Learning how to sightread.

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Any tips on how to sightread music sheets effectively? It's always been a weakpoint for me.

Oooh. Fun stuff. Or not. Scan ahead slightly so you have an idea of what's coming.

I began taking trumpet lessons at age 9, and my first teacher was really big on exercises from the Arban book ... and that led to a sound foundation in fundamental fingerings that could later just come "automatically" while scanning ahead slightly, as mentioned.

In other words, this is about how to get to Carnegie Hall:

Practice, practice, practice!

If sight-reading is holding you back musically, here's what I did when I was beginning to learn to play. I would write in the names of the notes above or below the notes themselves, and the fingerings, too, if I wanted. Seeing "G" associated with the G note on the staff, for instance, ground the association into my head such that the black dot on the second line automatically began to simply mean "G" to me. It's sort of like learning another alphabet - just associate the symbols with their letter (or key, or string, or fingering) equivalents. (It's a bit harder for musical notes than for an alphabet, but it works the same way in my head - this image means that thing.)

There are other tricks you could try to increase the associations. For instance, spelling games where you substitute notes for letters help to associate the right name with the right note - spelling words out with notes, playing hangman or Scrabble, that sort of thing.

I also found that diving hardcore into music theory really increased my sight-reading speed, simply because identifying notes, chords, intervals, keys and so on was such a vital part of elementary theory.

Wish I could help, but all I can do is wish you luck. As a kid I had years of piano lessons. Never could sightread. After my 5th teacher quit, I decided piano wasn't for me.

Thanks guys. Really it just seems that I'm going to have to practice more and read in my spare time. Thanks Skepkat, I think I need it. D: