There are a few certain skills that can take your musical craft to the next level, and one of those is certainly sight reading. Mastering the art of sight reading translates into learning new songs faster, getting ready for a performance in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days, and becoming a more “marketable” performer, for all intents and purposes.
Today we’ll look into what it means to sight read, why you should learn how to do it and how you can make your first steps towards proficient sight reading.
What Is Sight Reading?
Sight reading is the skill of translating written music into a performance on the spot. It means that you can read and perform sheet music the first time you see it, without prior rehearsal.
The reason why sight reading is important is because it improves the musician's efficiency and workflow. Whether you're a piano player learning a new piece for a stage performance, working in an orchestra, or replacing another artist at the last minute, sight reading makes you a valuable musician who can deliver a good performance as soon as you receive the score.
Sight singing is precisely the same thing, but using the voice instead of musical instruments. The sight-sing technique allows you to adapt to a new piece and collaborate seamlessly with others right away. This technique can be used either by singers learning a new song or musicians who sing their part without using their instruments.
Why is Sight Reading Important?
Sight reading is for musicians what typing without looking at the keyboard is for writers. Or an example in sports could be the difference between two soccer players, one running with the ball while looking at it, and the other running while scouting the field to see how the action could develop.
In short, sight reading in music allows you to be more efficient, functional, and reliable in any musical scenario.
Sight reading is the manifestation of strong foundations in rhythm and pitch. If you can read a score and play it on the fly with a good level of accuracy, chances are you’re able to do so across different genres and situations, making you a versatile and dependable artist in the music-making process. In a way, it certifies your music education.
However, it’s in the process of mastering sight reading where most of the benefits are. You’ll train your ears and eyes to interpret notes automatically, and anticipate the next parts of a song with just a glimpse. This will give you a huge advantage when performing in an orchestra, scoring a movie, or joining a choir.
Being able to sight-read proficiently will make a lasting impression during auditions. Imagine you’re looking for a musician, and you have to choose between one who can perform new music right away and another who needs a few hours to read it through. Similarly, when a composer wants to hear how their music sounds, advanced sight reading skills will help you bring their musical score to life.
People in the music business value efficiency: everyone wants to get things done in the fastest possible ways, be it to reduce hiring/rental expenses or because of tight project deadlines.
In these contexts, being a sight reader is like having a superpower: it's an advantage that can make you stand out even in front of more experienced or skilled musicians. People in the industry will see you as someone who can speed up a process, save their money and time, and simplify the lives of the other performers involved.
You don't need a perfect pitch or decades of training to sight-read, and while piano lessons will certainly help, all you have to do is practice reading until you can play an unfamiliar piece the first time you see it.
The Different Aspects of Sight Reading
What does it take to become an excellent sight reader? The ability to translate notes on paper into music requires you to know precisely the value of each piece of information included on that music sheet.
Let’s take a look at the most crucial information you’ll need to recreate during your performance. Ideally, each of these musical components would require its own dedicated article, but I’ll be brief, I promise.
Note Duration
Of course, the ability to recognize notes is paramount. Knowing how long to hold a note (it could be a whole note, half note, quarter note, or any subdivision) is what makes the song sound the way it does.
The same goes with the rests. Pauses are a crucial part of a composition’s flow, and getting them wrong will drastically change the piece. A deep understanding of every single note value is a great starting point if you want to become a proficient sight reader.
Tempo
Tempo is the speed at which a piece of music is performed. You may find the tempo defined in BPM (beats per minute) or through Italian terminology (especially in classical music).
Sight reading requires you to internalize the tempo and be able to recreate it perfectly when performing a new piece of music.
Here’s how traditional Italian terminology is translated into BPM:
Larghissimo - 20 BPM and below
Grave - 20–40 BPM
Lento (or Largo) - 40–60 BPM
Larghetto - 60–66 BPM
Adagio - 66–76 BPM
Adagietto - 70–80 BPM
Andante moderato - 69–72 BPM
Andantino - 66–83 BPM
Andante - 76–108 BPM
Moderato - 108–120 BPM
Allegretto - 98–109 BPM
Allegro moderato -112–124 BPM
Allegro -120–168 BPM
Vivace -126–144 BPM
Vivacissimo - 140–150 BPM
Allegrissimo - 150-167 BPM
Presto -168–200 BPM
Prestissimo - more than 200 BPM
Time Signature
The time signature or meter is a pattern of strong and weak beats that keeps repeating, creating the foundation of a musical composition.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the standard 4/4, and if you’ve played music for some time, you probably can recreate this time signature right away. But with more complex rhythms, this skill becomes even more crucial, as missing a beat or measure can compromise the entire performance.
Rhythm
Rhythm goes hand in hand with the time signature: where the former defines how many beats and which beats to stress, rhythm describes the flow of the music. It defines the value of the notes in the passage and how the values relate to the meter.
Rhythm is the soul of music, and being able to read complex rhythms on the fly is a skill that will allow you to master any composition in no time.
How To Get Better at Sight Reading
Here are a few tips to improve your sight reading ability. While there's not one way to practice sight reading, there are certain techniques and tricks that'll make you become more confident when facing a new music score.
