You would like to improve your sight reading, but you are not sure where to start?
Perhaps you are just beginning as a musician or have been performing for many years; this is the place for you.
Sight reading is the ability to play a piece of music correctly on the first pass through. With this skill, you will be able to learn music quicker and be able to master it easier. We all have a limit to the number of hours we can practice in a day. Learning effective sight reading skills will make you a better musician.
The best way to increase your sight reading skills is to practice sight reading. To do this, you need to find new material that is at a comfortable level for you to practice. In the beginning, you don't want to choose pieces of music that is too complex.
After you have selected your music to sight read, set a metronome and play the piece. Make sure that you stay on track with the metronome as correct rhythm is more important than the melodies. Imagine you were in an ensemble, if you could choose correct rhythm or melody, you would want rhythm because at least you would be in the right place.
After you have played through a piece of music, it should be retired for a while since practicing it would no longer be considered sight reading. On to the next piece!
To challenge yourself, even more, you can increase the tempo or choose pieces of music that are more difficult.
How to use Practice Sight Reading
Practice Sight Reading creates random pieces of music for musicians to practice. You can control the difficulty of the rhythms, as well as the tempo, and pitches. You don't need to source new sheet music to practice!
If you are brand new to this site, set the tempo at 80 and select Level 1. If you are practicing rhythm, clap through the rhythm with the recording. Then click on [Refresh Music] to get another Level 1 piece. When this becomes easy, increase the tempo or increase to Level 2.
Add Practice Sight Reading to your daily practice session. We practice scales every day; we should also be practicing sight reading!
Photo by Michael Maasen