How to Sight Read Music Sight reading music is one of the most important things you need to know to be any good at your instrument of choice, only beaten by the importance of learning how to actually play the instrument itself. For the vast majority of required sight reading, you are allowed to look at the music for a given amount of time between thirty seconds and ten minutes. Internalizing these sight reading tips can help you on your way to becoming a better sight reader. 1. Find music to sight read. You can find music for your instrument and difficulty level in books and at sheet music stores. There are even sight reading websites that provide music specifically to help with sight reading practice. Once you have a piece of music ready... 2. Breathe. Nervousness causes the most problems in sight reading. It can cause a cracked note, an overkill of vibrato, or a mistaken tempo -- errors which you must avoid at all cost. Relax, take deep breaths, and start to look at the music. 3. Read the title of the piece. This may not sound like it will help you in actually playing the piece, but it really does -- after all, the title summarizes the entire piece into a few descriptive words. If you do not read the title, then you are losing a key advantage into the mood of the piece, and the emotion you should put into playing it. Provided that there is a title given, you should always read it before looking at the music. You may also look at the composer of the piece, to get an idea of the time frame in which the piece was written and the style of the composer. Knowing the historical period of the piece can help you tremendously, as it allows you to anticipate accidentals and tricky dissonance. 4. Look at the tempo. Most of the time, the tempo will be given to you at the top of the piece next to the composer. Sometimes the provided tempo will be more vague, such as simply saying Slow or Jazzy, and sometimes it will be much more exact, such as saying Moderately slow with a slight upbeat swing feel to it, quarter note equals seventy-two. No matter what the given tempo is, you must try your absolute best to follow it. Some room is normally given for slowing it down or speeding it up to give the best emotion or feel to the piece that you can, but when you play or sing the piece, you need to make sure that the people listening to you realize that you did, in fact, look at the tempo. 5. Check out the time signature. Always look at the time signature no matter if its your first time looking at a piece, or your thousandth. There is a huge difference between six-eight time and common time, and if you dont look at the time signature, and play the piece in common time, the people listening may think that you dont actually know how to play in six-eight time. 6. Check out the key signature. Playing the wrong key signature will make the piece sound dissonant and make it seem that you cant read a key signature. 7. Look for changes. Is there a new key signature introduced halfway through the piece? What about time? Is there an accelerando or a ritardando? Pay special attention to those, and be sure to note all of them. If you are allowed to keep the music, you should underline them on the music. If you are not the only person who will be sight reading that particular copy, never make marks to it. There may be places where you should get faster or slower, softer or louder to fit the style of the piece. These may not be marked in the music. Add these little changes as long as it fits the style, because the people listening will realize that you know when to change things around a bit to make the piece sound nicer. How to Sight Read Music Sight reading music is one of the most important things you need to know to be any good at your instrument of choice, only beaten by the importance of learning how to actually play the instrument itself. For the vast majority of required sight reading, you are allowed to look at the music for a given amount of time between thirty seconds and ten minutes. Internalizing these sight reading tips can help you on your way to becoming a better sight reader. Ad Edit Steps 1Find music to sight read. You can find music for your instrument and difficulty level in books and at sheet music stores. There are even sight reading websites that provide music specifically to help with sight reading practice. Once you have a piece of music ready... 2Breathe. Nervousness causes the most problems in sight reading. It can cause a cracked note, an overkill of vibrato, or a mistaken tempo -- errors which you must avoid at all cost. Relax, take deep breaths, and start to look at the music. 3Read the title of the piece. This may not sound like it will help you in actually playing the piece, but it really does -- after all, the title summarizes the entire piece into a few descriptive words. If you do not read the title, then you are losing a key advantage into the mood of the piece, and the emotion you should put into playing it. Provided that there is a title given, you should always read it before looking at the music. You may also look at the composer of the piece, to get an idea of the time frame in which the piece was written and the style of the composer. Knowing the historical period of the piece can help you tremendously, as it allows you to anticipate accidentals and tricky dissonance. 4Look at the tempo. Most of the time, the tempo will be given to you at the top of the piece next to the composer. Sometimes the provided tempo will be more vague, such as simply saying Slow or Jazzy, and sometimes it will be much more exact, such as saying Moderately slow with a slight upbeat swing feel to it, quarter note equals seventy-two. No matter what the given tempo is, you must try your absolute best to follow it. Some room is normally given for slowing it down or speeding it up to give the best emotion or feel to the piece that you can, but when you play or sing the piece, you need to make sure that the people listening to you realize that you did, in fact, look at the tempo. 5Check out the time signature. Always look at the time signature no matter if its your first time looking at a piece, or your thousandth. There is a huge difference between six-eight time and common time, and if you dont look at the time signature, and play the piece in common time, the people listening may think that you dont actually know how to play in six-eight time. 6Check out the key signature. Playing the wrong key signature will make the piece sound dissonant and make it seem that you cant read a key signature. 7Look for changes. Is there a new key signature introduced halfway through the piece? What about time? Is there an accelerando or a ritardando? Pay special attention to those, and be sure to note all of them. If you are allowed to keep the music, you should underline them on the music. If you are not the only person who will be sight reading that particular copy, never make marks to it. There may be places where you should get faster or slower, softer or louder to fit the style of the piece. These may not be marked in the music. Add these little changes as long as it fits the style, because the people listening will realize that you know when to change things around a bit to make the piece sound nicer. 8. Check out the dynamics. Its very important to start off at a forte if the piece says to, and not a piano, because then the piece will probably ask you to get quieter, and if you are already at piano, then theres not much further to go until you arent even audible any longer. Inversely, if the piece asks you to start off at a piano, dont start off louder! If the piece asks for a specific dynamic, you can be quite sure that thats meant to be very obvious. If there is no marking in the beginning, look ahead to see what is going to happen later, and decide based on that. If there are no dynamics in the whole piece, then the best bet is to start off mezzo-forte and get louder and softer when it should.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 08:37:46 +0000