- The only way to get better at sight reading is to sight read music regularly!
- Find a variety of material — etude books, song books, school orchestra/band books, scanned music from online sources — and play it
- Develop good sight reading habits! Don’t start playing right away – take a moment to scan the music for the following:
- Key signature — can you tell from the phrase if the piece is in a major or minor key?
- Time signature — how many beats? which note value gets the beat?
- Tempo indication — can also help tell which note length gets the beat (half, quarter, dotted quarter, eighth.) While you don’t need to play all the way up to tempo when sight reading, it’s good to know what the character of the beat/rhythm should be based on the tempo indication.
- Smallest rhythmic value (if there are 16th notes, don’t play too fast!)
- Accidentals — remember the time signature so you know to cancel the accidental (which could be a “natural”, not just a sharp or flat) in the next measure
- Syncopated/complicated rhythms
- Anything else unusual? You just want to avoid being caught completely off guard by anything on the page
Posted in: Audition Preparation
