In order to become a professional musician, one must learn the art of sight reading, allowing the musician to learn music and play it immediately.

I have seen people who, when playing, is impossible to tell whether, they mastered the piece or if they just are sight reading. Of course, when you mastered a piece, there is more flow and stress, and less structure to your piece as you add your own color.

I’m a terrible sight reader, it just doesn’t work. I really envy those who could play stuff by ear. Usually, I have to look at my hands in order for the notes to be correct. The correct notes just don’t happen without my commanding gaze. Maybe it is just because I haven’t played enough piano to have that second nature. So when I sight read, I have to constantly switch between my hand and the music, constantly losing my spot in the music and stopping, because the composer decided to make my left hand counter-synchronous with my right hand :(.

Here are my thoughts on Sight Reading:

To master sight reading here are my thoughts:

1. Staff-to-Note: When you see a note on the staff, you should know immediately, what key  it is (A,B,Bb… etc). This is like the bread and butter of playing music, and if you can’t immediately name the key of any note on the staff, you should spend time learning it, as it is REALLY helpful when you are learning new music or want to check if the note you’re playing is correct.
2. Note-to-Hand-NO-LOOKING: This is what I think is the most important step (also my worst). Without constantly switching between the sheet music and keyboard, you can keep your position better and not have the pause that come with switching your gaze.
3. Fuzzy-Staff-Reading: When I read music, I usually look at one staff and a time, but in order to sight read, you need to stop focusing on just one side of the music, instead you need to look at the big pictures (which reminds me of speed-reading, maybe I’ll write about that next), and ‘see’ both left and right hands at the same time.

My tips (Hopefully helpful? Since I’m not a pro yet :( ):

• Notes on the staff should be memorized like multiplication tables, it helps… Really. (The time spent saying “F..A…C…E(! Yay)” in the mind really adds up)
• To practice #2, try and play a song (That you already memorized) with your eyes closed, be able to pinpoint the positions of each key without having to open your eyes. If you play a wrong note, use your ear to help find the correct note (which will is helpful if you want perfect pitch or just be able to play songs by ear [WHICH IS REALLY AWESOME]).
• Practice? What? What is the madness?
• When the left hand is really bumpy (constantly requires the hand to be lifted and placed down again, the easiest way to completely screw up a person), practice with simple music, but lifting the hand after every note so it is impossible to use ‘relative positioning’ to find the note. Instead, actually locking down on the note.
• Nails should be trimmed, always.
• Usually, pianists should move the fingers straight down on the key, reducing the margin of error (because of the smaller surface area), but I have seen a lot of people play more flatly, so that the surface area allows the correct note to be played (With a possibility of error), but at least it would sound better than just plainly playing the note incorrectly. :)