# Is it possible to learn sight-reading by yourself?



## PresenTense

What do you think?


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## Guest

Yes, because it is a personally-acquired skill based on practice. Or am I missing something in your question?


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## Sonata

Sure is. I've been playing piano for four years, and my husband did not want to invest in a piano until he knew I was serious about learning (understandable as I made previous half hearted attempts on the guitar and flute and never really put the work in. So I taught myself to read music using my ipad. I also used a borrowed keyboard for a couple months.

So yeah, reading music is definitely a skill that can be learned on your own


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## PresenTense

Sonata said:


> Sure is. I've been playing piano for four years, and my husband did not want to invest in a piano until he knew I was serious about learning (understandable as I made previous half hearted attempts on the guitar and flute and never really put the work in. So I taught myself to read music using my ipad. I also used a borrowed keyboard for a couple months.
> 
> So yeah, reading music is definitely a skill that can be learned on your own


Would you recommend an app?


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## Pugg

PresenTense said:


> Would you recommend an app?


Is everything on app these days?


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## Taggart

Sight reading is the ability to play a piece of music at sight, or after a short study, on your instrument of choice. This usually requires a teacher to check your technique on the instrument, although there are a variety of sight reading manuals available usually based around various music exams.

Actually reading music does not imply any playing skill and may go beyond sight reading. A violinist does not have to be able to read either viola clef or base clef in order to sight read. People can (and do) read scores without being able to play an instrument.


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## corndogshuffle

PresenTense said:


> Would you recommend an app?


http://www.musictheory.net/


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Pugg said:


> Is everything on app these days?


This reply was generated by an app.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Of course you can learn sight-reading by yourself. Practice, practice, practice. At least a line (3-4 measures) a day. But without a teacher you'd obviously have to know how to interpret the notation, which is going to need some guidance(self) but you can learn that yourself by reading and/or listening to performances(if applicable) of what you're trying to sight-read.


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## SimonDekkerLinnros

Yes. Youtube is a great tool and there you can find many guides on sightreading. 
Also make sure to read sheet music with advised fingering, otherwise you might play clunky (atleast in my experience).


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## Poodle

If you put your head to it! :tiphat:


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## Pugg

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> This reply was generated by an app.


Another thing learned today.:tiphat:


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## John Kiunke

Print out a bunch of easy pieces on imslp (Nannerl's Notebook is good for this) or Mozart's childhood works (KV 1a through KV 5a). Czerny works too, the 100 recreations, and just work your way up.


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## Nate Miller

PresenTense said:


> Would you recommend an app?


To sight read better, you need read something every day. I mean honestly sight read something, anything, as long as it is something you're not familiar with in any way.

I play guitar and we are notoriously bad readers, but after a while you get tired of snooty piano players, and so what I used to do was grab violin and clarinet pieces because they were written in about the same range as my instrument.

then when I got to the end of the sheet, since I was a working musician back then and very poor, I simply turned the sheet upside down and read it again.

two for the price of one sort of thing


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## paul c

Yes, given that many teachers (apparently) don't teach it as a specific skill, but just put music in front of someone then offer (constructive) criticism once its been tried. I can't comment on anything except my own instrument but there's a little more than just reading the notes and translating them onto the physical instrument to sound the notes.

And as with anything really, "you are what you practice" so if you (for example) specifically practice sight reading with 5, 6, 7 flats or sharps, you will get better at these whereas before you might have feared them.

A good site I use is : www.sightreadingfactory.com


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## Potiphera

Yes, I can sight read, but I need to speed up a bit! 
Just keep on practicing.


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## Heck148

sure you can - it takes practice and discipline.
for many years i adjudicated at various high school music festivals, solo/ensemble competitions, All-State Auditions, etc....sight-reading was often a requirement. 
note and rhythmic accuracy is paramount, don't stop, keep steady tempo...

select music to be sight-read - look at the key signature, the time signature, and what note is the "unit of beat". 
as you play thru - keep a steady tempo, and DO NOT STOP. if you find that you cannot keep up, that you are floundering hopelessly, stop......start over....slow down, begin again...slow and steady wins the race...
practice of basic technique is crucial to excellent sight-reading - if you can glance at a series of notes, see that it is an F major scale, a g minor arpeggio, a fully diminished arpeggio, whatever, great!!....you want to get beyond reading each individual note...diligent practice of scales and chords will enable you to group notes and patterns together. This will increase your proficiency by leaps and bounds.


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## Rayfusj

Do you have any suggestions for someone who has slight visual problems?


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## Guest

Yes, Mary Lou Williams was a great jazz pianist who was entirely self-taught and could read music as well as any trained music scholar. She learned by teaching herself to read and play classical music. By age 14, she was playing professionally in adult jazz bands.


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## DavidA

I remember a music teacher telling me to take a hymn book and you have about 1000 sight reading exercises.


