Teach Yourself to Play Piano: On Sight-Reading Pt. 1

Ah yes, I'll start my blog giving advice on the bane of my existence.  I would wager that I used to be the worst sight-reader in the world.  I am not using the phrase "in the world" figuratively.  Let me clarify.  I am not the worst sight-reader in the world, however I used to be the worst sight-reader in the world for someone who plays piano at my level.  That is to say, the discrepancy between the repertoire I played and the repertoire that I could sight-read, was wider than any other in the world.  Wider than the stylistic differences between Bach and Rachmaninoff (now that was figurative language)!  Who can play a Rachmaninoff  Concerto and not sight-read selections from the Anna Magdalena notebook?

Through fifteen years of playing the piano, I managed to stay away from sight-reading almost entirely.  I will not blame this on my teachers.  When I was younger, it was hard enough to keep me in piano lessons, and while at college I was an English major and had no time to remedy all the holes in my music education.  However, now I'm back at school getting a music degree.  For the last year I've been trying to improve my sight-reading off and on, and I've seen a little success.  Using the criteria above, I've probably moved from the worst sight-reader in the world at my level, into the bottom 10%.  Not bad!  At this rate, I'll be a passable sight-reader in ten years.

I've found that improving your sight-reading is a long process, and it's hard to see the improvement when it happens.  This summer I've been doing a lot more reading, so we'll see how I look when school starts back up and I'm thrown into an uncomfortable sight-reading situation.  If you're a piano teacher, force your students to practice sight-reading.  If you're just starting piano, force yourself to do the same so as to not fall behind in this skill.  What a luxury it would be to roll into any situation and calmly read the pants off whatever score is thrown in front of you.

I'll have more in the next post on what sight-reading is all about.  Hopefully, it will be less about me and more about the topic at hand.  I recently published a detailed hub on hubpages about steps to follow when you're sight-reading.  It's called Teach Yourself to Play Piano: How to Improve Sight-Reading Music.  Check it out if you're interested in something practical (not this blog).