Do you relish first encounters with new music? Or does the thought of sight reading fill you with dread? Assimilating unseen music is an important skill for any musician, whether you’re taking your first steps or you’re an experienced player. The ability to play through fresh repertoire allows us to assess whether we wish to study it further, and in ensembles that fluency of reading is crucial if we’re to be a useful team player.
Think for a moment about what’s required of us when we’re sight reading. You’re reading a written language (much like reading text) and this tells us which notes to play and in what rhythm. Alongside this you have information about whether to play smoothly or detached, how loud or soft, tempo, character and more besides. When you consider the level of multitasking this requires it’s a miracle any of us can get from one end of a new piece to the other without falling over immediately! If sight reading is something you find difficult, don’t give yourself too hard a time - just remember how much you’re trying to do simultaneously.
Having made sight reading sound like an unscalable mountain, my aim today is to help you turn that mountain into a much smaller peak, or maybe a group of smaller hills. Sight reading may come more naturally for some people, but it’s a skill you can definitely improve with practice - just like any other aspect of musicianship.
Let’s take a look at what needs to happen when you’re given a piece to sight read…
One step at a time
It’s easy to panic when faced with a new piece of music but the best strategy is to break the task down into smaller chunks. Let’s consider the most important things to do before you play a single note….
Look at the key signature
Don’t just think to yourself, ‘There are two sharps”, but actually work out which ones they are - F sharp and C sharp. Finger these notes on your recorder so you immediately begin to build some muscle memory.
Check the time signature
How many beats are there in each bar and what sort of beats are they? The top number of the time signature tells you the number of beats, and the bottom number tells you the type. So 3/4 means three crotchet beats in each bar. If you’ve come to music in adulthood and missed out on learning the basics of music theory it’s worth seeking out some tuition to fill the gaps in your knowledge as this’ll help with sight reading too. A local music shop, if you have one near you, is a great place to ask about nearby teachers, and there are many online resources to help you learn about music theory. If this is something you’d like me to cover here, on the Score Lines blog do get in touch or leave a comment below.
Look for accidentals
Glance through the music and look for accidentals. Are there any ‘exotic’ ones which need translating - for instance a G flat is really only an F sharp in disguise. Recognising them in advance will help you play them with greater ease. While you’re at it, look for sharps and flats which repeat later in the bar - you could even pencil them in to remind you!
Check the tempo marking
What speed does the composer want you to play? You may not be able to play it at full speed immediately, but at least try to have any idea what might have been in his or her mind. Wikipedia has a great glossary of musical terms which is worth bookmarking for future reference.
Consider the tempo you’re going to play
You may have to play more slowly than the indicated speed at first, but you do need to have thought about it before you begin! Look through the rhythms to see how wide a range of note values you have. If the music begins with the fastest notes that’s handy, because you get an immediate feel for how whizzy the music will be. If the piece begins with slower notes you’ll need to think through the mathematical relationship between the note values so you understand their relative speeds. Pick a speed where you’ll be able to at least have a stab at the fastest notes, and don’t be afraid to subdivide the longer notes into smaller beats in your head if you need to.
Now look closer at the rhythms
Having taken a wide view of the piece, look a little closer. Look for any funky rhythms which don’t immediately look straightforward. Relate the rhythms to the beats and see if that helps you figure them out. Maybe tap or scat sing the rhythm to yourself initially so you’re not trying to cope with complex rhythms and the fingerings at once. You can also pencil beat numbers into the music if that helps you understand the rhythm more easily.
Check out the rest of the score
Finally, look through at the other markings in the music - articulation (slurs, staccato, accents), dynamics, ornamentation. You may not be able to put all of these in on the first reading, but knowing they’re there is a start. The most important thing is to get the rhythm and pitch first time out - if you can add further refinements that’s a bonus.
A practical example
Let’s put this into practice now and look at a real world example. This short piece comes from a book of practice sight reading pieces. It’s a grade 6 piece, but the processes we’ve just considered can be applied at any level. If you would prefer to try this piece for yourself on descant or tenor recorder you can find a transposed version here.
Click on the music to download printable version
So what jumps off the page at me when I first look at this music?
We have an F sharp in the key signature (E minor, but the name of the key is less important than knowing which sharps to play), with six quaver beats in each bar. The tempo marking, Con moto, means ‘with movement’ so I would probably try to feel two dotted crotchet beats per bar to achieve a sense of flow. If that makes the semiquavers too quick, there’s no reason why you couldn’t feel a quaver beat though.
Glancing through the bars, there are a few accidentals. Checking if any of them repeat during the bar, I see the D sharp needs to be played twice in bar 12. Looking at other details, there are slurs and staccato to be played. The articulation patterns are pretty consistent, with staccato on all of the quavers and most of the semiquavers slurred in twos. Finally, there are some dynamic markings. These tend to be further down my list of priorities as I feel it’s more important to get the notes, rhythms and articulation on a first read through. It all depends on how easily you can cope with everything else so don’t be afraid to prioritise the notes and rhythms if that means you can keep going without hesitating or stopping.