Improving Your Music Theory Skills
Trust me, you’ll get nowhere with sight reading unless you’re able to read and interpret musical symbols in a fraction of a second. So this is where you should start if you want to become a good sight reader.
Being able to translate key signatures, scales, chord progressions, and intervals into sounds will allow you to recognize patterns in no time, which makes the process of sight reading more natural and fluid.
And while reading every single note demands a lot of your attention, by recognizing chord progressions and familiar keys, you can streamline your efforts and prepare yourself for the following sections of the piece.
Needless to say, all this requires a deep knowledge of music theory, so the sooner you hone your skills, the faster you’ll see results in your sight-reading process.
Focus on the Tempo and the Bass
I’ve been playing for a couple of decades now, and many times I ended up improvising entire pieces on stage. Some people, even other musicians, see it as a form of sorcery, but it’s nothing of the sort: it’s a trick you learn through experience.
Here’s the secret: get the tempo right, and look for musical patterns in a song’s harmonic flow.
Maintaining a steady beat already allows all the other artists involved in the project to do their own thing, whether it’s singing, playing, or acting. This means no one is wasting their time even if your performance is not flawless.
Next, you want to give a solid structure to those who’re working with you, and that comes from chord structures. Usually played with your left hand if you’re a pianist, these patterns can become an anchor that’ll give structural support and guidance to your sight reading.
Memorizing the chord structure or the bass line will help you preserve your cognitive resources, allowing you to focus most of your mental energies on the main melody, which is the hardest to predict.
But once you get a grip on the tempo and melodic structure, you’re more than halfway through the process!
Don’t Look at Your Hands
If you look at your hands while sight reading, you’ll always need a fraction of a second to make out where you are in the music sheet the moment you raise your head again.
This tiny disruption in the flow of the performance can be detrimental in many ways: you might have to slow down, or miss an important passage while finding the right place in the music sheet.
The only way to avoid this is by being able to feel your way around the instrument without looking at it. This takes familiarity with your musical instrument which you can only build with time.
But once you’ve learned how to play without looking at your hands, your muscle memory will help you a great deal while sight reading, and give you the chance to focus on the more complex parts of a music sheet.
A great way to familiarize yourself with your instrument is to play music you already know with your eyes closed. This will help you rely on your muscle memory rather than your sight, and also increase your confidence when playing your instrument.
Bear in mind that every musical instrument is different. You might be able to play your guitar with your eyes closed, but that doesn't mean that you can play any guitar in the same way. So don't get too confident!
Don’t Stop or Replay if You Make a Mistake
It might be unnecessary to underline this, but I’ll do it anyway: whatever happens, don’t stop.
If you have experience playing music live, you know that mistakes happen, and when they do happen, the only thing you can do is go ahead and play the song till the end. The same goes with sight reading.
When you’re sight reading, chances are that others are depending on your playing, which means that stopping abruptly will compromise everyone else’s work, too. Instead, focus on finding your balance again, and remember the part where you made the mistake, should it reappear later in the music sheet.
Accepting that mistakes can be made, and that the rest of your performance shouldn’t be affected by them in any way, is not just an important music lesson, but also something that you can use in every other aspect of your life.
Practice Sight Reading Daily
More than anything else, daily practice is what will help you sight read fluently. Even if for just 10-15 minutes a day, find the time to pick a new piece and try to play it a prima vista. Choose songs that are in line with your current skills, and play them as slowly as you need to, until you get them right and feel comfortable enough to speed up.
You can choose a different piece every month, every week, or even every day. Skip through the music sheet quickly to memorize key and time signatures, and then start playing it at your own pace.
You can choose music you’re not familiar with, to help you broaden your musical horizons, or focus on a particular composer you love. Regardless of how you're going to do it, make sure that you can invest fifteen minutes of your day in score reading and practicing a piece you're not familiar with, and the results will come sooner than you think.
Learn How to “Cheat”
“Cheating” in sight reading means achieving the best possible result in the fastest possible way. There are a couple of tricks you can use to make the most of your sight-reading performance: deep scanning the music sheet and memorizing the broader structure of a piece. Even the best sight readers do that, so don't think too much about it!
Take a moment to go over the music sheet. Analyze key signatures, accidentals, time signatures, repeats, and any other important markings that could throw you off mid-performance. Whenever possible, make notes to remind yourself about certain passages. Before doing that, take deep breaths and clear your mind: you’ll need to imprint those musical symbols in your mind.
Focus on the broader structure rather than individual notes. In this way, you can simplify complex passages or approximate rhythms to keep moving forward without stopping. It might not be perfect, but it’ll do the job, and that’s the most important thing when you play a piece "at first sight."
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide will help you start your journey toward proficient sight-reading! Remember that, especially if you're just getting started, sight reading practice is non-negotiable. Invest 15 or more minutes of your day to play a new song a prima vista and you’ll start seeing results sooner than you think.
Remember to practice sight-reading music with songs that are in line with your skill level. There's nothing worse than getting overwhelmed trying to sight read music that's simply too complex for your musical ability.
That said, make sure you enjoy the process, and appreciate all the knowledge you’ll obtain from improving your sight reading abilities: advanced music theory and improvisational skills, as well as the ability to learn new songs ten times faster than you were before.
Have fun!
