Look through the music before you play it

This is a tip that’ll help your sight reading. Before you play a piece of music take a look through it. These are things I always notice:

• time signature
• key signature
• key changes
• meter changes
• repeat symbols – including da capos and del segnos
• repeated ideas or music
• familiar chord progressions
• accidentals
• what sections will be difficult and easy

I’ve noticed that when I’ve done these things I’ve sight read better. When I haven’t done these things I don’t sight read so well.

Time signature and key signature are the big ones that will likely be noticed right away. I think flipping through the music and looking for the rest can be incredibly useful too. Looking for repeated sections or repeated ideas can help a lot. It can help you get a general idea of what the form will be so that you’re prepared for different sections of the piece.

Looking for familiar chord progressions can also be useful because you’re trying to relate the music back to pieces you can already play. It also can relieve some stress when you end up finding those familiar chord progressions. You might not have to figure out the chords right on the spot and can rely on the patterns that you already know.

Lastly I look for what sections might be difficult and what sections might be easy. I look for difficult sections to see if there’s anything I need to slow down or try to rehearse a tiny bit before playing. It also helps in not freaking out halfway through the reading because you’re prepared. Easy sections are nice to know about beforehand because you can give yourself a rest and/or take a minute to really look ahead in the music and prepare.

Remembering to do all of these can take a while to get used to, which is why I literally talk to myself in my head when looking through these.

This step can also take a piece from being hard to read to being slightly manageable. Or take a piece from being a medium difficulty level to being fairly easy.

ISJ