Coping strategies and survival skills
Like everything in life, sight reading is easier if you have some simple strategies in place to help you. If you work through the steps I’ve suggested above that’ll put you on the right path, but here are some handy tips to help you through…
Don’t stop!
I clearly recall my first experience of playing clarinet in the school wind band. We were playing Little Brown Jug by Glenn Miller and I’d only been learning about a year, so I was pretty unsure what to expect. My line was pretty easy, but still I made mistakes and I remember being confused when the band didn’t wait for me as I fumbled my way through! Sight reading an unaccompanied piece is a very forgiving experience - you can stop and start as often as you want. But, the moment when good sight reading skills really come in handy is in an ensemble setting, where the others simply don’t wait for you. Therefore it’s good practice to make yourself keep going at all costs, no matter what you’re sight reading. Drop notes on the floor, but keep the pulse going in your head - you can come back later for a post mortem on what went wrong.
Be methodical and get into a routine
Build good habits. Always working though a mental checklist of the details you need to check before sight reading a piece. If you do this methodically you’ll get into a routine and sight reading will become easier.
Look ahead
When we read words, we gain a sense of the meaning by reading ahead a little, taking in more than one word at a time. This allows us to understand whole sentences, rather than just single words. Music is just the same. Your progress when reading one note at a time will be very slow. Instead, try to look for groups of notes. For instance a dotted crotchet will often be paired with a quaver - think of this like a two syllable word. Beyond that, try to look further on so you see what’s ahead of you and can make sense of whole musical sentences. The faster the music moves, the further you’ll need to look ahead, but don’t forget these wise words from Winston Churchill!
“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.”
Use the notation to help you
Music notation is designed to be helpful. Return to the music example above and look at the beaming. Beams are the horizontal lines which join together groups of shorter notes - quavers for instance. In most music, notes are beamed together in one beat groups. In this example the quavers and semiquavers are always connected together in dotted crotchet length chunks. This helps us see how the notes fit within the framework of the main beats in each bar. This helps you swiftly understand where the beats fall within the bar.
Be prepared for the notes you’ll inevitably forget
When faced with a key signature of multiple flats or sharps, there’ll always be one note you’re bound to forget - usually the last flat or sharp of the key signature. It must be something about the way our brains are wired, but almost every musician I know does this. If you’ve got three sharps, it’ll be the G sharp you’re likely to forget first, while in a key of four flats, you’re likely to overlook the D flats. If you know this you’re in a better position not to fall into the trap!
Focus on rhythm
Rhythm is what keeps music moving along so this should be your first point of focus when sight reading. Yes, aim to play the right notes too, but rhythm is key if you’re to get through the piece.
Don’t worry about perfection
A while ago I wrote a post about the tranny of perfection - the pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect musicians - a task we will always fail at. You can find it here, if you’d like to refresh your memory or read it for the first time. Sight reading will often cause us to fall into the same trap. It’s all too easy to feel you have to get everything perfect first time, but this a desire we’ll rarely fulfil. Instead, keep going, accept you’re going to make mistakes, but remember where they were so you can come back later to correct the errors.
Don’t be afraid to drop notes on the floor
I often jokingly tell ensembles they can drop notes on the floor and we’ll sweep them up later. Sometimes you just have to learn to edit the music on the spot in order to keep it flowing. I learnt this while studying for A level music. I was allocated a singer, whose lessons I was to accompany on the piano. Faced with a Vaughan Williams song with a key of five flats I knew I couldn’t play every note, so I focused on playing the bassline, along with some of the treble notes so my singer had enough accompaniment to carry him along. Second time round, I filled in some of the gaps, once I knew where the music was going.
Use your conductor
If you’re sight reading in an ensemble with a conductor, use them to help you get back on track. You probably won’t have time to eyeball them continuously. But if you’re able to keep their beat in your peripheral vision, you can then check that the first beat of your bars coincides with their downbeats.
Plan ahead and annotate your music
If you’re in an ensemble and you’re given your music while others are still being handed out, use that extra time wisely. Use the steps I listed earlier to prepare and don’t be afraid to pencil helpful notes in your music. Maybe glance through for accidentals and write in ones which reoccur so you don’t forget them first time.
Don’t panic!
Try to keep a clear head, concentrate solely on the task in hand and remember that nothing disastrous will happen if you do make a mistake.
Don’t forget to breathe!
While you’re focusing on getting round the notes, don’t forget to inhale from time to time. You need air to produce a good tone and the oxygen will help your brain to work better too.
