The dreaded sight-reading...

sparkman

I'm doing Grade 8 double bass exam in November 2009. My sight reading is woeful. My teacher has tried all kinds of things like making me look at rythm first, then just play 1st note of each bar, etc. Nothing has really worked. I just seize up!
I know some of it is just nerves but have I any hope of getting good at it between now and November? I'm prepared to put in the time as long as I know I'm taking the right approach. At this stage I'm just thinking of grabbing every bass line I can find that I haven't played before, even from bits of piano music and giving it approx 5 - 10 mins per day on top of my other practice.
Is this the right way? Has anyone out there gone from being rubbish at sight-reading to pretty good in a matter of months?

Dr Gradus

Im in a similiar boat.

Workin towards my grade 8 piano, and im dismal at sightreading.

For exam purposes be sure to keep the rhythm going, even if your playing most of the notes wrong you still get alot of marks for rhythm.

Otherwise its just practise i guess. Been learning a few simple enough unes by sight reading and hoping an improvement will come along over the summer. Your plans for 5 or 10 minutes within every practise session set aside for sight reading sounds good to me.

The Mad Hatter

I'm a pretty poor sight-reader, but I'm better than I was, and I've found that the best way to improve is by constant practise.

A few pieces of advice:

• Look through it before you start. It sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how few people actually do it. And as you're looking through it, imagine how it will feel to play it.
• Try not to stop once you've started. Pulse is the most important thing.
• Try not to get stressed about it. Easier said than done, I know, but if you keep your mind relaxed it will be more focussed and the piece will be easier to play.
• Start easy. I know you have an exam coming up, but trying to do really hard sight reading from scratch will just frustrate you.

sparkman

Thanks!

Doshea3

Agreed with everything Mad Hatter said. Main thing with sightreading is just to do it, and do a lot of it. I only became a good sightreader from taking a couple of hours every day and reading through things. That's the best advice I can give you. You pick up the skills as you go along, and from reading regularly you will develop good reading habits.

sparkman

So, my practice routine (on a good day and they're not all good days!) already consists of about 45 mins of scales and then about another 60 mins of playing through the pieces. That's about the max I can manage. It will possibly be less scales over the next few months as I get better at them (hopefully).

When you say you read a couple of hours a day, do you literally mean reading through new music? Sounds like a lot unless you're lucky enough to be pro?

Doshea3

Yep. It takes a while at first but the main thing is to just keep at it. It's painstaking for a while but as you develop a routine reading just becomes a habit. No matter how little time you can manage, important thing is to just concentrate and do it every day for a sustained period of time.

sparkman

...and there was I hoping for the "just spend 5 mins a day doing this and you'll be a master" tip.....
Only jokin - thanks for the good advice (everyone). I better warn herself about the the 10-15 mins of scraping that'll be coming from the room while I take on sight-reading for the next few months!

dan_d

Hey I'm a pianist, and I found that my sight reading improved a lot by simply playing all sorts of pieces of music. As in, I'd buy sheet music of popular stuff off the internet and mess around with it. Also did sight reading as part of my practice, but it was only for about 5 mins. Get as many popular, not-too-easy pieces that you'd like to learn and play through them a few of times a week. Not in order, and not learning them by heart. enough to sharpen the speed at which you read the notes and play them on the instrument. That does actually count as practice!

electrogrimey

Do you play with any orchestras? If you don't then consider joining one, that could vastly improve sightreading!

Civilian_Target

For sure, practice is the best way.

But as everyone has already said

• Check and double check the key signature before you start. The piece won't make any sense if you don't fix your key
• Pick a pulse that's just quick enough to find the tune, even if you get it wrong. It's always temping to go slow, but if you can't see any tune, going slow will just make it sound worse.
• Once you start, keep going, even if you screw the rhythm, the notes, the key signature, whatever. If it's 4/4, once you have done 4 beats go to the next bar even if you only hit one note in the last one.
• It's never too late to remedy a bad play. You can always hit the last note.