12 Things I Did to Teach Myself Sight-Reading

I started piano lessons as a beginner with a teacher in my late 20s, for a few years. Resumed in my 50s and decided to be self-taught this time.

For 2 years my goal was to play by ear and improvise so I could play anything I wanted on demand. Then I concluded I wasn't going to be good at that because I just couldn't think fast enough, so I changed my goal to sight-reading so I could play anything I wanted on demand, as long as I had sheet music.

I've stuck with that. I'm happy with the decision. I'm not great at that either, but I steadily get better and if only I practiced as much as I used to, I'd be better still. It does help, though, to be able to read through the music on paper and hear it in your head before you play. I work on that skill a lot.

As with every other skill, I learned sight-reading by paying attention to what I was bad at and figuring out what I needed to do to improve.

1. I used an app called Clef Tutor to get faster at naming notes on the staff, especially notes on ledger lines

2. I would sit in my easy chair with a book of music, and read song sheets out loud, naming the notes in a vertical stack from the bottom to the top, moving from beat to beat. I named the notes with their sharps and flats correctly for the key signature. I thought about where they were on the keyboard. (I don't think I thought about fingering.)

3. I would sit and read music and just tap my hands on my thighs when it was time for each hand to play a beat.

4. I would practice reading left hand separately a lot. (I was exposed to treble clef starting at 5 years old, but didn't learn bass clef until my late 20s. Even in my late 50s early 60s I still had to give it extra attention.)

5. I used Lilypond and spreadsheets to make sheet music I could print out, with patterns I saw a lot in the music I was reading. Like broken chords, or left hand playing a low bass note followed by a chord higher up.

6. I practiced playing intervals around the circle of 4ths so my hand could make the right shapes when I recognized them on the page. Mostly octaves and major & dominant 7ths for left hand, and 6ths and 4ths for right hand I think.

7. I used Hannah Smith's Sight Reading Exercises for Piano a lot. It taught me to focus. It was humiliating, not being able to stop making mistakes. Later I used it to practice playing faster because the hardest thing for me to learn has been playing at speed.

8. I used Cory Hall's Sight Reading & Harmony and played the Bach Chorales in easy forms.

9. I played all the songs over and over from big spiral books. Best Loved Songs of the American People, and Piano Treasury of Hymns. Later I played Dan Coates Early Intermediate books of songs.

10. For a while I counted beats out loud while I played. The 1 e & a 2 e & a beats. It helps but I couldn't get used to it.

11. I spent a period of time focusing on not stopping when I made mistakes, staying with the beat and only playing any few notes I could manage as long as I kept going. Only the bass line, or only the single-note melody line until I could pick up reading an easier part. I found that once I learned to do that it became a habit.

12. I almost never do anything else but work on reading music. I have no repertoire. I never memorize. I only think about technique when I realize I can't play something that I see a lot. My only goals for a while have been being able to sing/audiate what I read, and play what I read. I'm not good at either of these things; I'm just better than I was. Got nothing but time.