You’ve got the basics, now to improve your skills…
Regardless of whether you’re a natural at sight reading, there are lots of things you can do to improve. Here are some practical things that’ll help you hone your skills.
Sight read often
Doing anything regularly will help you improve - conversely, if you only sight read occasionally it’s easy to forget the skills needed. Rummage through your own books of music for pieces you’ve never tried and set yourself the challenge of reading a few unfamiliar lines of music every day. There are graded sight reading books you can buy too and I’ve got some useful resources to share with you too. If you’re just starting out, something simple like a hymn book or a volume of easy folk songs will be useful. Think of this as musical speed dating. You have a short period with each piece of music, where you try to learn as much as possible about it, before moving on to your next date!
Be realistic about the music you choose
Don’t be tempted to select sight reading repertoire which is way beyond your capabilities. If you plan to work on a piece for several weeks or months it doesn’t matter if some of it is initially beyond you. Over time you’ll overcome the technical challenges and learn to play it. To hone your sight reading skills it’s better to choose something a little simpler so you have a sporting chance of maintaining a sense of flow. Over time you’ll be able to move on to more difficult music and stretch yourself further. This is where graded sight reading pieces can be useful, as you’ll be able to see the gradual progression in difficulty.
Practise scales and arpeggios
All music is made up from the patterns we find in scales and arpeggios. By learning to play these fluently, it helps us to recognise them when we see them in music. For grade exams you must memorise them, but I would argue that learning them from music is just as helpful for the purposes of sight reading. In the same way, there are certain combinations of letters which appear frequently in words - once we know this it becomes easier to understand and say words which use them - think of the ‘ough’ in rough, enough, thought and other words. Score Lines subscribers are welcome to download my scale and arpeggio sheets from the Members’ Area on my website. If you’re not a subscriber, why not sign up here for access to lots of exclusive subscriber goodies?
Explore different styles of music
Make yourself sight read music from different genres to widen your experience and learn to cope with unfamiliar patterns. One group I often conduct are great at sight reading early music, but really struggle with jazz based rhythms, purely because they’re less familiar with the style. The more you stretch yourself, the more adaptable you’ll become. Modern music often incorporates more complex rhythms than repertoire from the Renaissance or Baroque, stretching your rhythmic muscles more effectively.
Sight read with others
Playing on your own is enjoyable, but working with others makes you more accountable. Meet up with a friend to play duets, or find an ensemble you can join, where you’ll have to learn to keep going, come what may, when sight reading. If you don’t live near other recorder players, you can always play along with any of my Consort Videos to ensure you keep going!
Sight read on different recorders
If you play several sizes of recorder, make yourself sight read on all of them, perhaps picking a different instrument each day. Otherwise, if you always practise sight reading on the treble, there’s a danger you’ll be a demon reader on that recorder, but may struggle when faced with new music in descant fingering! If you struggle to find sight reading material for some sizes of recorder you’re very welcome to raid the my downloads page for more material.
Use your second chances wisely
When you play a piece for the second time, use that as an opportunity to get more detail and expression into your performance. Maybe pop in more of the dynamics or trills second time round. Be careful not to fall into the trap of overconfidence. On a second reading, subconsciously your brain is saying, “I know this piece a bit now - it’ll be easier this time”, so it’s easy to lose concentration. Conversely, many of the details you stored in short term memory the first time round will have left you because short term memories are stored for only a minute or so in our brains. The result is often a performance which is worse the second time! Don’t get overconfident, but instead concentrate even more to produce a better version second time round.
Looking for practice material?
As I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of sight reading books available to buy, many of them published by the various grade exam boards. There are some great resources available online too. These are the ones I’ve discovered while researching this post but if you know if others please do share them in the comments below.
Practice Sight Reading
A handy website where you can hone your rhythm reading skills at different levels. It’s free to use, but there is an monthly subscription option if you want more bells and whistles.
8 Notes
This site offers sight reading music for a plethora of instruments, including recorder. You can also browse for different styles of music, or even select pieces in particular keys if you want to polish up reading in sharps or flats. Some pieces have accompaniment, to keep you on the straight and narrow, while others are unaccompanied.
Sight Reading Factory
This is an automated site where you can customise the settings, specifying different parameters to help you practise. For instance, you could choose a piece for bass recorder, with a key of two sharps and incorporating triplets.
International Music Score Library Project
IMSLP is a wonderful resource, full of copyright-free music for every instrument you can think of. I often use it to identify fresh consort pieces or repertoire I could arrange for recorders. There’s no reason why you couldn’t use it for sight reading repertoire too though. Searching for ‘1 recorder’ brings up no fewer than 154 pages of suggestions - enough to keep you occupied for several lifetimes!
I hope my thoughts offer you some help with your sight reading. It’s a skill worth practising and polishing as the ability to read fresh music quickly and accurately is so important. If you’ve got your own tips and tricks which you’d like to share please do leave a comment below.