but if you're in a hurry to start playing you might miss this.

2. Quickly and silently read through what you're about to play. The objective here is to get an idea of the structure of the piece. Notice motives or repetitive melodic and rhythmic fragments. Watch out for sections that look nasty (extra sharps and flats, modulations, busy rhythmic activity, etc.). See if there any roadmap issues like repeat signs or D.C. al Fine. What you're doing here is pre-loading information into your brain so that when you encounter it in your playing, you can navigate it more easily. After years of practice you will be able to silently "play" the score in your head by just looking at it. This is a skill called audiation.

3. Set a starting and stopping point. If you're going to play through the whole piece then this step is already done for you, but if you're reading a Beethoven Sonata you probably shouldn't try to get through the whole thing in one sitting. Set a manageable goal. Maybe this is one line, maybe it's one page, or maybe it's an entire movement. When sight-reading you cannot stop, so the amount you read in one sitting should be in line with your attention span. As long as you can remind mindful and focused on the process of sight-reading, keep playing! Once your mind starts to wander, stop and take a break.

4. Set a tempo that allows you to play 85-90% of the notes correctly. This might be the most important point. Sight-reading becomes discouraging if every other note is flubbed. If you're missing more notes than you're hitting, you're inhibiting your improvement. A big part of sight-reading is keyboard memory. You fingers will start to learn the topography of the keyboard as you improve, and you will be able to remain focused on the score instead of looking down at your hands. If you choose a tempo that's too fast, your mind and your hands will not learn to connect all those black dots on the page to a location on the keyboard.

5. Do some last minute mental coaching. You can customize this step to your own needs, but you must remind yourself of three things before you start playing: don't stop, keep your eyes on the music, and read ahead. You might say these words out loud or in your mind before you play. More on these in the next section.

After all this preparation, count 1 or 2 measures in your head (at an appropriate tempo) and have at it. This the fun part, but you must keep in mind the 3 steps from the previous section.

1. Don't stop. If you're ever thrown into a situation where you have to sight-read in public or play with other musicians, you can't start and stop. Practice not stopping no matter what. Leaving out notes is okay but stopping is not. You can always go back and check out what you missed later. Many good sight-readers are actually good approximators and guessers (fakers). They get the jist of what's on the page and most people don't notice that they're not playing every note that's written.

2. Keep your eyes on the music. Forcing yourself to do this is very difficult, but it is necessary. It will help you with not stopping and starting as well as help you develop keyboard memory. Look at your hands as little as possible. You might have to glance down briefly for large jumps, but keep this to a minimum. With practice you'll be hardly looking down at all. The music calls for you to drop down an octave in your left hand? Boom. No problem. Your kinesthetic awareness is highly refined! If you don't look down you can refine this skill to a point where you're happily leaping around the keyboard without any anxiety about missing.

3. Read ahead. This step goes hand-in-hand with keeping your eyes on the music. At first you might only be reading one note ahead of what you're playing. That's okay! Just make sure your eyes are always ahead. Eventually you will be able to widen your gaze to pick up half a measure or more. What you're really working on here is super short term memory. You'll be playing one thing while your brain is storing information that you're going to play just a second or two in the future. Sounds hard, right?

As you can see, sight-reading is complex.  There are aural, cognitive, and kinesthetic skills that have to work together at the same time for someone to sight-read.  Don't become discouraged.  Sight-reading is the equivalent of reading a language while performing complicated motor functions.  Not many people can read a book while doing a back-flip.  So keep it cool if you don't see immediate results.  Stay disciplined in your approach, and revel in the fact that your brain-power is expanding at an exponentially faster rate than the mere mortals around you.