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## TodorYankov

Yes, it is possible. My piano proffesor once told me, from time to time to open a book with easy pieces and just start playing, so I can practise my sight-reading. And it worked.


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## MarkMcD

Everything depends on your level of dedication. I think I would go so far as to say there is very little that can't be self taught in the world of music, after all there are only 13 different notes in an octave and the rest is just repeated at higher or lower registers. The only thing a teacher will do for you is to hone your performance skills and technique, other than that, you are doing all the work even with a teacher. For me, I find it very hard to sit down and just read dry theory books, I much prefer to have someone in front of me to explain things and for me to be able to ask questions, but as someone said earlier, You Tube has a huge amount of material for people to watch and learn from. If you have a good ear and are really dedicated to your instrument then the sky really is the limit.

As a child I always wanted to be a concert pianist, sadly we were not in a position to pay for the schooling that would have taken, but also I quickly learned that most concert pianists practice for a minimum of 5 or 6 hours a day, it really is a full time job and as much as I love my piano, 5 or 6 hours a day was way more than I could put in. I mention it only to give you an idea of the level of practice it takes to reach those heights. I'm sure your not wanting to become the next concert hall maestro either, at least not in the next few years, but you should try to put in at least an hour every day, even if you don't really feel like it some days, and you will very soon be able to play almost anything you look at. Once you know that basics, reading music is not difficult and even the most challenging works can be learned bar by bar if you put in enough practice.

The idea behind practice, practice, practice, is that eventually your fingers know what they're doing without you having to think about it too much, it's muscle memory. Do something enough times, and eventually it becomes sort of automatic. That's when you can start to concentrate more on the quality of sound, rather than just the reproduction of the notes. By the time a performer comes to play for an audience, they've probably played the piece thousands of times over so make sure you choose pieces you love :lol:


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## MarkMcD

RayfusJ asked about advice for sight impaired people, If you can scan your sheet music into your computer, or download music from the net, then you can print it off at any scale of enlargement that you might need.


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## PracticeReserch

I understand that it is a skill that you either have or don't have. I guess one might make some progress by studying a lot of technically easy pieces.


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## Animal the Drummer

Practice does help. I've found mine improving at the piano since I joined a choir, where a lot of sight-reading is necessary, though (as you suggest) no amount of practice can give you what you don't have to begin with.


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## bghill

PracticeReserch said:


> I understand that it is a skill that you either have or don't have. I guess one might make some progress by studying a lot of technically easy pieces.


On the contrary, it is a skill and can therefore be learned and improved by practice. Some people have more innate talent for it, and therefore will learn more quickly and/or with less effort -- but everyone who works at it can improve their sight reading skill.

The main thing is just to do it repeatedly and frequently.


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## Bettina

bghill said:


> On the contrary, it is a skill and can therefore be learned and improved by practice. Some people have more innate talent for it, and therefore will learn more quickly and/or with less effort -- but everyone who works at it can improve their sight reading skill.
> 
> The main thing is just to do it repeatedly and frequently.


I agree. In my many years of experience as a piano teacher, I've found that every student can learn to sight-read pretty well. Regular practice is indeed necessary; it's a skill that needs to be practiced, preferably by reading something new every day.

Also, as I've mentioned in other threads, it's useful to practice scales, arpeggios and chords. These are the building blocks of common-practice tonal music. Familiarity with these basic patterns helps with sight-reading. The goal is to learn to recognize groups of notes instead of having to painstakingly read each individual note.


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## Larkenfield

Yes, it's possible but will probably take you 10 times longer to learn than if you had a teacher. That could translate into years of hunting and pecking the right notes instead of being guided by someone who is experienced and understands the next grade of sight reading difficulty that you're ready for. One man's opinion.


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## Sekhar

Yes, you can of course, but IMO it will generally be slow and (potentially) frustrating. From my experience, you'll get there faster by taking in-person musicianship classes like at a local community college, where you get to sight read as well as listen and sing alongside other students. Also, you'll be forced to keep pace through continuous testing.


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## Crystal

Yes, of course you can, but it's better to have a teacher.


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## Nocture In Blue

Yes, it is. I can read music better then books. And I am self trained.


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## LezLee

A different take on your question - i started violin lessons at primary school when I was 8, and at 10 was good enough to play 2 solos at the end of term concert. I never learnt to sight read! I knew which note on the stave meant first finger on the ‘d’ string and so on but I didn’t know the names of the notes.
I presume I would have had to learn if I wanted to progress further, but nearly 2 years is a pretty good grounding, so it’s possible you could pick it up on your own.


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## Pythagorus

This is numero uno for me .My very first post and I hope you can all read the Latin phrase . I had remembered just recently my earliest music lessons at school about 65 years ago . I was ten and up till then had never played an instrument. The teacher had tested the class to get them to sing random notes on the piano .If you sang them in tune you were in the choir. I had never read any music and we were supplied with Gregorian Chant booklets to start the lesson . The piano gave us one starting note and internally I had to "count up " and imagine the notes I would sing. Strangely the teacher did not tell us how to do that . He just expected us to sing in tune. The "choir" did not talk about how to work it out . It was sink or swim on your own .
I told a little white lie when I said I had never played an instrument. My harmonica probably taught me a "proper scale " .That would not have been in ET .
There was something instilled automatically because I picked up a harmonica about 20 years ago and had not played one for about 30 years ,and played the Star Spangled Banner note perfect .I had not played that in my life before . I did not know the tune when I was a kid . Many years of vioin playing from ten years onwards blurred that little memory from a long time ago .
Learning sight reading with very few lessons can run into bad habits like copying another vioin player`s finger movements in a school orchestra . Similar to the way guitar players get by . The violin can be a very distracting instrument . The first stages have a long list of confusing elements to gather into some order. On a piano --sit down ,remember to face the right way and you are off and running .Key signatures were badly taught or not taught at all . A large C for common time was my first wrong version af the key of C.Well what did they expect. I was clutching at straws .


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## parkcy31

Its really helpful


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## whichkey

Recommend a new sight-reading training mobile app - WhichKey
Go to the website and find out more: https://whichkey.app


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## sevennotes

yes, its possible to learn sight-reading by yourself. You just need to follow some steps:
1. Prepare yourself to totally concentrate, and set a timer so that you won’t be distracted by anything
2. Read bigger chunks of music
3. Recognizing rhythms and patterns 
4. The last step is learn from your mistakes


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## Zofia

LezLee said:


> A different take on your question - i started violin lessons at primary school when I was 8, and at 10 was good enough to play 2 solos at the end of term concert. I never learnt to sight read! I knew which note on the stave meant first finger on the 'd' string and so on but I didn't know the names of the notes.
> I presume I would have had to learn if I wanted to progress further, but nearly 2 years is a pretty good grounding, so it's possible you could pick it up on your own.


I have a friend he is an outsider from Great Britain we go to the same school. My teachers were shocked he could not read any music when he moved here. If he hears the music one time maybe two he can repeat almost perfect if not perfect on the piano. He impressed the teachers and he can now read music but not like me yet.

I imagine you have maybe the same type of brain yes?


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## philoctetes

Anything that one person can do can be learned without help. The teacher does not do your mental work for you. A good fundamental education is just the doorway to a lifetime of mental development. Of course self-reliance might not lead to "greatness" but that's not usually my objective.

Many people will disagree with me. A "book-loving" neighbor wants to learn web design so I offered her some books on HTML and JavaScript. For free! She declined because she only wants to learn through an online course.


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## Jaro

Like was mentioned above it is possible. I am still in my beginning of study piano, but slowly different skills are improving. You asked about app, well I am learning using app and it covers many things, sight reading included. For sure it is great to have access to somebody who will lead you through difficulties, but in my case using app keeps me going forward. I am thinking now to have teacher as an part of my piano study but mainly I am using app. You can check links to it under this video:




I've noticed that when you can read a bit, it is great exercise to switch from app into notes and try to figure out how to play by yourself. I am using this exercise for simple pieces of music, like I mentioned I am not that advanced yet... but on the way to play one day more difficult pieces and read them as well. By practising anything is achievable and possible.  Good luck.


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## Krummhorn

I was taught how to sight read by my organ teacher during my first year (of 6) private organ studies. 

This was one of the most valuable tools for me to ever acquire, one that I still use to this day. In fact, the ability to sight read was one of the reasons I was hired for my latest church position, some 53 years after that first year of lessons.

I have found it to be very useful especially when a soloist springs a totally unknown piece on my, for me to accompany them. 

I learned the hard way - without internet - without email - without apps. Having a teacher/tutor is the best way to go, imho.



Kh


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## MJSeka

I think of sight reading as being similar to reading speed for books. I don't read books quickly, but one of my sisters can devour a book in a fraction of the time it takes me.

On the other hand, I've always been able to sight read, but my sister generally cannot. That doesn't mean we both can't improve in our weak areas, it just means it's not a built-in skill for us.

This looks like great advice: https://www.key-notes.com/blog/learn-to-sight-read-music


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## readytolearn

I found some constructive tips for my sight-reading practice here.
https://www.musicteacherguide.com/make-sight-reading-perfect/


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## readytolearn

*Yes, it's possible if you want and work hard.*

I foud some tips on this page https://www.musicteacherguide.com/make-sight-reading-perfect/


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## TMHeimer

I say yes. Of the 4 private teachers (and several school Band Directors) I had 40-50 years ago, I don't recall any of them teaching me anything about sight reading. One thing I can recommend is when you sight read something, really concentrate beacuse---- You can only sight read something once (after that it's practicing). When you get old enough you have to really scratch around to find something you haven't seen before.....


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## Guest

Yes. what matters is stability and perseverance


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## Festus

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> This reply was generated by an app.


An app is reading this!


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